Cold War liveblog (tumblr x-post)
Ice Warrior!
“Viva Las Vegas… a sinking Soviet ship!” This is Who.
Fairly sure the Soviet Navy had women. Could be wrong?
Claustrophobia and monsters! Good stuff.
“It’s an Ice Warrior. A native of the planet Mars.” Doctor Who is serious business.
“Lock… him… up.”
“Am I speaking Russian, how come I’m speaking Russian… are they speaking Russian?” I do love Who coming up with new ways to exposit.
“The truth” “Yes, revolutionary concept I know.” Great. I like headphones guy.
Conflict between Soviet hawks and Soviet doves. Cool.
“Harm one of us and you harm all. It’s the ancient Russian code.” It’s a bit Orientalising but I’ll take it.
Always good when soldiers call the Doctor a soldier. Good angst.
“I don’t smell of anything. To my knowledge.” It’s interesting that it’s the Doctor who objects to her going in, but still where are the Soviet women? Correct me if I’m wrong on this one.
Ooh lights out. Good stuff.
“You are not our enemy” “And yet I am in chains.” Lots of pointing out wartime hypocrisy here.
“It was her first taste of action.” So women in the Ice Warrior military but not Soviet military. Otherwise though, I like the combination of militarism with reminisces here, it’s a good way of ‘humanising’ the villain (as it were) without caking on the sentimentality.
Ooh creepy, the suit is empty. Gatiss is having fun here.
“Harm one of us and you harm us all, by the moons this I swear.” Hmm, turning an old radical union slogan into a straight-up nationalist/militarist slogan is an interesting and (for me) uncomfortable device.
So Skeldag is on his own, possibly last of his kind. New Who trope alert.
“It couldn’t be any worse.” Come on Doctor, you must know about how dramatic irony works.
I like the direction in this episode.
Hokay is that what an Ice Warrior looks like out of the suit?
“Comrades,” well, that term’s pretty consistently both unionist/leftist and nationalist/militarist.
“We are all that stands between this creature and the destruction of the world,” spoken like Bill Pullman in a Roland Emmerich film.
Mutually Assured Destruction. Not sure I believe the ultra-hawk collaborating with the enemy.
Duran Duran is contemporary, karaoke is anachronistic.
“Not savage, forensic.” Creepy. Gatiss’ horror tastes are really showing here. Also it has a strong Alien/The Thing vibe, just what growing kids need.
“Seeing those bodies back there. It’s all got very real.”
“In the walls.” Definitely Alien(s) inspiration here.
Man I love this kind of lighting. Blue background, amber flickering foreground. So pretty. Could be darker though.
“I don’t just like Western music.” Oh that killed the love a bit. It’s great that he likes bad music but humanising people by Westernising them is a bit manky. And there’s nothing specifically Western about guns.
“My people are dead. They are dust. There is nothing left for me except revenge.” So we’ve had translation circuits and temporal flux in this episode, are we going to have Gallifrey death?
Also I like that we mostly just see its hands. They could have it fully visible and/or suited all the time, this is some suggestive horror shit.
Ooh sonic tech. Animated suit. Woo.
“A second red planet.” LOL. Just like the Cold War.
To be fair this is when Russia was occupying Afghanistan. So the thematic link between the shell of communist iconography and militarist nationalism makes sense.
“5,000 years ago Mars was a vast empire the jewel of this solar system” good stuff.
“You would sacrifice yourself” “In a heartbeat.” Warrior, expendable, oh the parallels
Ooh reveal of his well-lit organic face with 5 minutes left. I love this.
Mercy. This feels less preachy than usual Doctor Who pacifism because it’s not angst about killing one killer, it’s about militarism on a massive scale.
Oh hey, Ice Warriors still around. Just like communists.
Ice broken. Deep.
Oh good. He lets them “go in peace” but leaves the submarine armed. This is Gatiss’ best TV Who writing.
“I will destroy us if I have to,” again tying back to the captain saying they are expendable but their world is not. “Show mercy, show mercy.”
Hungry Like The Wolf! I love Clara in this moment.
So he just sonicked? Did I miss something? RTD used to say the sonic can do anything but resolve a story, I support him on this…
Watching the ship leave. Aliens and the Cold War. It’s like that The Secret KGB UFO Files narrated by Roger Moore, no wonder I like this story.
And a salute. Good good.