Classic!Who s5—The Ice Warriors

Look, it's review time! This episode saw the first appearance of the Ice Warriors, and it was pretty fun. Plot-wise, I enjoyed the warriors, and I found the evolution of the planet the writers imagined pretty fascinating. Artificial foods to sort the problem of world famine, thus plants limited to a minimum, thus drop of carbon dioxide and the Earth's temperature drops, instead of increasing like it's currently doing—the glaciers take over instead of melting away. Given that this is 1967, it's fascinating to see them come up with something that is basically the contrary of what's happening now, and yet fits humanity so perfectly. The computer and humans being so very dependent on its instructions were also fascinating. I loved the characters of Penley and Clent, Clent is the kind you want to smack, so hard-headed, but his whole world revolves around order and that doesn't mean he's inhumane, he just… needs to cling to what he can control. Of course Penley is the opposite of that—the scientist, the creative mind—and would loathe such a character. It's great to see how their personalities clash around the ending, but when push comes to shove, the choice does go to humanity, not the computer, and taking risks is the only way to survive—so Penley does that, and saves them all. (Plus Penley's actions and the Doctor's added up to defeat the Warriors—neat.) Their acknowledging each other then was a BRILLIANT moment—Clent going "You are the most insufferably irritating and infuriating person I've ever been privileged to work with" and then "Can't write a report though, can you? Something I've got to do for you. Well don't worry, it's something that I've been trained to do." Babies! Or rather human, wonderfully human men, different and flawed and stubborn and fearful and brave. I loved those two so much, really.

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