Thin Ice (audio story)

Thin Ice is an audio play based on the unproduced story Ice Time, which was originally scheduled as one of the stories for the planned Season 27, which was supposed to air in 1990. However, the cancellation of the series made these plans moot.

This story puts to the forefront the Seventh Doctor's ulterior motive for raising up Ace: he wished to groom her for entrance into the Time Lord Academy if she was willing to join them. While the Cartmel Masterplan would have designated this as Ace's departure story and Raine Creevy's start as the new primary companion for the Doctor, the audio adaptation skewed from the original intentions of writer Andrew Cartmel and instead saw Ace decline the Doctor's offer and elect to keep travelling with him. The change in narrative allowed Big Finish Productions to keep charting its own course for Ace.

Publisher's summary
Moscow 1967. The Doctor and Ace have arrived behind the Iron Curtain, and the Soviet Union is seeking a new weapon that will give it mastery in the Cold War.

What is the secret of the Martian relics? As the legendary War Lord Sezhyr returns to life, the Doctor is faced with some of his oldest and deadliest enemies.

The fate of Earth – and the future of Ace – are now intertwined...

Part one
to be added

Part two
to be added

Part three
to be added

Part four
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Ace - Sophie Aldred
 * Markus Creevy - Ricky Groves
 * Lt. Raina Kerenskaya/Sezhyr - Beth Chalmers
 * Hhessh - Nicholas Briggs
 * Major Maxim Alexandrovitch Felnikov - John Albasiny
 * Adjudicator/Glarva - Nigel Lambert
 * Yevgeni/Yasha Lemayev - John Banks

Culture

 * The Doctor claims to have last visited the Kremlin centuries earlier.
 * Ace anachronistically questions whether Roger Moore, rather than Sean Connery, is the current James Bond. Markus Creevy says that Moore is the star of the television series The Saint.
 * The Doctor, Ace, Markus and Raina attend the ceremony in Red Square marking the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution on 7 November 1967. They see Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova.
 * Ace is disappointed that she has not seen a single hippie.

People

 * The Ice Warrior Lord Hhessh has grown fond of fish fingers.
 * Lt. Raina Kerenskaya is from Kyiv while her grandfather was a fur-trapper in the Ukraine. As of November 1967, she is fifteen weeks pregnant.
 * Sezhyr is a hero of the Dust Rebellion.
 * Markus Creevy is an Arsenal fan.

Technology

 * The Orb of Alikyr is a piece of Ice Warrior technology.

Locations

 * Hhessh considers Moscow to be cold, like his native Mars.

Continuity

 * The Doctor claims to have never delivered a baby before. He would do so again in Ireland in September 1649. (AUDIO: The Settling) He would later claim to have delivered the Mongol military leader Genghis Khan, whom he described as a "sweet baby." (PROSE: Tragedy Day)
 * Ace yet again visits 1960s London. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
 * Immediately after the events of this story, the Doctor and Ace travel to October 1989 where they are reunited with Markus Creevy and Colonel Felnikov as well as the former's then twenty-one-year-old daughter, Raine. Both Markus and Felnikov take some time to realise that Ace is the same girl that they met in 1967, having not aged a day in the interim two decades. (AUDIO: Crime of the Century)
 * Hhessh mentions "rival factions" of Ice Warriors, and that the militaristic force on Earth are the last "true" Ice Warriors. The Third and Fifth Doctors had previously encountered one of these pacifistic factions on Peladon. (TV: The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon; AUDIO: The Bride of Peladon)
 * Ace refers to Perivale (TV: Ghost Light, Survival) and Fenric. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
 * Ace says she knows what it's like to be a long way from home. She was some 2 billion years from her own time when she first met the Doctor. (TV: Dragonfire)