Doctor Who S34E3: Cold War (spoilers)

[Bedlam]

No thread so far so I though I'd create one.

I liked this weeks episode, not amazing but this years episodes are definitely better than last years.

The Ice warrior outside of its armour was an interesting idea although I think it ended up looking to CGIish, the armour itself looked great and had a real feeling of mass and weight.

The eccentric scientist was great "Tell me! Will Ultrabox break up?" and walking into the missile drill at the beginning singing, although I don't think they did enough with him really he got to wander around and interest with Clara a bit but he could have been cut with little effect same with the first officer (?) who got to be a bit rebellious then get killed off.

The stand off at the end was a bit standard really and I think a bit about what happened once the marshal was rescued might have been interesting, how has Ice Warrior civilisation changed over 5000 years does he still fit in? It might be interesting to have a sequel next year with an invasion caused by his return leading to a more aggressive race.

[Batman]

I'm admittedly not familiar with any system that takes into account the entirety of Doctor Who, but as far as nuWho is concerned, this was episode 8 of the current season?

[Bedlam]

I'm admittedly not familiar with any system that takes into account the entirety of Doctor Who, but as far as nuWho is concerned, this was episode 8 of the current season?

Well I was copying the format of the post on last weeks episode, I guess it depends if you consider last years and this years separate seasons or not so either S33E8 or S34E3. I guess it doesn't matter that much.

[Batman]

I don't see why a few month's break in the middle of the season somehow turns it into two separate ones (going by that, there'd be four seasons worth of Young Justice) but as you said, it's not really important, I just found it curious.

[Eternal_Freedom]

An interesting episode. Enjoyable enough and it kept me interested. The Ice Warrior was refreshignly real (well, the armour was) and felt like a credible opponent. I felt Daiv Warner was a little wasted though, they probably could have done more with him.

That and a few plot holes broke my SoD at times. Namely, why is a missile sub drilling for oil? Why do they keep calling the control room the bridge? Why chain up your dangerous alien in a room with torpedoes loaded with high explosive? And so on. Little things that only broke my concentration a little bit.

[Bedlam]

I don't see why a few month's break in the middle of the season somehow turns it into two separate ones (going by that, there'd be four seasons worth of Young Justice) but as you said, it's not really important, I just found it curious.

It's also a bit of a British thing, our seasons don't normally have breaks in the middle (and are often much shorter than American ones) so having quite a few months without the show feels like a new season to me, particularly given the new companion, intro, music and a bit of a different feel. To me it is a different series, even if production wise its the same thing.

An interesting episode. Enjoyable enough and it kept me interested. The Ice Warrior was refreshignly real (well, the armour was) and felt like a credible opponent. I felt Daiv Warner was a little wasted though, they probably could have done more with him.

That and a few plot holes broke my SoD at times. Namely, why is a missile sub drilling for oil? Why do they keep calling the control room the bridge? Why chain up your dangerous alien in a room with torpedoes loaded with high explosive? And so on. Little things that only broke my concentration a little bit.

I think they indirectly explained the chaining up the Marshal in the torpedo room, they couldn't disarm it and the location meant if it used its gun it would blow itself up as well as them, wont work if your captive is suicidal but reduces its options if it wants to stay alive, course we found out that the chain's couldn't hold the armour anyway so its not clear why is left its armour if its so dishonourable, unless its an insult to the humans, "look you are so puny, I don't even need to use my armour to kill you".

[The Imperator]

Liked it, felt that it was MUCH better paced than the previous two, and IMHO their was less asspulling, which was nice. Love Coleman and Smith, and liked the little HADS joke at the end.

[Captain Seafort]

course we found out that the chain's couldn't hold the armour anyway so its not clear why is left its armour if its so dishonourable, unless its an insult to the humans, "look you are so puny, I don't even need to use my armour to kill you".

I saw it more a case of him needing to leave the armour behind as a a diversion, especially as he realised that the Doctor knew a lot about the Ice Warriors, and was therefore likely to know about their reluctance to leave their armour.

[Scrib]

Tobias Menzies was wasted.

[Broomstick]

That and a few plot holes broke my SoD at times. Namely, why is a missile sub drilling for oil?

Oil is a valuable resource and only the military has the capability to transport a scientist to such a location? Either that or "drilling for oil" was a euphemism for something else.

Why do they keep calling the control room the bridge?

The TARDIS translation matrix isn't 100% perfect?

Why chain up your dangerous alien in a room with torpedoes loaded with high explosive?

Hmm... it's slightly less dangerous than chaining him up just outside the reactor room?

[DaveJB]

It was implied that a lot of the submarine had flooded early on, so presumably their options in terms of places they could chain him up were limited. Plus, while I don't know if it would apply to a Russian submarine of that era, some submarine designs have their thickest bulkheads around the torpedo room, so it would also make it that little bit harder for someone to escape from.

As for the episode itself? MAJOR improvement over last week, and probably Gatiss's best story for the show thus far. For once it was actually kind of nice to have a relatively straightforward story, and I liked that they left it ambiguous as to why exactly Skaldak decided not to set off a nuclear holocaust - whether it was because the Doctor got through to him, whether seeing other Ice Warriors just put Skaldak in a good mood, or whether the other Ice Warriors told him "You're going to wipe out humanity because someone zapped you with a cattle prod? Yeesh, overreact much?"

[Iroscato]

I really did enjoy this one, the highlight for me being the Doctor's stunned reaction to the appearance of the Ice Warrior. It felt like it kept a good pace and momentum, thought the ending was fairly weak.
One other point; did anyone else roll their eyes at the Doctor's delight at finding the sonic? The writer's are seriously starting to over-rely on that thing, it's literally like the Doc can't do shit without it anymore.

Oh, and what was the point of that Barbie doll?

4/5.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Like I said, it was a few minor things that all have reasonable explanations. They didn't stop me watching or enjoying the episode, it was more a case of "eh? thats a bit odd" which my annoyingly OCD brain kept thinking about.

Overall though, pretty damn good, so I gave it a 4.

[Starglider]

The concept was solid - standard confined-space-with-monster horror with a bit of character drama - but the execution was a bit sloppy.

[Batman]

How, exactly, did the professor expect to find a mammoth inside a piece of ice this small? Last I checked those beasties were pretty damn bulky. I also really don't think submarines have compartments tall enough for the Alien style snatch from above attack.
Other than that (and the minor issues mentioned by others) solid enough episode. Since I can't give it a 3.6857, a 4.

[Lost Soal]

How, exactly, did the professor expect to find a mammoth inside a piece of ice this small? Last I checked those beasties were pretty damn bulky. I also really don't think submarines have compartments tall enough for the Alien style snatch from above attack.
Other than that (and the minor issues mentioned by others) solid enough episode. Since I can't give it a 3.6857, a 4.

Could just be me, but the WAY he said "probably", with the hesitation before hand suggested he didn't believe it was mammoth, just going along with the story. Coupled with that was the mention of rumors suggesting that the Kremlin was keeping alien activity secret.

[Korto]

Missed the first ten minutes, of course. Kids go to bed at 7.30, show starts at 7.30, and anyone who thinks "Oh, so you get to watch the start then" has never had kids. Flippin' magic only missing 10 minutes, really.

First thought watching was "Someone's been watching Alien"
Shame the damn screwdriver got given back to him, but while I was fully prepared to be offended by the damn thing again, the only thing he really did with it (threaten to blow them all up) I actually wasn't offended by. It seems quite reasonable the thing may have an incredibly powerful power-pack inside, and something that versatile could very easily have an "explode" mode, by accident or design.

Does anyone know what was with that doll?

Gave it a 3. It was all right, but I felt more could have been done. A few more deaths and suspense, perhaps.

[Crossroads Inc.]

You know what I liked about this? What I really REALLY liked about this Ep?
It had a "Happy Ending"

I mean seriously, How many of us were expecting it to end with Skaldak being killed and his dying breaths being some sad lament about dying alone or something?
I was actually genuinely surprised that, one, they talked him down from things, and two, they did it in time for him to be rescued, and by extension the Sub and crew. ((I was however miffed that once again it was Clara who came in and seemed to ;save the day'))

On another note.. Concerning the damn magic wand, eh, sonic screw driver...
You know, you would think that in truth, this would have been the ONE time he would use it to 'save the day' since frying the some computer from the 1980's should have been easy to do.

[Themightytom]

I massively low scored it because I am 99 percent certain this entire episode was written specifically so that they could make the title a pun.
1980's soviets with nukes? ice warriors? Cold war?
Sigh.

Also because this reminds me a lot of the Season 2 finale for Seaquest.

I do like that the Martian race is still around, and came back for their own, I always wondered how "Aliens really DID live on mars!" Makes sense if they all died before humanity would have any concept of them, but now we have a flying saucer, long dead martian race and shazam! it all makes sense.

Except for, why didn't they just move to Earth 5,000 years ago, the slithurians were too much of a threat? Now I have to go wiki everything and see if some fan managed to piece together a reasonable story from oblique references and out of order adventures.

I also subtracted points because that happy ending... you know...people died, the sub is crippled and it's on the wrong side of the planet from the TARDIS.
"Hey can we hitch a quick several month life?
"Hahahahahah superfriends unite!"
Use your screwdriver to call it back you jerk.

[jwl]

Solid episode, IMO. Better than part 1 of the series and rings of akaten, not as good as bells of st John.

I don't see why a few month's break in the middle of the season somehow turns it into two separate ones (going by that, there'd be four seasons worth of Young Justice) but as you said, it's not really important, I just found it curious.

It's also a bit of a British thing, our seasons don't normally have breaks in the middle (and are often much shorter than American ones) so having quite a few months without the show feels like a new season to me, particularly given the new companion, intro, music and a bit of a diffOerent feel. To me it is a different series, even if production wise its the same thing.

But some classic who had mid-season breaks too, if you include them as individual seasons I really don't know what number we'd be on, but it wouldn't be 33 or 34.

An interesting episode. Enjoyable enough and it kept me interested. The Ice Warrior was refreshignly real (well, the armour was) and felt like a credible opponent. I felt Daiv Warner was a little wasted though, they probably could have done more with him.

That and a few plot holes broke my SoD at times. Namely, why is a missile sub drilling for oil? Why do they keep calling the control room the bridge? Why chain up your dangerous alien in a room with torpedoes loaded with high explosive? And so on. Little things that only broke my concentration a little bit.

I think they indirectly explained the chaining up the Marshal in the torpedo room, they couldn't disarm it and the location meant if it used its gun it would blow itself up as well as them, wont work if your captive is suicidal but reduces its options if it wants to stay alive, corse we found out that the chain's couldn't hold the armour anyway so its not clear why is left its armour if its so dishonourable, unless its an insult to the humans, "look you are so puny, I don't even need to use my armour to kill you".

I think it undid/weakened the chains from the outside when it got out of the armour.

[Batman]

It seems quite reasonable the thing may have an incredibly powerful power-pack inside, and something that versatile could very easily have an "explode" mode, by accident or design.

Why the hell would it need one? The thing's even in nuWho alone known to do pretty much anything the writer's wanted it to and they're on a nuclear powered sub that carries SLBMs. All the damn screwdriver has to do is cause a meltdown in the reactor or make one or more of the warheads go off. Heck him causing the sub to fire a torpedo without opening the tube doors might do the trick.

[Hillary]

The BBC website describes Cold War as being Series 7, part 2, episode 3.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... _Cold_War/
So, it is definitely S33 from our perspective. Whether we describe it as S33P2E3 or S33E8 is a matter for discussion. I'd go with the latter myself - the "code" given by Wikipedia is 3.8, which I think is the BBC's own coding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Do ... nth_Doctor

As for the episode, enjoyed the Ice Warrier a lot - liked the whole armour thing being its thermal insulation (an amusing aside about it malfunctioning in hot temperatures - "you'd have thought they'd have sorted that out by now"). Thought the plot was a bit cardboard and rushed - much more could have been done with the war-mongering 1st officer and the conflict between him and the captain. There was also a sub-plot involving collaboration between him and the Ice Warrier just waiting to happen if there had been time. I agree with Korto's Alien comparison - exactly what I was thinking.

The Doctor and Clara have a very good on-screen chemistry, which bodes well for the rest of this and the next series.

[Sharp-kun]

I didn't mind it, not really good but not bad either. Only things I objected to:

- Skaldak leaving his armour.
- 1st officer guy being set up as eager for war then being killed before really doing anything much. Thought he would have a bigger role.

As for the season numbering, I hate it. The show comes on then its gone in a few weeks. One of my mates who's not massively into Dr Who but still watches it was commenting the other day that he never knows when its on anymore as it comes and goes within a few weeks. I don't see the point of it.


Was rewatching some of the older NuWho stuff the other week (Dalek, Impossible Planet, Army of Steel etc). I'd forgotten how good some of the older stuff was before it took a nosedive after s2.

[Batman]

The 1st Officer guy got on my nerves pretty quickly. I know, Cold War era and the damned Americans need to be taken down a peg or two by the faithful defenders of the Motherland, but I very much suspect even the Cold War era USSR knew better than to assign idiots like that who would kick off a Nuclear War on a whim to vital posts on an SSBN.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I spent a good portion of the episode wondering if he was meant to be the First Officer or the Political Officer. If he was the zampolit (IIRC) it would explain his...zeal.