The Ice Warriors are a fictional extraterrestrial race of reptilian humanoids in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Natives of Mars, the Ice Warriors wear bio-mechanical armour to protect themselves from attack and temperature fluctuations. In their debut, the 1967 serial The Ice Warriors, they fought the Second Doctor. Two years later, they reappeared in The Seeds of Death. In 1972's The Curse of Peladon, they were allied with the Doctor, reverting to antagonists in The Monster of Peladon two years later. The Ice Warriors did not appear again on-screen until the show's 2005 revival series in the episode "Cold War" (2013), followed by the 2017 episode "Empress of Mars". They have also appeared in spin-off media for the series.
Writer Brian Hayles created the Ice Warriors out of his interest in life on Mars at a time when the production team was looking for new recurring antagonists. The Ice Warriors were conceived as something akin to cyborg Vikings. Designer Martin Baugh, inspired by their name and influenced by crocodiles, designed them to appear reptilian; this prevented the species from being visually similar to another fictional species who were cyborgs, the Cybermen. The costumes for the Ice Warriors often proved heavy and cumbersome for actors during filming. For the show's 2005 revival, showrunner Steven Moffat originally did not want the Ice Warriors to return, only allowing them to come back after writer Mark Gatiss pitched the idea of an Ice Warrior outside its shell. The Ice Warriors received a design overhaul for the revival but were largely the same visually; "Cold War" also showcased the creature beneath the armour.
The Ice Warriors have been received positively, and are among the series's best-known antagonists despite the large gaps in between their appearances. Their design and role in the two Peladon serials, as well as in "Cold War", have been the subject of commentary and analysis.
Appearances
Television series
Doctor Who is a British science-fiction television series that began in 1963. Its protagonist is the Doctor, an alien who travels through time and space with travelling companions in a ship known as the TARDIS. When the Doctor dies, they undergo a process known as "regeneration", completely changing their appearance and personality. Throughout their travels, the Doctor comes into conflict with many alien species and antagonists.
The Ice Warriors are a reptilian warrior race from Mars who wear bio-mechanical armour which protects them from attack and hostile temperature conditions. They are equipped with sonic weapons mounted into the wrists. They follow an honour code and are ruled either by an "Ice Lord" or an "Ice Queen".
Classic era The Ice Warriors first appeared in the 1967 serial The Ice Warriors, set on Earth during a future ice age in the year 3000. The hibernating crew of an Ice Warrior spacecraft buried underneath the ice are revived by a scientific team. The Second Doctor thwarts the Warriors' attempt to take over the scientists' base. The Ice Warriors returned for the 1969 serial The Seeds of Death. In this story, mid-21st century Earth has grown dependent on the matter transmission system T-Mat. An Ice Warrior strike force, seeking to conquer Earth, sends seeds through the T-Mat that are intended to make Earth more suitable for Martian life. After this plan is thwarted by the Second Doctor and his companions, the invading Martian fleet is sent into orbit around the Sun.
In 1972's The Curse of Peladon, the Ice Warriors have renounced violence and become members of the "Galactic Federation", an alliance of several races. A group of them are part of a delegation sent to negotiate the planet Peladon's entry into the Federation. The Third Doctor initially suspects that the Ice Warriors are behind an attempt to sabotage the proceedings but accepts that they have changed after the Ice Warriors save his life. With their help, the Doctor foils a plot to prevent Peladon's admission. A sequel, The Monster of Peladon, aired in 1974 and is set 50 years after the events of The Curse of Peladon. Here, the Ice Warriors are depicted serving as Federation peacekeeping troops. Their leader, the Ice Lord Azaxyr, is secretly working with an enemy of the Federation and seeks to return to the species' warlike past. Azaxyr tries to impose martial law and take over Peladon but is stopped by the Peladonians and the Third Doctor.
Revived era The 2013 episode "Cold War" sees an Ice Warrior named Grand Marshal Skaldak, found frozen in a chunk of ice, being discovered by a Soviet nuclear submarine. Skaldak, frozen for thousands of years, believes his race is dead and that he is the last of his kind. He attempts to obliterate humanity using the submarine's nuclear warheads; he relents after the Eleventh Doctor's companion Clara Oswald reminds Skaldak of his daughter, whom he had told her about previously. An Ice Warrior ship soon arrives, and Skaldak, seeing his race still alive, departs with them as he deactivates the warheads.
The Ice Warriors reappear in the 2017 episode "Empress of Mars". In it, Victorian-era soldiers find a crashed Ice Warrior ship and wake its sole inhabitant, "Friday", from suspended animation. Friday brings the soldiers to Mars, where he discovers Mars has become unable to support life since he went into suspended animation. Friday tricks the soldiers into re-awakening the dormant Ice Queen, Iraxxa, and a hive of Ice Warriors. After initial combat, the soldiers' colonel, Godsacre, negotiates a peace. The Twelfth Doctor calls the Galactic Federation to pick up the remaining Ice Warriors from Mars so that they will join the Federation in the future.
In spin-off media The Ice Warriors appear in several novels, including 1990's Mission to Magnus, an adaptation of a scrapped on-screen Ice Warrior serial; 1992's Transit; 1994's Legacy; 1996's GodEngine and Happy Endings; 1997's The Dying Days; and 2011's The Silent Stars Go By. In comics, the species appear in the strips Deathworld (1980), where they fight the Cybermen; 4-Dimensional Vistas (1983), which sees the Fifth Doctor combatting the Ice Warriors and the Meddling Monk; and the Seventh Doctor strip A Cold Day in Hell (1987–1988). An Ice Warrior named Harma appears in the comic strip Star Tigers as an ally of Abslom Daak. The Ice Warriors appear in several audio dramas published by Big Finish Productions, including Red Dawn (2000), Frozen Time (2007), The Bride of Peladon (2008), The Judgement of Isskar (2009), Deimos (2010), The Resurrection of Mars (2010), Lords of the Red Planet (2013), and Cold Vengeance (2017).
Many of these spin-off appearances have been described by author Ivan Phillips as an example of a creature in the series that takes mysteries presented on-screen that were subsequently expanded upon in spin-off material. Stories such as these expanded on concepts not elaborated upon in their on-screen stories, such as the nature of the Ice Warriors as cyborgs and the origin of the species and its ruling class.
An Ice Warrior named Ssard acts as a companion of the Eighth Doctor in spin-off media. First appearing in Radio Times comic strips, Ssard joins the Doctor after helping him deal with a treacherous Ice Warrior leader. Ssard becomes close with the Doctor's companion Stacy Townsend, and in the 1998 novel Placebo Effect, they leave the Doctor to get married.
Conception and development
1960s
The Ice Warriors
In early 1967, while preparing for the show's fifth season, the Doctor Who production team was looking for a new alien race, specifically a bipedal creature, to complement popular antagonists such as the Daleks and Cybermen. In some accounts, the new species was meant to replace the Daleks, who were scheduled to be written out of the series at the time. Writer Brian Hayles ended up creating the new monsters. He was interested in life on Mars and thought the idea of a race of reptilian humanoids was a plausible concept. Writer J. J. Elridge commented that the Ice Warriors were an example of the trope of life on Mars being so widespread that it was assumed by the series's writers as a foregone conclusion. As well as Hayles's interest in Mars, he was inspired by a story of a mammoth found preserved in a block of ice by the Berezovka River in 1901, which gave him the idea of an alien being revived after being similarly discovered. The Ice Warriors were designed to exhibit more personality than the Daleks and Cybermen.
Costume designer Martin Baugh was inspired by the name "Ice Warrior", as it made him think of a hard, armoured creature. He saw the creatures as like crocodiles and thus made them appear physically reptilian in nature; according to some accounts, Hayles had conceived them as cyborg Vikings, and Baugh's change was done to avoid confusion with the Cybermen, also cyborgs. Taking inspiration from descriptions of the Ice Warriors' Viking-like helmets, Baugh envisioned their armour as central to their appearance, akin to a bipedal turtle. He suggested the Ice Warrior costumes be cast in fibreglass.
The final costume used a two-piece fibreglass shell, heavy latex rubber for the arms and legs—with the former ending in clamp-like hands—and matted fur between the joints and at the hips. Red Perspex was used to act as the eyeholes of the helmets, and the actors' eyelids behind the mask were painted a dark green. Plans to have the eyes glow were dropped due to concerns that it would overheat the actors. The final costumes were tall. Due to their bulk, they were very hot, and actors would sweat out around a pint () in less than an hour. During filming, director Derek Martinus requested changes, specifically less bulky helmets, since the costumes did not allow for much head movement. He also wanted the Ice Warriors' sonic blaster weapons to be built into the costume. The helmets of all five Ice Warrior costumes produced for the serial were made smaller, though some were changed more than others.
Bernard Bresslaw portrayed the Ice Warrior Varga in their debut. He used a whisper-like voice to depict the Ice Warriors' reptilian nature, an idea attributed to him that would be used in subsequent serials. Author Graham Sleight describes this voice as suggesting the Ice Warriors are uncomfortable within Earth's atmosphere, adding character to the species. Military drumbeats were used as a musical cue for when the Ice Warriors appeared, a motif reused in later serials.
The Seeds of Death The popularity of the Ice Warriors led to a sequel to their debut story being produced. The first plan for a sequel was titled The Lords of the Red Planet and would have revealed the Ice Warriors to have been genetically engineered by another Martian species named the Gandorans. This was replaced by The Seeds of Death. For this serial, new costumes were built featuring the slimmer head introduced late into The Ice Warriorss filming. Ice Warrior dialogue was pre-recorded due to difficulty speaking in the costumes.
The inclusion of Slaar, an Ice Lord with a different design, was a suggestion by script editor Terrance Dicks to make the species more interesting. Slaar's costume was primarily neoprene rubber; the hands, helmet, and chest plate were made of fibreglass. Alan Bennion, Slaar's actor, had rubber pebbles stuck to his face to resemble reptilian skin, with black enamel being used to make his teeth pointed. Though some of Bennion's dialogue was recorded in studio via a radio microphone attached to his helmet, other parts of his dialogue were pre-recorded. Bennion could not hear or see through the helmet; an off-camera floor manager would tap him on the legs as a dialogue cue.
1970s and scrapped reappearances