Iceberg (TV Story)

Verity Lambert (consultant)

***Iceberg*** was the third serial of Season 35 of *Doctor Who*. It was written by David Banks, directed by Brian Grant, and starred Stephen Fry as the Ninth Doctor and Emma Fielding as Lena Haigh.

## Synopsis

In 2006 the world is about to be overwhelmed by a disaster that might destroy human civilisation: the inversion of the Earth's magnetic field. Deep in an Antarctic base, the FLIPback team is frantically devising a system to reverse the change in polarity.

Above them, the SS *Elysium* carries its jet-set passengers on the ultimate cruise. On board is Ruby Duvall, a journalist sent to record the FLIPback moment. Instead she finds a man called the Doctor, who is locked out of the strange green box he says is merely a part of his time machine. And she finds old enemies of the Doctor: silver giants at work beneath the ice.

## Cast

* The Doctor - Stephen Fry
* Lena Haigh - Emma Fielding
* Ruby Duvall - Nicola Hughes
* General Pamela Cutler - *TBA*
* Joe Adler - Tony Maudsley
* Jude Black - *TBA*
* Gary Venning - *TBA*
* Bono Brooks/Voice of the Cyber Co-Ordinator - David Banks
* Whitehead - *TBA*
* Dave Hilliard - *TBA*
* Diana Milton - *TBA*
* Leslie Laughland - *TBA*
* Michael Brack - Tim Scott-Walker
* Nike Palmer - *TBA*
* Philip Duvall - *TBA*
* Lord Stanley Straker - *TBA*
* Captain Trench - *TBA*
* Cybermen - Craig Stein, Mark Hardy, Gareth Preston, John Ainsworth, Richard Smith, Mark Moore

## Worldbuilding

### The Doctor

* The Doctor is inspired to walk barefoot through the TARDIS to the Jade Pagoda. He ends up in snowdrifts without his shoes.
* He borrows a multi-coloured coat from Ruby. It reminds him of a coat he wore in a previous incarnation.
* He is approaching 3500 years old. At the time his first incarnation regenerated, he was 450.
* He once spoke with the psychologist Alfred Adler, which helped him to understand part of Cyber psychology.

### Cybermen

* The Cyber Co-ordinator conducts a "mobility experiment": installing its brain into a suitable body, it becomes the first Cyber-Controller. The Co-ordinator is ten thousand years old.
* Different factions of Cybermen have different strengths and weaknesses. The CyberMondans were susceptible to radiation. The Cybermen here are in their prime and are not affected by gold, but they will be later, after the Cyber-Wars when they begin to lose track of reality.
* The Cybermen possess a history computer: according to their records, the First Invasion of Earth occurred in the 1970s while the Second Invasion happened in 1986.

### Individuals

* General Pamela Cutler is the only female general in the armed forces of the United States of America.
* Pamela is the daughter of General Cutler, whom the First Doctor had encountered when facing the Cybermen at Snowcap in December 1986. Furthermore, she is the sister of Zeus V pilot Terry Cutler, who became a born-again Christian following his near fatal space mission and founded an anti-terrorist Christian organisation called the Freedom Foundation.

### Earth

* The Earth's population is approaching 8 billion.
* "The plague" is a name for all diseases across the planet, a product of the changing environment.
* The Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in April 1986. 80,000 people died of cancer as a result of the disaster.
* Mondas was not granted status as the tenth planet in the solar system. In 1994, the planet Cassius was discovered and earned that status.

### Music

* SlapRap is a style of music.
* In the early 1970s, the song "Ruby Tuesday" is playing on the transistor radio.

### Technology

* There are transistor radios made by International Electromatics.

### Pop culture

* A production of *The Wizard of Oz* is being performed on the S.S. *Elysium*.

## Notes

* Author David Banks was an actor in the TV series, having played Cybermen on several occasions.
* The story had prior been released as a novel in 1993, however, Banks decided to submit the story to the production team regardless.
* Although not the first *Doctor Who* actor to write a novel (Ian Marter wrote novelisations and the original work *Harry Sullivan's War* previously), he was the first past *Doctor Who* actor to contribute a work to television.

## Continuity

* Upon waking up, the Doctor mistakes Ruby for Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart. (TV: *Transit*)
* The Doctor vaguely remembers materialising at a cricket match and associates the memory with the Daleks but cannot remember why. (TV: *The Daleks' Master Plan*)

## Home Video & DVD Releases

### VHS

* This story was released on VHS in 1998.

### DVD

* This story along with the other stories in Season 35 were released as *Doctor Who: The Complete Thirty-Fifth Season* in 2013.

### Blu-ray

* This story along with the other stories in Season 35 were upscaled in 1080i50 high definition and were released as *Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 35* in the UK.