Rate and Discuss: The Time Warrior

[SiHart]

The Doctor meets a new companion and a new enemy for the first time in the start of a new season of Doctor Who.

Yes, it's The Time Warrior, first adventure with plucky journalist Sarah Jane Smith and the first appearance of the nasty, brutish and short Sontarans.

What do you think of this story?

[WhiteCrowNZ]

How do you start on such a classic? Probably one of my favourite Jon Pertwee stories and I'm not know for liking his era.

And what a great idea 'spaceman in medieval times'. It feels still fresh today even when we can't have so much as a pirate story without medical hologram.

Oh and 'hello Sarah Jane' - a great blundering first story ...

[Andrew Curnow]

We're off out in a minute, but I'll just for now say that I always love Doctor Who when it feels brand new - so Castrovalva, The Eleventh Hour, Rose, Spearhead from Space... They all have a freshness, a 'new breeze' to them, which is infectiously enjoyable. The Time Warrior, for me, is in the same category - despite being the fifth consecutive run for Pertwee & co, it somehow feels fresh & new, from the striking opening titles, through the rompiness of the story, the new monsters, the new companions, new new new. Love it!

[Stuart Wallis]

Threesome, anyone...? (It's what it's beginning to look like!)

Ahem!

One of my favourites of any era. Pertwee, Lis and Holmes at their best; a brilliant monster, played by the best Sontaran actor to date; good guest cast and design, particularly the Lynx mask and ship. Everything just comes together at once, one of the series' underrated treasures.

9/10

[SiHart]

Can no-one spell Linx's properly or have you all become enslaved by the power of advertising?

[J.R. Southall]

10/10. I have nothing but love love love for this story.

[Terry Leptil]

Sadly, Season 11 wasn't a very good season for Doctor Who as an era was coming to an end. Jon Pertwee, Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks were moving on. The season droops down in the middle.

The Time Warrior is a good, fun story to start things off as it introduces popular icons Sarah Jane Smith and the Sontarans. Oh and Dot Cotton from EastEnders is in it! 7/10

[J.R. Southall]

Sadly, Season 11 wasn't a very good season for Doctor Who as an era was coming to an end. Jon Pertwee, Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks were moving on. The season droops down in the middle.

The Time Warrior is a good, fun story to start things off as it introduces popular icons Sarah Jane Smith and the Sontarans. Oh and Dot Cotton from EastEnders is in it! 7/10

... and surely you must also recognise it as the inspiration behind your avatar, Mr Leptil!

[brandynigma]

I showed this story in my lunchtime club at school over the last fortnight. They loved Pertwee and his fighting style, and the Sontaran prosthetic -one Year 10 boy commented "You can see they've tried to make the mouth bigger by just adding a line, but they still look as good as the new ones. A bit tall though."

They hated the cliffhangers though- I only showed one episode per lunch time, and Episode 3 had them begging to see just the resolution before the next day!

[Terry Leptil]

... and surely you must also recognise it as the inspiration behind your avatar, Mr Leptil!

Aren't you 8 seasons too early?

[SiHart]

I have a feeling he means The Time Warrior was the inspiration for The Visitation rather than the monsters...

[Stuart Wallis]

Can no-one spell Linx's properly or have you all become enslaved by the power of advertising?

Why - what are you selling...?

[Jon Masters]

I have a feeling he means The Time Warrior was the inspiration for The Visitation rather than the monsters...

I thought he was referring to Bob Holmes writing the outline as though to a Sontaran called Terran Cedicks

[J.R. Southall]

I have a feeling he means The Time Warrior was the inspiration for The Visitation rather than the monsters...

Correctington!

[Antony Cox]

I adore this story - it's one of the best Pertwees and to be honest, as an all-rounder I think it's one of the best from the Classis series.

It's fun, colourful, has an excellent monster, some great dialogue and all the performances are on the money.

And I can genuinely add that Lis Sladen makes a very impressive entrance as SJS, she really nailed it from day one.

10/10

[Rob McCow]

I can see why people have given this a 10/10, certainly. There's nothing wrong with The Time Warrior in any way! It gets the villains right, it gets the pacing right and there's plenty of variety in it's four episodes. There's no ropey CSO to remind us that its still the 70's. And the historical setting is an unrealistic fantasy-land joy, a joyous celebration of what we all think Medieval England might be like from the picture books.

Then there's Irongron. Almost every single character in the story from Sarah-Jane to Linx is there to undermine Irongron and make him look ridiculous, yet he's still a formidable villain. Having Irongron as a fall-guy also makes Linx look all the more dangerous. The indication is that if he wasn't pre-occupied with fixing his craft, the Doctor would be in real trouble!

Linx is exceptionally well-written, but then Robert Holmes has done a similar villain introdcutory story before. You could draw a list of similarities with Terror of The Autons, with the sadistic alien allying himself with stupid humans and making complex death-devices, but the castle setting makes The Time Warrior seem totally fresh.

Delgado may have been sorely missed from Season 11, but can you imagine The Master in Linx's role? Conversely, would Linx have made a good recurring villain through Season 11?

I should have given this story a higher score, actually...

[Stephen Morgan]

From a personal level I missed this on its original showing due to the odd scheduling of BBC Wales.
I remember sitting down to watch episode one, just two days shy of my eighteenth birthday, only to find we had a round up of the Welsh sports news, how disappointing, especially as the weeks went on my sister would come in from her friends home and proceed to explain the whole episode to me.
Unknown to me BBC Wales were showing the episodes on Tuesday evenings, don't ask me how I didn't catch it, I just didn't realise it was on at that time.
Our TV at this time was breaking down, a neighbour offered to lend us a spare set until we got a replacement, this was around the time of the final episode of Death To The Daleks, I remember watching a very snowy Bellal escorting the Doctor around the Exillon city, by the first episode of The Monster of Peladon my parents had decided to rent a Rediffusion set and by now the BBC Wales transmissions had settled down to a Sunday afternoon.

The first time I ever saw The Time Warrior was on video in 1989, I bought it from one of the very first conventions I ever attended and Nicholas Courtney was kind enough to sign a copy for me.

I can only echo what others have said here, the season is a bit mixed, dig the new titles sequence though, but there's a subtle difference from what has gone before, Pertwee's Doctor seems to be just going through the motions after losing Jo, despite the addition of a feisty young assistant in Sarah Jane Smith, but they soon settle down together and the first story contains some cracking dialogue and some good action in what is basically Doctor Who meets Robin Hood.

Sarah Jane Smith : "You're serious, aren't you?"

The Doctor : "About what I do, yes. Not necessarily about the way I do it."

The Doctor : "A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting."

and this one, my favourite, Irongron : "I'll chop him up so fine not even a sparrow will fill its beak."

[Rob McCow]

The Doctor : "A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting."

That's exactly the sort of quote I remember the Doctor saying, but can never place which story it's from!

My personal favourite is the rather less erudite: "WoooooAAAAAARGH MICE!" from Irongron. Which I'm sure was employed when we had a bit of a mouse problem earlier this year!

[Dino]

And when watching it years ago on BBC Video, I was far too old to be scared of the throbbing object on Jon Pertwee's table that wakes him up in episode 1. But as enjoyable as I find it, the threat isn't there that's in "Death To The Daleks" for example.

8.

[SiHart]

I like Pertwee's hair in this one. The curls at the front are rather awesome without being hugely bouffant like later in the season. He looks very dashing in his green velvet too.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

"He's a long shank rascal with a mighty nose!"

[Andrew Curnow]

I can remember being quite surprised, when I got the video back in 1989, to find that Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart isn't in this one!!

[MacNimon]

I remember being surprised by the new title sequence when I first saw this. Having been used to the original Pertwee sequence for as long as I could remember, this was quite a jarring start to the new series. I'm not sure if it was just in my imagination or not but because of this the entire series had a different feel to it. Not that it detracted from my enjoyment of the story by any means, I actually loved it and I have had a soft spot for it ever since. And that Episode 1 cliffhanger is one of those that you simply never forget. 8/10.