Live from Master Closet Studios, you’re listening to the only podcast on the internet that’s hungry like the wolf: it’s the Noobs and the Whovian!
This is the podcast that introduces a whole new generation to Doctor Who by watching an episode each week and discussing it from the perspective of a dad who’s seen it before, and two sons who haven’t.
Welcome to Episode 103 covering the Series 7 episode 8: Cold War.
This is the one where the Doctor and Clara DON’T fight a Martian Ice Warrior on a Russian submarine during the Cold War. The Russians don’t fight the Americans, the Terrans don’t fight the Ice Warriors, it’s a Cold War! Get it!?
Production notes
- Story # 234
- Originally aired April 13, 2013 to 5.73 million viewers with a total of 9.02 million time-shifted and online viewers
- Written by: Mark Gatiss
- Directed by: Douglas Mackinnon
Cast
- Captain Zhukov – Liam Cunningham
- Davos Seaworth on Game of Thrones
- Professor Grisenko – David Warner
- Played an alt-Third Doctor in an audio adventure
- Admiral Boom in Mary Poppins Returns
- Narrated several Winnie the Pooh movies
- Gul Madred in TNG
- Professor Jordan Perry in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze
- Played or Voiced Jor-El (Lois & Clark), Ra’s al Ghul (Batman the Animated Series AND Superman the Animated Series), Red Skull (Spiderman)
Checklist
- Name of the episode spoken in dialogue?
- Several times
- Creature of the week
- Ice Warriors, Grand Marshall Skaldak
- CGI
- What do we think of Skaldak? Scarier with the helmet on, without the helmet in the dark, without the helmet in clear view?
- How about that Martian ship, eh?
- Amy’s reading glasses
- Nope, but some great Elvis sunglasses
- Jiggery Pokery
- Sonic
- Was that the red setting River talked about?
- TARDIS
- It totally left them on the sub…
- Translation matrix – they didn’t get a chance to talk about this on the Rings of Akhaten for some reason…
- Reset the HADS, hostile action displacement system
- Psychic paper
- No psychic paper, no pretending to be an Earth ambassador!
- Random
- Sonic
Other stuff we noticed
- The opening reminded me of another time when the Doctor showed up at the wrong place altogether. I seem to remember the companion being dressed for the wrong weather as a result and it being a running gag. What episode was this?!
- Why were all the Russians so british. One of them even said bloody
Who’s Who?
- Who is Clara Oswald?
- Saved the world, then? That’s what we do.
- Who is The Doctor?
- We all love how oblivious he can be sometimes.
Classic Who Connection
- The Ice Warriors were created in the 60s to replace the Daleks
- The Daleks were getting their own series?!
- First appeared with the Second Doctor and were seen again with the Third Doctor
- Moffat didn’t want to reuse them at first because he didn’t like them. Like many other “rubbish” Doctor Who monsters from Classic Who they moved slowly, and you could barely understand them.
- Writer Mark Gatiss successfully argued that they could be revived. Due to large gaps in their timelines and the fact that they hadn’t been used in so long, he felt that that there was a lot they could do with them.
- The first serial of the Ice Warriors also started with an Ice Warrior being frozen in ice, having been found by a scientist and thawed out by an anxious assistant.
- The submarine setting was chosen for many reasons, but one was an homage to the Second Doctor’s time with many “base under siege” style stories.
- This is the first Ice Warrior story not to be written by creator Brian Hayles.
- HADS
- There is a brief mention of the serial The Krontons which was the last time that the TARDIS’ HADS (Hostile Action Displacement System) was mentioned.
- The Doctor gives time winds as a reason that the HADS activated in the TARDIS. Time winds were first mentioned in the Fourth Doctor serial Warrior’s Gate. Time winds flow within the Time Vortex and impact points in time causing glitches in space-time like temporal radiation.
- Clara is the only female character in the episode. This is the first time that has happened since the Fourth Doctor serial The Power of Kroll
- We see once again that the Doctor’s pockets are bigger on the inside.
- When the Doctor had to pretend to be an Earth Ambassador was in the Ice Warrior serial The Curse of Peladon which takes place far off in the future as does the serial The Monster of Peladon. This accounts for why the Doctor tells Skaldak that the ice warriors are still alive and will survive well into the future.
Overall impressions
- Overall rating out of 10 –
- Jared – 8 Items in the Doctor’s pockets
- Austin – 6 red settings
- Corbin – 8.5 Russians with British accents
- Tripp – 8 weird alien heads
- Creep Level – out of 500
- Jared – 225
- Austin – 325
- Corbin – 200
- Tripp – 230
Theories
- Tripp has nothin.
- Corbin says Clara is a ghost
The Game Plan
- Next week, we continue with Series 7 with episode 9: Hide
- After that, we’ll do our next Timey Wimey: Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. It’s currently on Amazon Prime, so check out our link, as always.
- Hopefully our plans don’t get derailed. Bill & Ted Face the Music is slated to come out on August 21, so hopefully either the theaters are back open then, or they release it to streaming like so many other movies this year have had to do.
Closing
Noobs and the Whovian is a production of Master Closet Studios, where it’s always smaller on the inside. Your Senior Producer is Austin Reason. Our Audio Engineer is Tripp Reason. Corbin Reason is our Production Editor. Special thanks to tardis.wikia.com for the trivia, and to Jared for the Classic Who Connection. Shout outs to Victor, Jared, and James for their Patreon support.
You can find us at facebook.com/noobsandthewhovian or twitter.com/noobswhovian and email us at [email protected]. Consider supporting us at https://www.patreon.com/noobsandthewhovian. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you found us, and share us with a friend not because we’re a great show but because we watch one.
