OO6 - The Ice Warriors 6

It's about time that the Ice Warriors actually leave their ship, taking time out of their screen watching and hissing for a quick jaunt to the glacier base. There, they kill poor Walters (who looks suspiciously like Ian Levine), but are then chased back to their ship again, first by the heat being turned up (we'll surely never see that trick played again, will we?), and then a warning blast from their own sonic cannon, as operated by The Doctor.

The Doctor takes a big risk, as he himself admits, in aiming the cannon at the base, as all occupants at the time, both human and Ice Warrior, could possibly be killed. Naturally, he succeeds, just as, at episode's end, Penley's quick thinking and risk-taking manage to destroy the Ice Warrior ship. The final scenes between Penley and Clent are actually quite touching. Penley's possible return to the base full time is left ambiguous, and Clent has to file a report of everything that went on. Despite Clent's willing over reliance on computers, as he proudly says to Penley, he has "always written his own reports". Great closure to a great character in Clent.

Both of The Doctor's companions, Jamie and Victoria, really don't fare very well in this story. Apart from being chased by an Ice Warrior, Victoria stays by The Doctor's side for the rest of the story. Jamie, on the other hand, is shot twice in this story, spending a good amount of time unconscious afterwards while he recovers (often only to be shot and incapacitated again). Was Jamie even in the original script for this? This seems like The Moonbase all over again.

All in all, a reasonably entertaining story that should have been more of a showcase for its titular monsters, but was much more interesting on account of the human characters and the fractured relations between them.