1. THIS STORY HAD THE MARK OF A GREAT, LEARNED WRITER. I know Wiki isn't always an ideal source for information, but look at the article linked above on Spitsbergen. The pictures (taken apparently during good weather) look like what we heard described in this show. (Again, think of a ship nearly frozen next to a land mass the size of West Virginia (the size of the Swalbard archipelago, of which Spitsbergen is the largest part and the only inhabited one (if you can call a total population of 2,000 in said area "inhabited")). And right now in this winter that's actually frozen schools of fish off the coast of Sweden, you got from the sound effects an idea of the cold, and the danger, these men were in.

2. THIS STORY HAD THAT WONDERFUL RMT/TWZ MUSIC. And especially used here was a music bed with a rolling series of piano slip notes, backed by muted trumpets and muted trombones. It is first played when the doctor says "I'll speak to the captain at once" then notes the coast of Spitsbergen in his diary. This music bed was exclusively used when an RMT story took place on the ocean (it was played heavily in "The raft" (somewhere in the Atlantic in the winter on the way to Brazil) and also in "The great white shark" (off the Australian great barrier reef)) - it was also used briefly in a story about conquistadors invading Mexico from the ocean). LOVE IT.

3. THIS STORY HAD MURRAY BURNETT'S SCRIPT. (With these wonderful phrases like "Blast you for a blind idiot!" and "er..uh..is the captain in full possession of his senses?" I loved the dialogue here.) And finally:

4. IT HAD SOME GREAT RMT ACTORS: Hecht, Benson and Hammond were among the RMT's "A" team. And Jane Ives (who it's hard to find info about, but is a very sweet looking woman from her picture) had (true to her picture) a very soft, pleasant voice for the doctor's fiance, and carried that to the voice of the captain's woman, yet with the emotion of a lady who had been wounded deeply.

Five stars from me. Here's my question: the story wasn't called "The captain's woman" or "The ghost of the polestar". Conan Doyle wanted us to focus on the CAPTAIN. It's noteworthy that even though he jeopardized his men the captain (as a good man in his profession is duty-bound to be) was simultaneously concerned for their welfare and prosperity. (i.e. not wanting a man in a would-be foraging party to be lost "in the iceholes".) I'm still not sure who the captain was, but clearly he was and had to be the pivotal character of the story (which also played on the old nautical superstition against having a woman on a ship). RMT greatness.