Welcome back to another installment of Doctor Who Is CLASSIC!
While we await new episodes, I am taking the opportunity to introduce Andrea to episodes of the classic series.
Today’s post goes back to the time of the 3rd Doctor with Jon Pertwee in the role of the Doctor.
From 1974, it’s The Time Warrior by Robert Holmes.
This episode provides us with a number of significant firsts for the series.
- It is the first appearance of Elisabeth Sladen as the long time and beloved companion Sarah Jane Smith.
- It is the debut of the alien warrior race known as the Sontarans.
- It also introduces a classic diamond-shaped logo that will be used through 1980 and inspires the current logo in use since 2023.
- This is the first story in the series history to refer to each segment as a 'Part' rather than 'Episode'.
- And it is the first time the Doctor’s home planet is identified by name as “Gallifrey”.
Writer Robert Holmes was tasked by producer Barry Letts to write up an historical episode.
Holmes said yes even though he freaking hated historical episodes.
So we get…. The Time Warrior.
A Sontaran warrior named Lynx has landed on Earth.
Hello, Lynx! Welcome to Earth! Take off your helmet and say hello!
(Yes, the Sontarran looks less like the potato versions we met under Davies and Moffat and more like what Chibnall gave us in his run. The Chibs was so old school and went back to the classic look.)
- Bad news: not so much landed as crashed.
- More bad news: the crash has damaged his ship
- Even more bad news: he’s on Earth in the Middle Ages where there is fuck all in the way of repairing space ships.
Despite his desperate circumstances, Lynx is able to use a time scoop that reaches to mid-20th century and starts snatching scientists from a UNIT conference.
(He can’t fix his own space ship but he can use a time travel thingy? Just go with it.)
Brigadier Letheridge Stewart had tasked the Doctor to figure out where the scientists are popping off to and journalist Sarah Jane Smith has finagled her way into the conference looking for a story.
The Doctor has figured out there’s a time travel thingy at work at he follows in the TARDIS.
Guess who has stowed away on the TARDIS? Go on! Guess!
Yes, it’s intrepid journalist Sarah Jane Smith, you clever person you. Here! Have a jelly baby!
Granted, it does take Sarah Jane a bit to get up to speed on things:
- She thinks she’s at a renaissance fair run amuck, not actually in the Middle Ages.
- And she thinks the Doctor is responsible for the scientists disappearing.
Don’t worry, she’ll catch on.
Lynx has aligned himself with a local named Irongron, a boorish belligerent thug who has commandeered a castle and has his eye on another castle which has better mead and mutton. In exchange for shelter while he works on his space ship, Lynx has agreed to provide weapons to Irongron like inventing rifles a century or so too early, that sort of thing.
The Doctor has his hands full with locating and rescuing the captured scientists and stopping Lynx from disrupting human history by letting Irongron use his fancy new weapons against the neighbors.
All in all, The Time Warrior is a solid and clever entry from the always reliable Robert Holmes who has some fun with the historical setting he so detested.
Jon Pertwee is as charming as ever as the Doctor. Pertwee had been the Doctor for 4 years and the weight of that was starting to wear on him a bit. His good friend Roger Delgado (the Master) had died and Katy Manning had left. But he is still on his game as began season 5 with a new companion.
And it is a good entry for Sarah Jane Smith. As a journalist, she should be skeptical of the Doctor but she's smart and quickly shifts her perspective when the facts prove that the Doctor is the good guy here.
For the next Doctor Who Is CLASSIC, I will be jumping ahead to the 1980's and an adventure with the 7th Doctor. Look for that in a few weeks.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another.
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