 This story introduces the Ice Warriors to Doctor Who.
This story apparently takes place in the year 3000, though this is not revealed in the story itself but from publicity material. The Brittanicus Ice Base, possibly in England, during 'the second ice age'. However, Leader Clent talks of 5000 years of history buried under the glacier, which might point to the Ice Age being around the year 5000 as mentioned by The Doctor in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang".
Deborah Watling was unable to attend the complete recording of the final episode. Consequently, Victoria Waterfield is asked (off-screen) to return to the TARDIS halfway through the episode.
Bernard Bresslaw, best known today for his many appearances in the Carry On... films, appears as the impressive Martian leader, Varga.
Peter Sallis, now well known as one of the stars of Last of the Summer Wine and the voice of Wallace in Wallace and Gromit, appears as the scientist-turned-scavenger Penley.
Instead of each episode being labelled ‘Episode 1’, ‘Episode 2’ etc., as had been the case with previous stories since the naming of individual episodes ceased with the First Doctor story "The Smugglers", the episodes in this story are identified unusually with the number appearing as one word - ‘ONE’, ‘TWO’ etc. Also there is an unusual fading in and out of the opening story title, episode number and writer credits.
Interestingly in this story The Ice Warriors never refer to their home planet as being Mars. Varga calls it 'the Red Planet' whose atmosphere is said to be mainly nitrogen based.
As to them being called Ice Warriors it is Walters who first coins this phrase to describe Varga. The Ice Warriors rarely refer to themselves by this title (the exception being in "The Monster of Peladon").
Due to the original Ice Warrior helmets being bulky and restrictive a new slimmer, more flexible version was constructed for Bernard Bresslaw, who played the main Ice Warrior, Varga. Unfortunately, this meant that Varga's appearance would shift noticeably between the pre-filmed segments and those that were then recorded in the studio. The other Ice Warrior costumes would also undergo varying degrees of refurbishment as this story was recorded.
For an unknown reason Miss Garrett's entire costume unexpectedly changes between the fifth and sixth episodes.
A real live bear was used in specially shot film inserts (as opposed to using stock footage).
At the end of last episode of the previous story, "The Abominable Snowmen", a special trailer was shown for "The Ice Warriors", featuring Clent (played by Peter Barkworth) and Penley (played by Peter Sallis).
A novelisation of this story, written by Brian Hayles, was published by Target Books in 1976. It is in this novelisation that the base computer is called ECCO. This name was not used in the televised story.
Unfortunately only the first and final three episodes currently exist in the BBC Archives. All six episodes were lost in the BBC's stock clearance of the 1970s and so all six episodes were reported missing from the BBC Film and Videotape Library following an audit in 1978. However, episodes one, four, five and six were returned, in August 1988, after being discovered in a forgotten vault at BBC Enterprises' Villiers House property. They were only discovered (apparently behind a filing cabinet) when the BBC was in the process of moving out of the building.
This story was released on VHS in November 1998 as part of The Ice Warriors Collection. This box set included all four remaining episodes with a linking "Special Reconstruction" to fill the two-episode gap. This reconstruction was 15 minutes long and used photos and the original soundtrack. Also included was a CD, containing a full version of the audio soundtrack of episodes 2 and 3, an Ice Warriors book ("A History of the Reptiles from the Red Planet") and a bonus VHS tape ("The Missing Years"). This special documentary, narrated by Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling, contained missing footage, Australian censor clips and 8mm recordings from other ‘missing’ stories along with the whole of episode 3 of "The Underwater Menace".
This story was released on DVD, in August 2013, with animated versions of episodes 2 and 3 along with the original soundtrack.
The Ice Warriors would appear in three more stories. These being: Once more with the Second Doctor, in the 1969 story "The Seeds of Death", and then twice with Third Doctor in the 1972 story "The Curse of Peladon" and its sequel "The Monster of Peladon" in 1974.
The Ice Warriors also feature in the BBC and Virgin books, as well as in the Big Finish Productions audio stories.
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The Firsts:
The first appearance of The Ice Warriors.
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(Position = 29 out of 159)
(Position = 78 out of 200)
