Doctor Who: The Sixth Doctor faces the Ice Warriors in April!
By James Aggas
The Sixth Doctor’s next season on audio kicks off in April, as he faces the Ice Warriors once more in Doctor Who: Cry of the Vultriss!
The first Doctor Who story of the year to feature Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor has been announced by Big Finish, and it’s an exciting one. Not only does Cry of the Vultriss feature the long overdue return of Constance and Flip, as played by Miranda Raison and Lisa Greenwood, respectively. But the Doctor will be facing some old enemies: the Ice Warriors!
"Violently ejected from the Space-Time Vortex, the TARDIS crash lands on the remote planet of Cygia-Rema, a mountainous world ruled by the bird-like Vultriss. Their newly crowned Queen Skye is expecting first contact with alien ambassadors – Ice Warriors – and the sudden arrival of the Doctor, Flip and Mrs Constance Clarke causes confusion.However, Skye is no ordinary ruler, she is the Fabled One gifted with the deadly power of ‘The Cry’. The queen who will enable the Vultriss to fly once again – at any cost. But as the Doctor investigates why the TARDIS crashed, he discovers that the Vultriss are hiding a deadly secret. An ancient legacy that, if left unchecked, will plunge half the galaxy into an eternal living end."
Cry of the Vultriss will be the first story to feature companions Constance and Flip in over two years!
(Image Courtesy: Big Finish Productions.)
When Six nearly met the Ice Warriors on-screen
While the Sixth Doctor never got to meet the Ice Warriors on television, he did come close to it. One of the stories planned for Season Twenty-Three was Mission to Magnus, which along with being reunited with the slimy villain Sil, also would have seen the return of the Ice Warriors.
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It would have been a rather significant return, too, as their previous appearance had been in the Third Doctor’s penultimate story, The Monster of Peladon, back in 1974. If the story had been made, it would have been their first appearance on television in over a decade!
Sadly, Doctor Who was put on hiatus, and when it was brought back a year and a half later, all of the originally planned stories had been replaced by the season-long serial The Trial of a Time Lord. (Big Finish did adapt Mission to Magnus back in 2009, at least.)
Fans would have to wait far, far longer for the Ice Warriors to return on screen. About another two and a half decades, in fact. But eventually, the Ice Warriors finally appeared in the New Series in Cold War, facing Matt Smith’s Doctor in 2013. Their next appearance was in Empress of Mars, during Peter Capaldi’s final series as the Twelfth Doctor. Which brings us to some rather major casting for this release…
Martian reunion
Adele Lynch, who previously played Iraxxa, the Empress of the Ice Warriors back in 2017, guest stars in this story as their leader. This is a rather fantastic bit of casting, and a nice nod to the Ice Warriors’ original TV stories. Across several serials and even two Doctors’ eras, Alan Bennion played three entirely different Ice Lords.
Along with Lynch reprising her role, Nicholas Briggs also voices the Ice Warriors. Like many monsters – including the Cybermen, the Judoon, and of course, the Daleks – Briggs has been voicing the Ice Warriors both on audio and on television for years, so Cry of the Vultriss will be a nice little Martian reunion.
As a huge fan of not just the Ice Warriors, but also the excellent TARDIS team of the Sixth Doctor, Constance and Flip, this sounds like an excellent release. One that we can’t wait to check out when it’s released on CD and download in April, directly from Big Finish’s website.
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Are you excited that the Sixth Doctor will be meeting the Ice Warriors once more? Or, if you’re a regular Big Finish listener, are you more excited about the return of Constance and Flip? Let us know in the comments below.