Steven Moffat Was Against Ice Warrior Return To Doctor Who

Steven Moffat has revealed he was originally against bringing back to the Ice Warriors to Doctor Who.

Earlier this month Doctor Who executive producer Caroline Skinner revealed to SFX magazine that the Patrick Troughton/Jon Pertwee era creatures the Ice Warriors will be returning to Doctor Who for a forthcoming episode.  The news followed months of speculation and rumours over an original series monster returning with the Ice Warriors and Zygons amongst those suggested as possible candidates.

While the news of the creatures return has been welcomed by fans show-runner Steven Moffat has revealed he wasn’t originally so keen on the idea. At the Gallifrey One convention Moffat revealed his reservations about bringing them back but was won over by writer Mark Gatiss. “Mark Gatiss had been pitching the Ice Warriors for a while. I wasn’t tremendously persuaded. I thought they were maybe the default condition for what people thought of as rubbish Doctor Who monsters: things that moved very slowly and spoke in a way that meant you couldn’t hear a word they said. I thought maybe that was the definitive rubbish one. But then Mark came up with a couple of very clever ideas. It’s an absolute cracker of an episode.”

The Ice Warriors first appeared in Doctor Who in the 1967 self-titled story penned by Brian Hayles. The creatures returned for a second outing in 1969 in The Seeds of Doom in which the mighty warriors attempted to invade the Earth in the 21st century. Their third appearance, when the series moved to colour, was in the 1972 story The Curse of Peladon. In a neat story-twist The Ice Warriors were not the villains of the piece but things reverted back to normal for their final appearance The Monster of Peladon.

The warriors from Mars were due to return during Colin Baker’s tenure as the Doctor but the show’s (temporary) cancellation in 1985, by Michael Grade, put pay to those plans. Doctor Who’s much longer cancellation in 1989 also stopped plans for their return. Plans for the 27th season had the Ice Warriors to return in a story featuring Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and would have written out actress Sophie Aldred as companion Ace. Nearly 40 years since their last appearance the Ice Warriors are finally returning to Doctor Who on-screen.

Doctor Who returns to BBC One, BBC America and Space on Saturday 30th March.