REVIEW:
The producers of Doctor Who continue to be clever with their titles for this half season of the show.
It opened with The Bells of Saint John by show runner Steven Moffat, referring to the call the Doctor took on the Tardis phone from new companion Clara Oswald.
As well as being disguised as a Police Call Box the Tardis also carries a St John Ambulance sticker. (Incidentally, did anyone else spot how St John Ambulance seems to be sponsoring this half season on Prime with at least two adverts during the break)
Last week’s episode’s name, The Rings of Akhaten by Wellington writer Neil Cross, had a double meaning.
The title referred to the rings around the planet and the ring that belonged to Clara’s dead mother that she was prepared to give up.
This week’s title, by uber fan Mark Gatiss, points to the cold war which raged in 1983, when this episode is set aboard a Russian nuclear submarine, while also pointing to the alien menace of the ice warriors from Mars who re-appear in Doctor Who for the first time since 1974. (Did anyone else chuckle at the Mars advert during one of the breaks)
Such is the beauty of half-century of back story.
In fact Cold War felt like an early base under siege style Doctor Who story, which many of second Doctor Patrick Troughton’s stories were.
What’s great about this episode is you don’t need to have seen the second Doctor stories The Ice Warriors and The Seeds of Death, or the third Doctor stories The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon to enjoy it. Everything you need to know about the ice warriors is shared by the Doctor.
I found myself taking plenty of notes in the opening quarter, which means there was plenty to revel in, but then my notes dried up as the script called for a predictable game of cat and mouse.
The first thing I noted was, “Great, David Warner singing Ultravox”.
Warner, fifth Doctor Peter Davison recently said at The Lords of Time convention in Auckland, was the only actor who he could think of who he would like to see play the role when the incumbent Matt Smith hands over the keys to the Tardis.
Warner’s been great in so many things, most widely known for his role as the main villain’s valet in James Cameron’s Titanic.
Before that he earned kudos from Amnesty International for his portrayal of the interrogator of Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the Star Trek: The Next Generation two parter Chain of Command.
Warner also played the peace loving Klingon chancellor Gorkon, whose character was inspired by Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country opposite William Shatner’s Kirk.
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So it was wonderfully fitting to see Warner play a Russian scientist whom he endowed with more humanity than anybody else aboard the stricken submarine.
He kind of reminded me of Bernard Cribbins’ wonderful grandfather of companion Donna Noble in the 10th Doctor’s time.
It’s been known that the ice warriors were returning to the show for some time so having the alien thawed from a block of ice before the credits made perfect sense.
It was a little disappointing to have to wait until after the credits for the Doctor and Clara to appear on the bridge of the submarine, but it was almost worth the wait when Smith started quipping.
“Hair, shoulder pads, nukes. It’s the 80s. Everything is bigger.” And later, when a Russian asked him whether he was serious about something, he replied: “I’m always serious, with days off.”
Jenna-Louise Colman, as Clara, is quickly working her way into the Karen Gillan-sized hole that was left in the show when Amy Pond died in the past with her husband Rory in The Angels Take Manhattan.
Unbelievably, Clara seems to have a little more pluck and spunk than her predecessor and her willingness to engage with the underwater menace in the confines of the sub was awesome.
