It took me a long time to get through this one which almost certainly impacted my enjoyment. There was some solid characters though I wasn’t convinced on Jack Frost as a menace. Eccleston was on form as ever. Good mini-exploration of anxiety in one of the side characters, which felt very “Doctor Who”.

I’m now very behind on these sets - stories like Salvation Nine make me want to bound into the next one, but ones like these slow me down!

The third episode in the Into the Stars set.

I did try this earlier in the year, but didn’t take much in. The notes I made at the time simply said ‘doesn’t standout much’ so I’m giving it a second go.

There is a hint of Christmas in this, references to paper crowns, presents, rehydrated turkey, and the foe in this being known on Earth as Jack Frost.

The Doctor arrives on a space station around Venus - a science station. An experiment to take temperatures down to absolute zero, allows a winter god - Jack Frost to enter our dimension.

I’ve always found the ninth Doctor adventures to have a different energy about them, its the speed, I think its Christopher Eccleston’s delivery, it has an urgency about it - just an observation.

This starts with Dr. Lenni Fisk in conversation with her wife on Earth and missing their son. Its a bit of a trope, I remember a mini series called ‘The Deep’ and in Doctor Who, the Rebel Flesh/ the Almost People both had similar setups.

Dr Lenni Fisk suffers with anxiety, her son has an illness, which is why she’s so far from home engaged in research. There’s Jack Frost - the last of the winter gods and its Christmas. But the story doesn’t do enough with any of these elements to make it a great audio.

There is a difference between Christmas story and a story thats set at Christmas (the old Is Die Hard a Christmas film? debate). This is much the latter. The winter god isn’t particularly amazing, just bland. And there are parts that do feel rehashing of other, better, stories.

Doesn’t standout much is what I said at the beginning and thats still the case, its nice enough, average. But I do feel that there was a much better story to be told.

I had a great time with Break the Ice. After basically dragging myself through Ravagers, this was a much needed and refreshing change of pace. Jack Frost was a really fun choice for a villain, and was both introduced well through the scientists' experiments and used well as an alien menace of sorts. He's a pretty chilling (apologies for the pun) villain, and when he first reveals himself I thought it was really well done and an excellent use of sound effects, even if the music was pretty standard.

There isn't a lot to this story in terms of making it outstanding against other Doctor Who stories, but it feels very unique and fresh just in how well it was all executed. Jack Frost and Nine feel as though they are on equal footing, and have to work to out-think one another in a way I found quite entertaining. Eccleston feels well used here and on the whole this was a proper audio adventure for him - something that probably wouldn't have looked good on film, especially back in the days of New Who Series One, but feels like a welcome addition to the story of the Ninth Doctor's character. This reminds me of the Doctor going up against something big, powerful, and larger than life, such as Sutek, the Dream Lord, or even the things from Can You Hear Me?

I really liked Break the Ice. I think it could even be a little competitive against some of the Ninth Doctor's better material overall, at least in my opinion. It's a very simple story but so nicely reflects Nine's character. I also really like Lenni Fisk as our one-off companion. She reacts a lot more like how I feel more characters should in these stories - genuinely shaken and it is well performed by Thalissa Teixeira. Even little details like knowing Jack is wearing a paper crown through a ton of this just make it a bit more special from your average "monster of the week" kind of story and that sort of levity with him and others like Fisk go a long way at balancing this story nicely. It's not all miserable or menacing, which made it a very pleasant, if somewhat simple or forgettable, experience overall.