Week three of
the second half of Series 7 brought us Cold
War, by the very talented Mr Mark Gatiss.
The BBC as an
organisation and ‘Doctor Who’ as a commercial brand needed to hype the return
of the Ice Warriors after 39 years – they’re a major recurring monster from
back in them days, after all, and they need to attract attention and pull in
the viewers. I appreciate that. But it’s still a shame that I already knew what
was in the melting block of ice when the fist burst out and throttled the
Russian submariner. A great pre-titles sequence and what would have been the
episode one cliff hanger in days gone by – as indeed something similar was in
their original 1967 story The Ice
Warriors. We can only imagine how much more thrilling it would have been
not knowing – or having to guess what it might be.
But we live
in a world of spoilers these days. The soaps started it – hinting at juicy
plots and storylines to come, to ensure that people stayed faithful and carried
on watching. At some point, then, programme executives must have decided that
they could no longer rely on viewers returning week after week or show after
show to find out what might happen to the characters they love or hate, they
had to tell the viewers / fans in advance what was going to happen and the fun
then comes in finding out how what you know is going to happen happens. It’s a
shift in emphasis only, but it allows programme makers to ‘manage customer
expectation’. TV is, after all, just another service industry.
That aside,
the new Ice Warrior (that we all knew was coming) looked pretty awesome;
sensitively faithful to the original design, yet without the clumsy
child-bearing hips and horn-squeezer mittens, giving them a more defined,
dextrous and powerful cyborg-style finish. One of the unanswered questions with
the original Ice Warriors was what was Martian and what was armour? Now we
know. Also during their 1960s & 70s appearances we were told how honourable
they were as a race, with their sense of aristocracy and nobility. But then the
Sontarans came along and filched the ‘honour in battle’ side of their character
trait and stole their position. Gatiss has effected a skilful dual continuation
and re-boot of the Martian creatures, answering some of those old questions and
building them into a more clearly defined race for future use. They now have an
individuality borne out of their history which the series can use without
feeling like it’s re-hashing ideas used elsewhere.
What I liked
less was seeing the naked Martian head at the end - not the concept, but the
realisation. For something so ‘solid’ and real as the Ice Warrior suit it then
disappointed me that the head was CGI. This was a time that an actor in a
rubber mask would have been perfect. It took me out of the moment and that’s a
shame.
I was ticking
off a mental list in my head as I was watching this episode. Yep, that’s very
much 2005’s Dalek, that’s Alien, that’s the 1953 War of The Worlds film as the spindly
alien hand reaches out to Stepashin’s shoulder… That’s not in any way a
criticism of Mark Gatiss’ writing or Douglas Mackinnon’s direction – some of
the best Doctor Who over the years
has borrowed from the best, and even from itself. There are probably more homages in the episode as well that my
limited experience failed to spot.
For someone
who has enjoyed and admired so much of what Mark Gatiss has achieved as a
writer and performer so far, I’m always a tad apprehensive going into one of
his Doctor Who episodes. The Unquiet Dead in 2005 was pure
brilliance, but since then most of his episodes have left me slightly
disappointed at best. I think his episodes always sound wonderful on paper and
promise much – perhaps too much, which leaves me wanting that bit more. The
problem with Cold War is that I
really enjoyed the episode, and have continued to enjoy it on re-watching it
since, but it ought to be brilliant and somehow it isn’t - and I’m not sure
why.
It could be
the aftertaste of the CGI Skaldak, or the convenience of re-introducing the
HADS to get rid of the TARDIS, or the minor frustration that yet again the very
capable Nicholas Briggs has been wheeled out to do a classic monster voice. I’m
not critical of Nick, and there’s sense in making the Ice Warrior more verbose
and less hissy than his predecessorsssssssssss, but I also feel that the
voiceovers should be spread around a bit – give other actors a bit of work!
I appreciate
that these are matters of personal opinion and not necessarily justified
criticisms of the episode as such.
So, what else
was good? The model work was excellent. Clara almost drowning and then reviving
to discover that the action has moved on for her and us the viewer was a nice
touch and stylishly done. Sometimes we don’t need to see the companion being
fussed over and revived. The claustrophobic sets and atmospheric lighting
worked exceptionally well – particularly in contrast with the garishness of
Akhaten the previous week. The guest cast did a sterling job, with David Warner
being given the space to shine as the rather eccentric professor. I was never a
fan of Ultravox or Duran Duran myself, but I’m not going to hold that against
his character!
Clara got to
tick off some more items on her list of things a companion must do. I’m glad
the episode picked up on the fact that, up until she saw the dismembered
corpses, she’d not yet experienced the kind of violent death that comes with
the territory. As she said, it really brought home to her how serious the
situations are that they get into. There was a comfortable mix of light comedy
and edgy drama in the scene where she enters Skaldak’s detention area and speaks
with him on behalf of the Doctor and the crew. It was also cleverly lit and
shot in that you don’t realise until afterwards that Skaldak’s no longer in the
suit at that point.
The sonic
screwdriver. Hmmm... One unfortunate side-effect of it being such an
all-eventualities tool these days is that as a viewer I now expect the Doctor
to be able to wave it around and do pretty much whatever he wants with it – unless
he’s opening a door made of wood. The dénouement to Cold War should have been a lot more powerful than it was, with
nuclear war balancing on a knife edge over the press of a button, and only a
philosophical argument on the flip of a coin to decide either way. The Doctor’s
gesture was noble, offering to blow them all up rather than risk starting a
war, but if activating the sonic screwdriver could do that you’d also expect it
to be able to re-set the countdown and I found myself very conscious of this,
which undermined the drama. Thankfully it didn’t come to that, but it’s not
good that as a viewer I’m already expecting it.
I think this
was a solid, intelligent and occasionally scary addition to the series as a
whole. The Ice Warriors now have a firm platform from which to return,
potentially, and I’m rather looking forward to them doing so.
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