The Time Warrior Part Two

The one where the Doctor finally names his home planet...

Here's a question: why does Linx take off his helmet at the end of part 1? He strolls into the castle courtyard, checks there's no one around (except there is), pops off his helmet and has a quick look around, "tasting" the air with his tongue, before quickly putting it back on when he hears people coming. Surely Linx didn't remove his helmet simply to provide writer Robert Holmes with a cliffhanger?

Sarah Jane Smith, meanwhile, is giving Irongron and Bloodaxe a hard time as she's taken into the castle for questioning. Elisabeth Sladen is fantastic in these scenes, firing on all cylinders and pulsing with energy. She makes Sarah a force to be reckoned with, a woman not to be trifled with and who knows her own mind. When Irongron refers to her as "only a girl", she spits back: "Get lost!", and throughout the scene brands the medieval marauders as idiots and butchers.

What I love most is how Holmes writes Sarah as completely believable within her own sphere of experience. Why should she believe the police box is a time machine? And so why should she believe she's been transported back centuries to the Middle Ages? Of course she's seeing these people as men dressed up in period costume, the living elements of some sort of medieval theme park. That is how an intelligent 20th century mind would rationalise what's happening. Sarah, especially as she's a reporter, would not easily accept the fantastical (although she seems to have accepted she's travelled in time by the end of the episode). When she demands to use Irongron's telephone, I think that's where I fell for Sarah Jane Smith hook, line and sinker.

I think that's why Sarah Jane endured. She was introduced in 1973 simply as a replacement for Katy Manning. But there was alchemy in the train of events, a magic sewn into the casting and the writing which made Sarah so much more than "the latest one". There was a truth to Sarah at all times, a reality we could all relate to. She saw things how the viewer might see them, and often said as much. Sarah Jane Smith was an "everywoman", and even when she'd morphed into a crime-busting alien-hunting proto-Doctor in her own series, she remained a relatable character. And that's down to Elisabeth Sladen most of all.

Robert Holmes notably has a preoccupation with his own characters in The Time Warrior. In part 1 he spent over six minutes setting up the medieval plot and characters before the Doctor was introduced, and in part 2 the Doctor doesn't get to speak until almost eight minutes in. Pertwee definitely takes something of a back seat in the first two episodes in favour of establishing the guest cast, and Sarah Jane, and that's no bad thing. It does have the effect of backgrounding the lead character (and star), however.

Who can blame Holmes for taking time over his characters though, especially when he writes them such juicy lines? My favourite is dear Bloodaxe, Irongron's angsty right-hand man, who reacts to almost everything with fear and dread. I love his reaction to Linx's arrival in part 1 ("Stars are falling! 'Tis an omen, an evil sign!"), and then when they meet him at dawn, Bloodaxe (who is amusingly bloodless) frets: "Looks like the devil's work to me... Flee for your life, captain!... 'Tis a devil from hell!". And during part 2, John J Carney delivers some corkers, such as: "Your champion'll have more arrows in his gizzard than a thistle has spikes." Carney offers a sensitive portrayal of a man who seems out of his depth, but who maintains a fearful loyalty to his master. Carney was only 54 when he died of a "serious illness" which prevented him from acting in the late 1980s.

Linx makes Irongron a remote-controlled robot to use against Edward of Wessex's depleted forces, but the robot is a rather comical creation, towering over the others but sporting a mild paunch (at least it does in the studio scenes, where it's played by John Hughman. On location, it's played by Dudley Long). The robot moves mechanically, which somehow gives it a comedic presence rather than a threatening one, and Dudley Simpson's score doesn't help matters either.

I continue to marvel at John Friedlander's stunning mask for Linx, which in my view has still never been bettered. The Sontarans are surely one of Doctor Who's best ever monster designs, they're just so unusual and strange, utterly unique, in the same way the Daleks are and the Cybermen are not. You can even see real hairs sprouting from Linx's ears and face. What pains me is how the Sontarans have now become figures of fun thanks to Steven Moffat's treatment of Strax in the Matt Smith years. It'll be a clever writer who manages to wipe that comedic presence away and present the Sontarans as formidable war-mongers again, as Linx is here.

Linx really is no-nonsense, and wastes no time in imprisoning the Doctor and getting him to carry out menial tasks on his behalf by sitting him in a chair which zaps his brain if he tries to get away. Barbaric but ingenious (foreshadowing Sontaran Styre's somewhat brutal treatment of the GalSec colonists in The Sontaran Experiment).

It is in this episode that the Doctor finally names his home planet, Gallifrey, just managing to squeeze this juicy fact into the show's tenth anniversary year! Nothing at all is made of it, but at last we have a name for our hero's homeworld, thanks to Robert Holmes, who would go on to flesh out the Time Lords and their society in The Deadly Assassin three years later.

I can't decide whether the Doctor knows of the Sontarans prior to The Time Warrior or not. Most evidence points to him having encountered them before (he says as much in this episode), but it's not until Linx actually confirms he is a Sontaran that the Doctor seems to accept it. It's as if he's never seen a Sontaran's face before, but recognises the attitudes (and maybe the armour and tech?). The earliest encounter between the Doctor and the Sontarans in expanded fiction is in Big Finish's 2016 audio The Sontarans, when the First Doctor, Steven and Sara happen across them on an asteroid. I don't "do" Big Finish any more, so don't ask me how it all weaves together!

Meanwhile, resourceful Sarah has befriended archer Hal (Jeremy "Boba Fett" Bulloch) and begins to form an alliance with the aged Edward of Wessex and his simpering wife, Dot Cotton Lady Eleanor. Edward is something of a defeatist, which goes against everything Sarah stands for, and she concocts a plan to raid Irongron's castle to capture the Doctor, who she believes is a bad guy. It's a great twist from Holmes to have the new companion see the Doctor as an antagonist, and when Sarah finally dresses up in medieval garb to lead the raid, all I can think about is the similar situation in The Space Museum, when little ol' Vicki became a female Che Guevara in knee socks (coincidentally, alongside Jeremy Bulloch as Tor!).

"Will you excuse me, I've got to go and find a young girl," says the Doctor, who soon finds himself chasing around a medieval courtyard trying to avoid capture. The extended shot of the Doctor evading capture, shown looking down from the ramparts, is a lovely scene, ending in him tumbling into a bed of hay, about to be chopped up by Irongron.

First broadcast: December 22nd, 1973

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Elisabeth Sladen is a whirlwind of energy in her initial scenes with David Daker and John J Carney.
The Bad: That robot is rubbish. You can even see the actor's eyes through the mask.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 29 - the Doctor tells Rubeish to listen to him when he tells him he's travelled back in time.
Neck-rub tally: 14 - there's a huge two-handed neck rub at 17m 15s when the Doctor comes round from Linx's stun gun, but this is more because his neck aches rather than a Pertwee mannerism!

NEXT TIME: Part Three...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Three; Part Four

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-time-warrior.html

The Time Warrior is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Time-Warrior-DVD/dp/B000R20ZA6