10 Modern Doctor Who Stories That Waste Great Ideas
9. Cold War
The set up to this story sounded fantastic. The Doctor and Clara find themselves on a Russian nuclear submarine during the Cold War, just as the Russians discover a frozen Ice Warrior. Not only does this set up offer the writers lots of themes and ideas to explore, it was supported by a fantastic cast including Liam Cunningham, and Josh O'Connor.
Yet the episode fails to impress. The Cold War setting does have relevance to the plot but the actual history of it is mostly ignored. This is a shame considering The Doctor has his own strong beliefs regarding war and mass destruction. The Ice Warrior is a strange inclusion too. It makes sense to use an alien obsessed with war, but why have him out of his suit and strip him of all his iconography? As soon as Skaldak leaves his suit, the episode basically becomes a poor rip off of Alien.
Had the episode focused more on the actual Cold War while using Skaldak in a different manner, then this could've been a really great episode. If the writers really did want to show an Ice Warrior outside his suit, the CGI could do with some improvement too.