First thing: I stumbled across the image I used for this post and fell in love with it. It is by the very excellent Roger Langridge. Second thing: I finally dropped back below 280 again today -- yay me! I am celebrating by spending the afternoon taking my son to Epcot to photograph princesses like a Princess Paparazzi. As for Doctor Who, this morning I watched episodes 2 & 3 of The Ice Warriors.  I went the full 55 minutes on my treadmill at my highest sustained speed ever. I've got my second wind, and I am surging onward. Also: The ice warriors are creepy as hell.

Let's talk about that.

The Ice Warriors - Episodes 3 & 4

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The first cool thing about The Ice Warriors is that it has its own separate opening title sequence. We get the normal time tunnel opening credits in an abbreviated form, and then it goes into a unique sequence with its own distinct musical theme announcing THE ICE WARRIORS by BRIAN HAYLES. Then, instead of the usual "Episode 1" or whatever, in the same bold font each episode opens with "ONE", "TWO", etc. The last time I recall the show doing something like this was with The War Machines, and I really like it. 

The next cool thing about The Ice Warriors are the amazing mod uniforms worn by the staff of Brittanicus Base. They are all the same base white, but each uniform has its own unique pattern of colorful lines swooping around organically like some kind of textile lava lamp. Even better, control technician Jan Garrett is wearing either a mini-skirt or the shortest possible biker shorts, and I am here to tell you that there is nothing at all wrong with Miss Garrett's legs. Jamie McCrimmon agrees with me, although when he points out his admiration of the duty uniform to Victoria, she makes it abundantly clear to Jamie that she would never be caught wearing such a thing.

"I'll be in my bunk..."

As for story, there are basically three things going on. It is the far future, during a second ice age, and multiple scientific outposts are using an ioniser to try to halt the progression of giant glaciers across the planet. There is also an anti-scientific faction that lives as scavengers and believes that it is the scientists themselves who are the real threat to humanity. Amidst that conflict, a group of Martian ice warriors has been re-awakened and are preparing to take advantage of mankind's current weakness in order to dominate the planet.

The ice warriors themselves are creepy as all get-out. They speak with a hissing sibilance, an artifact of their struggle to breathe in the earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere. While the human scientists are afraid to aim their ioniser towards the Martian space craft because they don't know what kind of propulsion system it uses and whether it will explode and cause a new ecological disaster, it turns out the Martians themselves are struggling because their ship is completely out of fuel.

At one point one of the scavengers goes to the Martians to offer his help, on the theory that since he hates the scientists and presumably the Martians hate the scientists, then the Martians will befriend him. For his troubles he gets shot dead in an ice cave by a Martian sonic wrist gun. Oops.

At the climax of episode 4 the Doctor has gone to the Martians himself, and winds up inside the airlock of their ship with the atmospheric pressure dropping rapidly. He will surely be dead in moments. Oh no!

One other thing I will say about this story, along with some of the others that have been officially restored by the BBC: Before I started this project, I used to hope that the BBC would continue on creating animated reconstructions of the missing episodes. In the case of The Ice Warriors, episodes 3 & 4 are missing and have been replaced with animated versions. I have to say, now that I have seen several of these animated episodes I really do prefer the Loose Canon reconstructions. Yes, those recons are largely still frames, but they are edited and slightly animated in such a way as to make them very watchable. With the official animated reconstructions, it feels a bit too much to me like watching an episode of Sealab 2021. Some are better than others, and certainly The Power of the Daleks was done particularly well, but the flatness of cell animation just doesn't capture the texture and nuance of the live performances. It is a real testament to the quality of the Loose Canon reconstructions that they can make still photos seem more dynamic and engaging than the official animated reconstructions.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Second
Companion(s): Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield
Episode(s): The Ice Warriors - Episodes 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 7,036 today, 627,363 total
Distance Walked:  3.57 miles today, 299.43 miles total
Weight: 280.34 lbs (five day moving average), net change -26.96 lbs