Tuesday, 6 May 2014

The Time Warrior - Episode 1

The first episode of the 11th season sees a change in the line up and it’s the first since February 18th. It’s weird to have got past the Jo Grant era of the show but things change. Elisabeth Sladen makes her debut in this episode and this is also the episode where the Sontarans make their first appearance in the show. The DVD of this story comes with a CGI Effects version which replaces the iffy ones that director Alan Bromly thought were good enough back in 1973. We also get a new title sequence for the first time since Jon Pertwee’s first episode.

We are introduced very early on to Irongron who is a bit down on his luck until they spot a shooting star. He joins forces with Linx where he will get weapons to take on Edward of Wessex (played by Alan Rowe) and Linx gets to repair his ship. The scene where the Sontaran makes his first appearance outside of the sphere is a great moment. When Linx speaks, he comes across as a very good villain, he’s soft talking yet talks with authority. It’s slightly undermined by the flag that he plonks into the ground. It’s quite good that Linx doesn’t take his helmet off until the very end. There is a nice sense of mystery about how he looks.
I will be honest that I find Irongron’s group to be far more interesting than Wessex’s. Even though Edward has Dot Cotton as his wife, I still find Irongron’s group to be more enthusiastic and entertaining and actually I want them to win in their upcoming battle which isn’t presumably what Robert Holmes was intending. Speaking of Robert Holmes, I think that he has written a large collection of interesting characters and the story is interesting considering it’s a historical story. The direction is something that will prove to be an issue later on but in this episode it’s perfectly fine, the action moves along at a good pace and things work out well enough.

The CGI effects are impressive and are well done. From the star falling in the early stages of the episode to the Doctor using his ghost hunter device to show a Sontaran ghost help make the story work much better than the original version did. The CGI stuff doesn’t detract from the story and I just felt that it complimented the scenes very well.
It’s six and a half minutes before Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney appear. This is Courtney’s 80th episode in the show. The Doctor is at a research place and this is where we first meet Elisabeth Sladen who is pretending to be her aunt but is in fact a journalist. She is completely different to Jo Grant as her reaction when the Doctor says she could make some tea is met with anger. It’s quite something that she gets a historical adventure in her first episode. I quite like the character of Professor Rubeish (played by Donald Pelmear). He has some comedic value and works well in this episode.

The cliffhanger is really just us getting use to the look of Linx. It’s quite an effective mask and its made even creepier by Kevin Lindsay sticking his tounge out and back in again. As cliffhangers go its not the most exciting that there has ever been but if I were watching this on December 15 1973, then there would be enough to make me want to watch episode two. As I don’t really have much of a choice really I still think that there is some good stuff that is yet to come. It feels like a new era in the show has started and Jon Pertwee’s final season is going to be very different to the previous one.

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