Who Review #40 - the Ice Warriors

Picture: the cover of the Target novelisation (the first Doctor Who book I ever read, way back when I was about 10!)

Episodes 1 and 4-6 exist. Giant Bernard Bresslaw, more known for "Carry on..." films, is the Ice Warrior leader Varga in this story. Angus Lennie and Peter Sallis are also in the cast. (I kept expecting Sallis to chirp: "Don't worry Grommit, we'll soon have the ioniser under control, lad!")

The Ice Warriors, like the Yeti, are another of the iconic monsters from the show. Their reptilian design is simply fantastic as is their hissing voice. The actors dwarf everyone, much like the Cybermen. Deborah Watling looks very petite and vulnerable in the scenes with Bernard Bresslaw. Special mention should be made of Sonny Caldinez (he was Kemel in Evil of the Daleks, btw.) He and Alan Bennion "became" the Ice Warriors; they appeared in other Ice Warrior stories. There have been other actors who were their monsters, so to speak. Kevin Lindsey is the Sontarans, whilst John Scott Martin - although he did other monsters too - is the name one readily associates with the Daleks, Roy Skelton providing the voices. (Skelton provides the computer voice in this story.)

The Earth is in the grip of an Ice Age. There are problems with the British ioniser, used to prevent the forward march of the glacier. Some personel, laying sensors on the glacier, find a figure trapped in the ice. The TARDIS arrives. The crew see Storr (Lennie) and Penley (Sallis) run with stolen supplies from the station. Arden and his crew start to excavate the figure in the ice. The Doctor and co. enter the station and go to the control room. The Doctor begins to examine the controls and warns the reactor is about to explode. He averts the disaster. The Doctor follows station leader Clent. Arden is watched by Storr and Penley; Penley is a former senior scientist who has fallen out with Clent and is living on the tundra. There is an avalanche; Storr is injured, a station worker killed, and the figure is freed from the ice. The Doctor says he has come from a retreat in Tibet; he is tested by Clent - how to explain the ice age and how to return the climate back to normal. The Doctor answers that there must have been a drop in the atmospheric concentration of Carbon Dioxide. Clent says that this happened because the amount of vegetation on Earth has been reduced to an absolute minimum with the increases in technology that have solved food problems and also with the building of cities to house the growing world population. The Doctor is appointed by Clent to help due to Penley's defection. The "Ice Warrior" is brought back to the station and they start to defrost it. Jamie and Victoria discuss the subject of the station girls and their mini-skirts; Victoria is not amused; they don't see the Ice Warrior has started moving.

Jamie is knocked down by the Ice Warrior, which then takes Victoria captive. The Doctor tells Clent that the warrior is not from a lost civilisation, it is an alien. There must be a spaceship in the ice and that it must be run by atomic power. If they hit it with the ioniser, there could be a deadly explosion. Jamie raises the alarm. Varga and Victoria talk - the Ice Warrior ship crashlanded on Earth. She must help Varga release the remaining Warriors; he then says they wull decide whether to return home or to conquer Earth. Storr and Penley are hiding out in a plant museum; Storr remarks that these ancient plants remind him of what life used to be like before the scientists destroyed the spring. Penley heads off for the station; he needs drugs to treat Storr's infected wounds. Arden and Jamie head to the ice front; the sensor there is being jammed and there is no sign of Victoria or Varga. In the station, Penley sees Victoria and the Warrior; Varga is looking for the machine which revived him. The Doctor talks with Clent; he discerns that Clent is ambitious, all too reliant on computers and that Penley's knowledge of the ioniser is vital. Clent is knocked out by Varga and he sets of with Victoria for the ice front; the Doctor and Penley meet. He tells him that he saw the Warrior and Victoria. The Doctor tries, in vain, to persuade Penley to come back. Varga frees his companions and says they must be brought back to life. Miss Garrett seeks out Penley to persuade him to help; Penley refuses as he says he is a man and doesn't want to be a part of that machine world. Clent is, for him, a symbol of all that is wrong. He mentions, though, he has written some notes on something called the Omega Factor which could help. The freed Ice Warriors begin to plan their next moves, one of which is the construction of a cave to act as a trap. Garrett brings Clent and the Doctor Penley's notes; the Doctor is delighted as Penley wass on the right track. His feelings are hurt when the station personnel want to check the notes with the computer. Arden and Jamie return to the glacier; they are shot by the Warriors. The Doctor worries about the safety of Jamie and Victoria. The ioniser is back working - Clent is triumphant at the victory of man over nature, and under his watch too. Penley has taken Jamie back to the museum; Arden is dead whilst Jamie is suffering from the shot. Victoria makes contact with the Doctor; her transmission is monitored by the Warriors. They prepare to fire a weapon.

Varga disables the gun; they will use her as bait for a trap. He wants to know why the humans are so scared of the Warrior ship engine. Victoria runs from one of the Warriors. The Doctor, armed with Ammonium Sulphide, makes his way to the spaceship and let himself be taken prisoner as he intends to find out about the spaceship's engines. The warrior catches Victoria; there is a tremor and ice collapses from the tunnel roof, burying the warrior. Jamie is slowly recovering at the museum. The warriors discover that the fuel rods on their ship are run down; so they intend to get fuel from the base. Storr wants to talk with the Ice Warriors; Penley tries to talk him out of it. Victoria is trapped because the dead warrior has a hold on her. There she meets Storr who has gone to get help from the warriors, who he trusts because they are against the scientists and the ioniser. The Doctor meets Penley and goes to see Jamie. Storr takes Victoria to the Warriors; they kill him because he knows nothing about the ioniser. The Doctor is at the ship; Varga asks him who he is. The Doctor refuses to answer, upon which the Ice Warrior begins to reduce the pressure in the airlock.

The Doctor consents. In the spaceship, he says the ioniser can melt the ice and free the warriors - it isn't a weapon. He is re-united with Victoria. Penley is helping Jamie to the station because he wants to get medical aid for him. The Doctor continues to discuss the situation with the warriors, including the danger of a nuclear explosion. He has switched on his communicator so Clent can her the conversation; the ioniser is to be used regardless. The Doctor discovers the nature of the engine; the warriors prepare to use a sonic canon against the base in order to get fuel. Penley and Jamie arrive at the base and see Clent. They argue - Penley argues for action, whilst Clent says they must wait for the instructions of the computer. The warriors ready the sonic canon; the Doctor uses the Ammonium Sulphide but the Ice Warrior reaches for the fire switch.

The base shakes; Clent receives a message from Varga. He demands the base surrender or die. Clent arranges a meeting. Varga is going to remove the mercury isotopes from the bases reactor, which will mean the humans will freeze to death. Clent and Varga's meeting is monitored by the Doctor. Varga orders the ioniser shut down. The Doctor sets the sonic canon to fire at a new frequency; he intends to knock out the Ice Warriors, but isn't certain it is safe for the base personnel. Penley turns up the heat in the base and the Doctor fires the canon; everyone collapses, and the Ice Warriors return to the ship. The Doctor disables the sonic canon and he and Victoria return to the base. Penley says the computer must be overridden; Clent can't contemplate it and Garrett won't. Penley activates the ioniser and destroys the Ice Warriors. He buries his differences with Clent. They look around but the Doctor and co. have gone.

Another fantastic story!

It makes interesting watching in these days of concern over global warming and melting ice caps, given the chemistry of the atmosphere is an important part of the story's plot. Another theme of the story is the conflict between science, free will and what it is to be human. Peter Barkworth (Clent) and Peter Sallis (Penley) play off well against each other - the former is utterly dependent on the computer, whilst Penley turns his back on this. The thought of destroying plant life as though it doesn't matter is another important environmental aspect (although the atmosphere would get more CO2 in this case, not less) of the story.

The incidental music is a bit grating - there is highpitch, operatic singing at stages.

Classic Victoria
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!"

Victoria: [pretending to cry as the Doctor readies his vial of Ammonim Sulphide] Boo-hoo-hoo....A stinkbomb? ... Boo-hoo-hoo
Doctor: the benefits of a classical education?

The Ice Warriors is a pure joy to watch.
******

Global Melt

Further to the news of the Copenhagen meeting of climate scientists mentioned yesterday

Sea levels are predicted to rise twice as fast as was forecast by the United Nations only two years ago, threatening hundreds of millions of people with catastrophe, scientists said yesterday in a dramatic new warning about climate change. Rapidly melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are likely to push up sea levels by a metre or more by 2100, swamping coastal cities and obliterating the living space of 600 million people who live in deltas, low-lying areas and small island states....

Yesterday's urgent wake-up call to governments about global warming – telling them the data on which they are basing their official advice is flawed – came from four scientists from the US, Australia, France and Germany, who gave a press conference at a scientific meeting on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Professor Konrad Steffen, from the University of Colorado, Dr John Church, of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Tasmania, Dr Eric Rignot, of Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, and Professor Stefan Rahmsdorf, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, are all experts in sea-level rise. Their views represent the mainstream opinion of researchers in the field, taking account of the most recent data.

Only two years ago, the UN's Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its Fourth Assessment Report, or AR4, that the worst-case prediction for global sea-level rise was 59cm by 2100. But the scientists in Copenhagen suggested that the 2007 report was a drastic underestimation of the problem, and that oceans were likely to rise twice as fast.

The Indy

Denmark is celebrating the birth of a polar bear cub at one of its zoos. It is strange there is such joy when you think about what may be in store for the Arctic predator. The melting ice sheets of Greenland and the Arctic will remove the ice it needs to hunt seals. I recently saw the brilliant BBC series "Planet Earth"; there is a scene where a desperately hungry male attacks a Walrus colony. It never stood a chance as Walrus are just too big and strong, their hides too thick. The bear was stabbed by tusks as well. David Attenborough relates how that was caused by melting ice and the fate of that bear will grow more common in future.

Urgent action must be taken. I wouldn't count on capitalism solving the problem, though.

Ocean Acidification and Climate Modelling

One problem of human carbon dioxide emission is that the acidity of the world's oceans will rise. This is known; the question is rather how well do we understand this?

A research team from Bristol University will present their findings on this at a climate science conference which opens in Copenhagen today. The Guardian reports

The Bristol scientists cannot talk about their unpublished results until they are announced later today. But a summary of the findings seen by the Guardian predicts "dangerous" levels of ocean acidification and severe consequences for organisms called marine calcifiers, which form chalky shells.

It says: "We find the future rate of surface ocean acidification and environmental pressure on marine calcifiers very likely unprecedented in the past 65 million years." The scientists add that the situation in the deep sea is of even "greater concern".

The scientists compared the current acidification rate with a giant prehistoric release of greenhouse gas, which geologists know caused widespread extinction of deep water species.

The summary reads: "Because the rates of acidification between past and future are comparable, and [because] there was widespread extinction of benthic organisms [lowest living], one must conclude that a similar level of extinction is more likely than not in the future."

Ken Caldeira is quoted thus

"The choice to continue emitting carbon dioxide means that we will be an agent of biological change of a force and magnitude exceeded only by the causes of the great mass extinction events. If we do not cut carbon dioxide emissions deeply and soon, the consequences of ocean acidification will stand out against the broad reaches of geologic time. Those consequences will remain embedded in the geologic record as testimony from a civilisation that had the wisdom to develop high technology, but did not develop the wisdom to use it wisely."

What should be remembered is the incorrect use of "we" implied in using "civilisation" in the above quote. The working class does not own and control the means of production and thus has no real say in how and what is produced.

Simulations by the UK Met Office give some gloomy news, as reported by the Independent

The world's best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office.

The key aim of holding the expected increase to 2C, beyond which damage to the natural world and to human society is likely to be catastrophic, is far from assured, the research suggests, even if all countries engage forthwith in a radical and enormous crash programme to slash greenhouse gas emissions – something which itself is by no means guaranteed.

The chilling forecast from the supercomputer climate model of the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research will provide a sobering wake-up call for governments around the world, who will begin formally negotiating three weeks today the new international treaty on tackling global warming, which is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December.

COP 15

Tropical forests may dry out and become vulnerable to devastating wildfires as global warming accelerates over the coming decades, a senior scientist has warned.

Soaring greenhouse gas emissions, driven by a surge in coal use in countries such as China and India, are threatening temperature rises that will turn damp and humid forests into parched tinderboxes, said Dr Chris Field, co-chair of the UN's Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Higher temperatures could see wildfires raging through the tropics and a large scale melting of the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere that will accelerate warming even further, he said.
the Guardian

It doesn't look too good for the sea either

Global warming is changing the distribution, abundance and diversity of marine life in the polar seas with "profound" implications for creatures further up the food chain, according to scientists involved in the most comprehensive study of life in the oceans ever conducted.
the Guardian

These are but two of a plethora of threats to the environment which presumably will inform the UN conference - COP 15 - in Copenhagen this December. The conference will be looking at a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

I'll be giving a socialist perspective on issues and stories all year, so watch this space!