The latest set of Fourth Doctor adventures is here once again comprised of two four-parters thrown in a box to match the other Doctor Who releases, so I won’t be including the box title. It kicks off a “new era” of sorts as Margaret from last year’s “The Ravencliff Witch” is brought on board as a companion alongside Leela and frankly… I just don’t think it works. I said in the review for that story that I found it odd she made a big enough impression to get the permanent gig when she was one of the few potential companions that didn’t stand out to me at all, and, well… sadly my gut feeling was right, at least in my opinion. That’s the problem with recording so many stories in advance I guess! Well, either way, let’s take a deeper look into “Ice Heist!” and see what does work, shall we?
The Doctor (Tom Baker) for whatever reason decides to drop back in on Margaret Hopwood (Nerys Hughes) alongside Leela (Louise Jameson) and take her for a trip in the TARDIS, a trip to a big art gallery and auction on a frozen planet called Terra Glacier 300 years into her future. The Doctor thinks it will be an excellent idea because one her own works of art will be auctioned off but instead of delighting her, filling her with pride that her work lives on long after her death, it just flat out reminds her OF her death, causing her to run off. There are some nice moments between Leela and Margaret, the former acting as something of an expert in being freaked out by TARDIS travel, though now she just enjoys it, but as mentioned Margaret never grew on me. She’s like Evelyn but without the wit or charm, she’s just… dull.
A fun cover, always nice to see hi-rez Ice Warrior images!
As part of the auction an Ice Warrior statue is up for bidding and a female Ice Warrior called Kaltakk (Adele Lynch) is desperate to have it back to help the struggling Martian economy but she’s denied, leading to her allowing a group of Ice Warriors to break into the complex and steal not just it but all the goods. It’s a fun set up, Kaltakk and the leader of this rogue Warriors (voiced of course by Nicholas Briggs) are actually constantly at odds with each other as to how extreme they wish to push it, meanwhile The Doctor actually befriends the head of security (Stringer played by Robert Whitelock) for once and they join forces, though the head of the facility, Allerdyce Benexa (Beth Goddard) is less inclined to help, while snobby artist Dorn Callister (Oliver Chris) is more concerned about his ice sculpture melting than even innocent lives… There’s a fun twist when the Ice Warriors force them down into the under-surface vault that I’ll get to the spoilers, but I wouldn’t expect much more than a fun run-around going in. It is fun though!
The Continuity:
That’s right, “New Frontiers” is the random name for these two stories. … Still, nice cover again, anyway!
Not much, well beyond Margaret first appearing in the aforementioned “The Ravencliffe Witch”, but I will mention that Adele Lynch previously played a female Ice Warrior in the TV story “The Empress of Mars”. Also the prized statue she was after depicted Isskar, a famous Ice Warrior featured in the audio story “The Judgement of Isskar”.
Overall Thoughts:
Ice Heist! is a fun four-parter with a clever twist in the middle, sadly the addition of Margaret took away something from the proceedings as she just did click with me, being rather dull and seemingly not enjoying herself at all. Like I said it’s like they were trying to recapture Evelyn but forgot her wit, charm and sense of, you know, enjoying herself. Still, despite that issue I still really enjoyed myself for two hours, so it still deserves praise for that!
Well first things first Kaltakk is soon killed by the Ice Lord member of the Ice Warriors group, leading to them taking a trip to the underground vault with The Doctor and Stringer. On the surface Allerdyce is more concerned about losing her precious items and letting her company down than the lives of those down there but Dorn is worried about what they might find out. In an amusing role-reversal the Ice Warriors soon discover an unexpected alien threat thawed out of the ice in the form of the Pangladasha (or that’s the name of the leader of the species, can’t remember… She/it is also voiced by Beth Goddard, for the record!)
Dorn soon reveals that the people on this planet had frozen themselves to survive a catastrophe but before they woke an Earth party claimed the planet and made sure they stayed frozen in the depths of their own world. To make matters worse his “amazing sculpture” was actually the frozen Pangladasha, so they were very literally exploiting the local people of the planet. As you’d imagine the bad guys get their comeuppance and The Doctor, Margaret and Leela leave the planet to their original inhabitants, but I did enjoy the fun role-reversal twist.
Hogan Reviews 