Doctor Who Villains, a history: The Ice Warriors
With such a sound past, we thought it would be best to give you guys a reminder of what the Doctor and the Ice Warriors have been through in Classic Who time, and in NewWho time. James wrote us a quick play by play of the action that went down with the Classic Doctors.
The Ice Warriors were founded by scientist, and are a humanoid creature that had been buried in a glacier. The one that they found was named Varga, captain of a Martian spaceship that had gotten offtrack. When they were found, Mars was dead, and they were set to conquer Earth.
There are four clans of the race, the Agrye Clan, the Thaumasia Clan, Erythaeum Clan, and the Tenessor Clan. Titles were given among the clans, including:
- Supreme Lord (highest ranking position)
- General Marshal (staff of that position)
- War Lord (Ice Warrior with importance)
- Sub-Commander
- Marshal
- Shshhr – M’lady
- Scholaster – scholarly people
- Abbot – religious people
2nd Doctor
They first appeared in second Doctor’s story ‘The Ice Warriors’ in season 5. The story was set during a future ice age, and they were very much the bad guys in that story. They came from Mars and liked to conquer. Second story ‘The Seeds of Death’ also introduced an “Ice Lord”, so their race was given a bit of a class system (see above). Once again, they were antagonist.
3rd Doctor
Third Doctor story “The Curse of Peladon” changed everything, really. The Doctor was suspicious of them when he met them in that story, understandably, and they did seem to be suspicious, especially when things started to go wrong. However, it turned out that, for once, the Doctor was wrong and the Ice Warriors really had changed their ways. Their last appearance in the classic series was “The Monster of Peladon”. Once again, they were the bad guys, but it was made clear that it was a small group rather than the whole race wanting war this time.
They have been seen in audios and books as well, documenting more stories throughout the Doctor’s life.
NewWho
In New Who, you’ll remember the Ice Warriors from a couple different episodes.
The Ice Warriors are most memorable in the episode in season seven Cold War, where the eleventh Doctor and Clara are stuck on a ship that had been frozen for over a five thousand years. Skaldak, the name of the Ice Warrior, was revived, and imprisoned the crew, including the Doctor and Clara. Thinking he was alone, he was trying to destroy the human race, like his people would have wanted, but was taken back by his race to Mars before he could do any damage.
The Ice Warriors were also in Clara’s last episode, Face the Raven whre they were cloaked in the village under Mayor Me, played by Maisie Williams.
Next: Questions for Empress of Mars