OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 359
STORY NUMBER: 070
TRANSMITTED: 05 January 1974
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Alan Bromly
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Time Warrior
Episode Format: 625 video
Sarah knocks Linx's aim off and Ruebish, listening to the Doctor, strikes the probic vent on the back of the Sontaran's neck knocking him out. The Doctor teaches Ruebish how to break Linx's conditioning. While Sarah infiltrates the kitchens and drugs the food he distracts Irongron but is captured. Sarah rescues him and both retreat to Lord Edward's castle while the drug takes effect. Returning with Hal the Doctor then instructs Ruebish in the use of Linx's time device to return the scientists home. Irongron, enraged at the drugging of his troops blames Linx and attacks him but Linx slays him. As Linx activates the engines of his ship Hal shoots an arrow into his probic vent slaying him with the resulting explosion from the faulty ship destroying the castle. Hal watches in amazement as the Doctor & Sarah leave in the Tardis.
And that's that. Suddenly the mighty Sontaran warrior has a fatal weakness which gets exploited twice in the episode. As you might have gathered from my comments neither this episode or the entire serial has exactly set my world on fire. It's competently done, it just doesn't do anything for me. Sorry.
Location filming for this story took place in and around Peckforton Castle from the 7th - 10th May 1973, the week following the broadcast of Planet of the Daleks 5. Time Warrior, although it launched the show's eleventh season, was filmed as the last story of the tenth recording block.
The novel of the Time Warrior was written by Terrance Dicks but apparently Robert Holmes was originally commissioned to novelise his own scripts. He eventually managed to finish the first chapter, gave up then phoned his friend Terrance Dicks and asked him to finish it!
The Time Warrior was released as a compilation video in 1989, one of the last videos to be released in this format. It is one of only three, the others being Seeds of Death & Talons of Weng Chiang, not to have a subsequent episodic VHS release. It was released on DVD on 3rd September 2007 the last of these three stories to get a DVD release and thus the last Doctor Who story to be released episodically. It was also included in the Doctor Who : Bred for War Boxset which collects The Time Warrior with the other three Sontaran stories: The Sontaran Experiment, The Invasion Of Time & The Two Doctors. Bred for War was released on 5th May 2008 to tie in with their return in the fourth series of the new Doctor Who.
This bring us to the end of a run of 52 episodes watched on DVD from Curse of Peladon 1 to Time Warrior 4. During the course of me watching these episodes Day of the Daleks was released bringing the total to 56 and this will extended to 62 episodes in January with the release of the next story, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, in the UNIT Box set. This is the longest DVD run so far in our journey and the longest run spent on any one format. Larger runs are coming: 74 consecutive episodes exist on DVD from Robots of Death - Creature from the Pit and then a MASSIVE 139 from the Leisure Hive - Delta and the Bannermen.
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