Is anyone familiar with Alien, the sci-fi horror film? This week's episode felt a lot like that, only without the really creepy chest-bursting alien life-form, and the cat. But everything else was pretty much the same: the ridiculously bigger on the inside submarine, the Ice Warrior killing crew members and you didn't know who's next... Thinking about it, IMHO it felt almost as if it had been something written for 'Torchwood' and not 'Doctor Who'.
Leaving the rather scary side of it behind and looking only at its science-fictional qualities, I have to say, that 'Cold War' is one of the most old school sci-fi episodes I've seen for ages. And this is a compliment. Because back then stories did not rely on CGI but an excellent plot with a lot of (necessary) explanations and almost no plot-holes (which is not exactly true about the old series, but good sci-fi in general). And that is exactly what Mark Gatiss offered us this week. In fact, I can't remember the last 'Who' episode whose plot did not have a lot in common with with the famous Swiss cheese. Gatiss even took the time to explain why the Doctor could not use the TARDIS as a means of escape. And it's great that he used something form the classic stories (the Hostile Action Displacement System, HADS) to do so.
What I do not get, though, is why the fact that the Professor turns up singing Ultrafox's Vienna stops the Soviets blowing up the world (again). But this is only a minor remark. Everything else is more than just plausible, the Professor finding a creature while drilling for oil on the North pole, the reason why he is there in the first place, the way it comes alive, the Ice Warrior's emotional reaction after spending thousands of years in hibernation. Besides, I love the pun created by using the Cold War as the background for the episode in which the Ice Warriors get some sort of resurrected. This is something only 'Doctor Who' allows you to do.
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