The Ice Warriors - 5

The penultimate episode starts off with a nice directed reprise of the previous episode. It allows the camera to show the Ice Warrior on the screen and the Doctor in the same shot. It’s always good I think when they decide to reshoot it instead of just replaying it and that’s because they can put a difference emphasis on something without actually changing the tone of the moment.

Jamie starts the episode being pulled along by Wallace. Both of them spend the early part of the episode trying to avoid being eaten by a bear. Again he’s being given the short straw and Victoria continues to be the better of the two. There’s a nice moment when she pleads with the Doctor not to help the Ice Warriors even though it would mean the end of her life. What a difference a story makes because normally it would be the other way around and I am liking how well Victoria is being used in this story and whilst its at the cost of Jamie, its good to see Deborah Watling elevated above her usual position. Patrick Troughton is also on good form and I love how he uses a stink bomb to try and escape. There is no way that William Hartnell would have done this but that’s what makes Troughton’s Doctor so good.

I like how Clent seems to have had a conscience operation between the previous episode and this one. He seems to be letting his emotions show a bit more. However this is a short term thing as he soon’s stops thinking emotionally and more coldly. My favourite scene of the episode comes from Penley’s interaction with Clent and one particular line where Clent says that he might be a physical coward but Penley is a coward of the mind. It’s a great line and I think that it sums up both of them perfectly. I love it when these moments come out of nowhere. Penley seems to have got better since the death of Storr which is a good thing

The thing about this episode is that it didn’t seem to have the same sort of zip that the previous ones did. That doesn’t mean that it was a terrible episode because it wasn’t. I thought that there was plenty to enjoy but I think that it was inevitable that this was going to happen but I think that it builds up to the final episode rather well and I think that this story is just behind Tomb of the Cybermen in terms of top Troughton Series Five stories.