If you lovedHidden Figures, then boy, doDoctor Whoand Mark Gatiss have a story for you!
(Who else would leave God Save the Queen formed out of stones?)
(Side note: What is up with the British having deadlyWhovillains make their tea for them?
Credit: Jon Hall/BBC America
Gatiss pulled a similar move in Victory of the Daleks, a previous episode hed written.)
Its only after the Doctor and Bills arrival that they manage to discover anything.
Only its not what theyre looking for.
Simon Ridgway
For that, hes rewarded with death, thanks to her now being awake.
As the soldiers and the Queen face off against each other, the Doctor attempts to negotiate peace.
Shes been asleep for 5,000 years and now most of her planet is in terrible shape.
The surface of Mars is lifeless.
Her Empress asks Bill what she thinks, woman to woman.
Bill confirms everything and adds that the humanssavedFridays life.
That doesnt matter to the Queen though.
They also treated him like a servant.
The Ice Warrior in question even argues otherwise, saying that this washistactical decision.
She basically declares war.
Luckily Bill stops him by making it cause a cave-in instead.
Now Friday and the Queen are trapped on the other side.
The Captain is mad.
He reveals that the Colonel had tried to desert the army and was unsuccessfully hung.
Twelve rightfully calls him an idiot.
There aremorethan two Ice Warriors.
Theres a whole Hive.
Not that hell listen.
As a result, a lot of good men die.
Hes seen how bad it is, and he thinks they should all be cooperating.
(In case youre wondering, yes, the Doctor has totally seenFrozen.
But notTerminator,The Thing,orThe Viking.
Hes a busy man.)
The peace talks stallyet againas Catchlove returns to hold the Empress hostage with a knife to her throat.
(Hed fled again earlier.)
Bill tries to stop it.
the Doctor tries to stopher.
In the end, Iraxxa does spare his life.
She tells him to pledge his allegiance to him and the Ice Warriors.
She promises him an opportunity to die in battle, which frankly, sounds ominous, but hey!
(If you dont recognize the genderless alien, its all right.
They were last seen in theoriginalseries.)
And just in time!
Nardole returns with the TARDIS.
But as the Doctor discovers when he steps into it, Missy is the one piloting it.
It isnt what theyd agreed to.
She, in turn, agrees.
Chief among them is that no one side is truly right in the end.
We see that especially with the Empress and Catchlove.
In fact, its why the latter is such an effective villain.
(Points to Ferdinand Kingsley, son of Sir Ben, for such a fun-to-hate portrayal.)
It would have been easy to discount the Ice Warriors as evil.
Part of this is the complexity of the situation theyre in.
Its why the Doctor chooses to step in (something he usually does).
Its remarkable how many themes Gatiss is able to unpack in the span of 45 minutes.
Though I wonder how this Missy in the TARDIS scene would have gone.
), but the Ice Queen is having none of it.
Its an interesting detail.
Just because theyre women doesnt mean theyll automatically agree.
And the Ice Queen even being a woman doesnt affect her leadership skills.
Shes still as unreasonable as Catchlove, who really is quite theworst.
Instead, its nice to see another female character in the mix, especially an alien one.
And that is, updating older source material in this case, their depictions in the olderDoctor Whoepisodes.
Here, we dont see them in full color; instead, we just get the one eye.
It serves the reference, while not taking us out of the moment because of their somewhat goofy appearances.
Though quite remarkably, they were able to bring back Ysanne Churchman to once again voice the character!
Next week sees the Romans return.
And also what looks like a dinosaur.
So basically just another regular episode in the world ofDoctor Who.
