Holistic Review: An intellectual, hard sci-fi story which is elevated by its worthy message along with one of the most visually impressive directorial efforts ever seen in classic Who, but also weighted down by uninteresting dialogue, far too much padding, and a minimal plot that didn't require the involvement of the TARDIS crew.
As a child, I remember not being terribly entertained by Warriors' Gate, which felt to me rather dull. But when I rewatched it again as an adult, as I was first putting together this site, I was absolutely bowled over by the direction and visuals, which seemed absolutely cutting-edge for the time. So, now that I'm watching it through a critical lens, I was curious to see where my opinions would land. After all, the story's themes speak to me more now than they did when I was a child, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity for a re-evaluation.
As it turns out, my overall impression of Warriors' Gate these days is: I was right. Both times.
The story's plot is a real problem. We're talking massive. On the upside, it (as with most of season 18) relies on hard science-fiction and boasts some truly inventive elements: the idea of a null space micro-dimension at the boundary of E-Space and N-Space, glowing time winds that can rapidly age anything they touch, and a time-sensitive race of aliens who dwell in a mirror realm. Warriors' Gate does not lack for heady concepts, on top of which it adds Chinese philosophy (which introduces mild story-spanning themes of intuition and random chance) and the ethics of slavery. But on the downside, it's a whole lot of talk and minimal action, and very little of what happens in the story makes any sense, even though its internal consistency is logical.
The biggest problem is this: Warriors' Gate would've turned out the same if they'd just stayed in the TARDIS the entire time. Aside from Romana cluing in Rorvik about the gateway's (and thus the mirrors') existence, which at most slightly hastens the destruction of the micro-universe, I can't pinpoint a single action that any of them took which meaningfully advanced the plot. As a result, huge swaths of the story are essentially nothing but padding.
If you boil it down to the basics, the plot of Warriors' Gate is "the TARDIS lands in a gateway void at the same time as a ship with a super-dense hull, which causes the void to contract exponentially. When the void collapses, the TARDIS is finally able to escape E-Space."
I mean, that's literally it. In between, the Doctor and Romana learn about the plight of the enslaved Tharils, but they themselves don't lift a finger to help free the Tharils from their captivity on Rorvik's ship, which is ostensibly the whole point of the story. Lazlo does that all on his own, thank you very much, and nobody frees him either. Which on one hand is great, because it bucks the problematic white-saviour trend in fiction, but good heavens does it ever leave the regulars entirely without agency.
At the story's climax, the Doctor rushes to try to stop Rorvik's ship from emitting a backblast which will hasten the destruction of the micro-universe — which is at least some kind of forward momentum, even though this entire plotline is a side thread — but Biroc repeatedly stops him with the following instructions: "Do nothing! It is done!"
DO NOTHING??? But yes, sure enough, Biroc tells the Doctor and Romana to cut it out with the do-gooding, and go cool their heels in the TARDIS with a nice cup of tea. And they do. The end. I am not kidding.
So — aside from Romana's departure, and K-9's repair — this story would've turned out, more or less, exactly the same if everyone had just waited things out in the TARDIS from the start. Thanks to the density of the dwarf-star alloy hull, the void still would have winked out of existence; Lazlo most likely still would've freed the Tharils; Rorvik's ship still would've been destroyed; and the TARDIS still would've popped out of E-Space like a cork from a bottle. Somehow. (See question #8 below.)
Problem #2: The story leaves a lot unexplained. The biggest questions that occurred to me were:
Fortunately, this flimsy plot rests on a genuinely compelling moral dilemma. This unnamed ship — and apparently all ships in whatever culture Rorvik comes from — traverses the timelines, piloted unwillingly by a Tharil. (It's not entirely clear, but it seems that these ships don't actually travel in time; instead, they seem to travel across timelines as a shortcut to their destination.) Prized for their navigational abilities, the Tharils are hunted by slavers like Rorvik, treated as cargo, sold to other ships in need of a navigator, and forced into brutal servitude.
What makes this atrocity even more compelling as a storyline is that the Tharils were, themselves, once slavers, who — at the height of their empire — kidnapped humanoids from across the universe to serve their every need. We're privy to a sort of flashback where we witness the Tharils being waited on hand-and-paw by a humanoid serving girl, who's brutalized evidently at their whims, for no apparent reason (not that any reason would justify it).
It's a short scene, but a helpful illustration that the Tharils were no angels themselves.
Mind you, while this gives the Tharils a richer and more layered backstory, it also risks suggesting that the Tharils don't deserve to be rescued from slavery. Naturally the Doctor doesn't buy into such a nonsensical perspective, but the story doesn't exactly go out of its way to show that the Tharils have reformed. In one and only one line, Biroc indirectly claims that they've changed — "You were right. We abused our power. But judge whether we've not suffered enough." — but he doesn't seem at all repentant about their past. "The weak enslave themselves," he asserts, and the Doctor not only tacitly agrees, but later reaffirms this sentiment!
Where this makes me particularly uncomfortable, especially given that the Doctor doesn't immediately shoot down Biroc's assertion that enslaved people are partly to blame for their own enslavement, is its parallel to the way white Americans will excuse slavery — if not borderline justify it — by claiming that Africans enslaved one another, and/or sold one another into slavery, and/or benefited directly or indirectly from slavery, and/or Irish people were slaves too. (Spoiler: they weren't.) These excuses or justifications all minimize the atrocities of slavery as perpetrated specifically against Black people, and that's a parallel that I wouldn't like to see drawn from the depiction of the Tharils in this story. But its heart seems to be in the right place. And I suppose we must assume that the Tharils truly have seen the error of their ways, now that the tables have been turned.
Alas, the dialogue doesn't really help to lift the action. On the whole, the script is fairly dry, with lots of technobabble, lots of procedural lines, and very little humor. (Witness the Doctor's "banter" after the Gundan robots dispatch one another: "They've cut each other dead!" Tom Baker grins as though this line is a delightful joke, but it really isn't!) It's all perfectly functional, just not terribly exciting. Though evidently this is no fault of Gallagher's; his script was extensively rewritten by the script editor (Chris Bidmead) and, unusually, the director (Paul Joyce), who were explicitly attempting to tone down the humor. To be fair, in some ways, Warriors' Gate probably is a story that's better played straight, but with its dialogue toeing the line of pretentiousness, more genuine humor would've been a boon.
The only one of the regulars who truly comes out of the story smelling like roses is Romana, and even then, it's only because of her character growth, not because she actually accomplishes anything. On the plus side, I always enjoy it when Romana strides headlong into danger and acts like she owns the place; there's a brilliant example of this here, as Romana ever-so-politely confronts Rorvik and his crew, then — while playing the ethereal, inscrutable, wise alien visitor — takes charge and leads them away from the TARDIS. Though Romana is scripted to be more stern than playful — or at least, that's the way Ward portrays her this week — the story does at least give Lalla Ward plenty of opportunities to shine in her final appearance. I loved Ward's snarly reaction when the Doctor calls Romana "Probably too friendly!", the way she has a private chat with the Doctor by pressing them back against the TARDIS wall as if trying not to be noticed, her facial acting as she worries that Lane will spot her, and "I know! I've done it." And happily, Romana pronounces the R in Romanadvoratrelundar, after having briefly forgotten the pronunciation of her own name during her first incarnation. Our most fashionable of companions gets a lovely final look, wearing a high-necked button-down tunic (inspired by a traditional Chinese tangzhuang) in a bold candy-apple red, over dark silk trousers. It's a striking and memorable outfit that looks great on Ward. (Delightfully, as they're all sitting around eating lunch, she even uses a pair of chopsticks, and serves a piece of pickle to the Doctor. Less delightfully, the Doctor does repeatedly insist on chewing with his mouth open.)
Poor Adric does almost literally nothing in Warriors' Gate: he remains stuck in the TARDIS in part 1, spends part 2 wandering aimlessly around the void — even getting separated from K-9 for absolutely zero reason, when he was the one helping a damaged K-9 navigate to the gateway — and in part 3 he pretends that he's rescuing Romana, when all he actually does is hide inside the same covered cart in which Romana eventually conceals herself. (Coming from the pen of the man who would later strand Tegan and Turlough inside sub-flooring ventilation shafts for an entire story, this is perhaps no surprise.) Aside from one moment of cleverness, in which he realizes he can help K-9 triangulate his signal by relocating one of his ears, it's not until 1:16:32 into the story, in part 4, that Adric finally gets to do one useful thing (before virtually disappearing from the story afterward)! But I appreciate the way Matthew Waterhouse indicates how heavy the chunk of dwarf star alloy is; Lalla Ward waves it around like it weighs nothing. I also love the way Adric happily chirps "Mmm!" after Romana gives him an entirely unhelpful answer as to what N-Space is like. Every once in a while, Adric takes a childlike pleasure in simple things that makes me really happy.
Plus — and maybe I'm just imagining this — it seems like Lalla seizes every opportunity (with both hands) to channel her dislike of Matthew Waterhouse into her performance. I think all of these examples were scripted, but even still, when you add them all together...! First, Romana is a little bit extra snarky when Adric asks her about N-Space ("I've just told you, Adric, it's positive!"). Then, Romana ever so kindly blows lungfuls of dust from her boxes right in Adric's face. And in part four, she really seems to enjoy chewing Adric out, especially in the line (scripted as a joke) "You are not! It's long past time you learnt to obey orders!"
Even the Doctor accomplishes little but wandering, and discovering the Tharils' backstory, so there's not much I can say about him. But Tom Baker's performance, as always, is a delight. Loved Baker's delivery of "Uh-oh.", his 'yum yum' expression as he overlooks the banquet-in-progress, the way he takes a running slide to K-9's side, and the very fourth-Doctorish quote, "This garden of yours, the universe. How do you manage it?" And there's a rather sweet moment when he straightens up one of the Gundan robots, just out of the kindness of his heart.
Poor K-9 has been abused so much since John Nathan-Turner took over; his dislike of K-9 is clear onscreen. In season 18, K-9 has been flooded with seawater and short-circuited in The Leisure Hive, kicked around in Meglos, and here he's battered and aged to the point of uselessness by the time winds, kicked yet again by Rorvik, and then — as if that wasn't enough pummeling — he gets physically thrown off Rorvik's ship by Packard! The shot of his memory wafer crumbling to powder in Romana's hand is deeply sad.
Unsurprisingly, not a single one of the ship's crew are anything even remotely approaching likeable. Given that they're all employed in the slavetrading business, this depiction is not only appropriate but commendable. Unfortunately, almost none of them are given terribly deep characterizations; impressively, however, nearly all of the actors manage to latch onto whatever hints they could find in the script to craft distinctive performances.
The one exception to the script's lack of significant characterization is layabouts Royce (Harry Waters) and Aldo (Freddie Earlle), who are clearly shiftless and whose main priority is avoiding at all costs anything resembling work. They're a fun, snarky comedy double-act, at least until we realize that they're just as morally bankrupt as everyone else onboard the ship. Not only do they unconcernedly take bets on whether a high-tension cable will kill Biroc, they risk electrocuting Lazlo to death just because their pay is fixed and a "loss" (ie, murder) won't affect their bonus. It's just horrific. But Waters and Earlle give performances that truly do lift the story; I loved their utterly unenthusiastic cheer of "Hooray" when the ship lifts off, and this great exchange when Romana is press-ganged as the new navigator:
Captain Rorvik (Clifford Rose), meanwhile, is the epitome of 'morally bankrupt'. As others observe, his main concern is not for the Tharils but for his bounty, though when his ship gets stuck in the void, even that concern takes second place to escaping, whatever the cost. The fact that the cost is potentially the life of every Tharil on board bothers him not one jot. Faced with the prospect of having to attempt reviving the Tharils in the freight hold under sub-optimal conditions, Rorvik shrugs: "So some of them may die!" Later, we get this equally repugnant exchange:
He's also quite the misogynist ("You're like all the rest, lizards when there's a man's work to be done!") which perhaps explains why there's not a single woman onboard his ship. Interestingly, despite his macho-alpha persona and his utter disregard for Tharil life, Rorvik seems not to be basking in the respect of his crew, possibly because he's your typical bull-headed commander who refuses to listen to anyone else. In that same vein, he's no shrinking violet when it comes to insulting people. I can only imagine the love and trust he engenders among his crewmembers when he says things like "I'm sick of your kind! Faint-hearted, do-nothing, lily-livered deadweights!" He does, though, get one of the best pre-comeuppance lines of any Doctor Who villain ever, delusionally crowing "This is the end for all of you! I'm finally getting something done!" just before he blows himself up.
Thanks to Kenneth Cope's naturalistic (and occasionally sarcastic) performance, Packard is one of the more entertaining crewmembers, plus he gets a bit of characterization, in that he has at least some concern for the Tharils' well-being (for whatever that's worth) and doesn't just take Rorvik's orders lying down. I like the way Cope fires back "What d'you want me to say?" when Rorvik asks for a helm report after they've entered the null space.
I appreciate that David Kincaid seems to have created a backstory in his head wherein Lane is socially awkward — goodness knows these characters need all the backstory they can get, and it's logical that at least one crewmember stuck in a void for months on a ship full of jerks would be a little bit lacking in people skills — but unfortunately, it's sometimes difficult to be sure whether this was a deliberate choice, or if Kincaid's acting is stilted. For example, when Lane attempts to radio in that he's just seen Biroc escaping, he just sort of freezes for no evident reason. He has a rather weird reaction to Rorvik informing him that he's leading the away party in case the TARDIS crew are hostile; he actually nods along understandingly for a couple of seconds before giving the camera a "waaaait a minute" look. When Romana asks where he's from, his line "The warp drive packed up" comes across a bit halting, as if he's so mesmerized by her beauty that he can barely get out his words. It's mainly his stutter on "The insulation's gone, a few more inches..." that makes me think this performance was intentional. And anyway, he gets one really great line delivery later in the story, which I'll mention below.
Vincent Pickering (Sagan) is a fairly prominent character but doesn't get a lot of lines, and most of the ones he is given are basic procedural lines. But he gives a solid, if dry, performance, and Sagan gets one scene demonstrating that he's just as callous as the rest of the crew — when he casually flips a Tharil corpse off the gurney and onto the floor — before receiving the most gruesome comeuppance of the entire cast. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Sagan gets one of the most dramatic death scenes in all of Who, karmically being electrocuted with his own Tharil-revivification machinery before his head lolls back, face frozen in a scream.
David Weston's performance as Biroc just doesn't particularly move me, then or now. As a character, he's exceedingly dull. Once he manages to escape the ship, he can go from place to place with effortless ease, even into the TARDIS as it's in flight. He seems to know everything that's going on, not that he feels the need to enlighten anyone else about it. And Weston declaims his lines as if Biroc is a character in a Shakespearean play full of actors who don't really understand what their dialogue means.
Lazlo (Jeremy Gittins) is never even named onscreen, only in the credits, nor does he have a single line other than a couple of screams, but his burn makeup is really good.
It took me a while to understand the significance of the Gundan robots; for a good chunk of episode 2, they seem to serve no purpose but padding. But their backstory — that they were forged as weapons by the communities enslaved by the Tharils, because they could (somehow) cross over into the Tharils' realm and defeat them — is quite an interesting one, which adds shades of grey to the Tharils' current plight. It seems that the Gundan robots succeeded in their task, given that the banquet hall has been disused for centuries; though there are still Tharils living free within the mirror world, so maybe the Tharils weren't vanquished as thoroughly as their enslaved victims would have liked. The reverberating Gundan voices are impactful, and Robert Vowles gives an impressively compelling performance despite the robotic monotone, especially as the robots wind down. I like their design too, particularly their (cobwebbed!) helmets, surmounted by a dramatic crescent-moon symbol, with a metal grate concealing their spooky silver skull-like faces.
Even Peter Howell, whose music I usually salivate over, turns in a comparatively ho-hum score (by his standards anyway; it's still wonderful evocative music), though I find my appreciation increasing the more I listen to it. On the whole, most of the elements that stood out to me will be re-used, much more effectively, in Kinda. The major exception, for me, was the medieval-tinged party music in the banqueting hall. But even though it doesn't stand out as one of his most memorable scores, there are some really atmospheric moments, notably the harp-like music when Biroc operates the TARDIS controls and when Romana and Lazlo cross the void, and the creepy guttural clicking noises as Biroc enters the cobweb-strewn banquet hall. If that were a Doctor Who monster noise, it would terrify the pants off me.
So truly, the saving grace of Warriors' Gate is director Paul Joyce, and his collaboration with the incredibly talented effects team. Sure, some of the effects look a bit cheesy to modern eyes — there's still a faint green line (and glow) around characters being overlaid onto a CSO background, and the zoom into the coin frozen in mid-air looks incredibly pixellated — but none of that takes away from the visual impact of a team that's striving to reach a very high bar.
What impressed me the most were the shots integrating a range of impressive effects. Right from the start, Joyce sets the tone by illustrating the ship falling through a time rift using a dramatic visual of Aldo flipping a coin, which traces a path of afterimages through the air before freezing in place. Then, as the ship enters null space, there's an indescribably gorgeous cinematic shot of the coin landing on its edge and spinning on a counter in the foreground while, behind it, a control bank bursts into flames. Ach. It's unlike anything we've seen before in Doctor Who and I adore it.
Other impressive effects shots include a zoom in to Biroc's eye as he visualizes the TARDIS, with a spinning police-box graphic overlaid; Biroc's juddering out-of-phase image operating the TARDIS controls on the opposite side of the console from the TARDIS crew; Sagan firing a laser which bounces off the mirror; Romana and Lazlo glowing as they fade out of the hallway on Rorvik's ship and into the void; and the gorgeous fade from the Tharil banquet (where the Doctor's watching) to the cobwebbed room (where Romana gasps).
My only mild gripe: the shot of Biroc running unprotected through the time vortex (while the TARDIS is still in flight) looks exactly the same as the shots of Biroc running across the null-space void (after the TARDIS has landed), which momentarily had me confused about why the time winds didn't rip apart everyone who wandered out into the void.
Another key element of Joyce's directorial success are the sets, for which two deserve special praise. The interiors of Rorvik's ship, especially the bridge, are constructed as bi-level sets, which are always my favorite because they allow for a wide range of movement and interesting camera angles. Joyce takes full advantage of this, panning down from the upper level of the bridge to the lower level (and vice versa) on numerous occasions (notably when Packard asks Aldo and Royce to fetch the portable mass detector), slowly zooming into Rorvik standing at the railing from a low angle, or shooting Aldo and Royce from above. Joyce utilizes the ubiquitous see-through gantries to film a variety of shots from underneath, like the panning shot at the story's start (which I now appreciate all the more, knowing that what Joyce was filming were the actual studio lights; it's a very clever shot, even though it got him in trouble!), Biroc descending the stairs before walking past the camera, and Rorvik attacking the Doctor in the hull breach. The hull-breach set is a visually interesting tangle of ladders, platforms, piping, and dangling cables, and the scorched edge of the rip in the outer shell looks great. Joyce makes use of this depth of field in several shots, notably when he frames a gradual zoom in through the cables as Lane waves away smoke.
Inside the gateway, the banquetting hall is an eerie set, draped in cobwebs, with a skeleton slumped in one of the chairs. To my delight, it turns out to be a bi-level set too, with a row of upper-level cloisters accessible by stairs. The upper level doesn't get a lot of use, but Joyce makes sure to stage the Doctor's escape through the cloisters. Naturally, he also makes use of the large mirror propped at one end to capture some interesting camera angles.
Whether it counts as a set or an effect, the white void is really well realized too. There are only a couple of shots where its CSO nature is evident, like the briefly-appearing line in the background after Lane brings up the rear while taking Romana to their ship, and when K-9 tails Lane and Packard back. Otherwise, it's a pretty seamless representation of a vast, disorienting featureless landscape. Likewise — though I didn't appreciate them as a child — I find the black-and-white photographs of Powis Castle to be a visually striking way to represent the Tharils' mirror realm, and the effects team do a faultless job of integrating shots in which characters interact with the photographs, rounding bends in the hedge and suchlike.
I was particularly impressed with Joyce's use of long takes, which require considerably longer to rehearse and record, given how many things can go wrong in the process. The story opens with a slow, atmospheric panning shot around the Tharils' blue-lit hold, which tracks out into the hallway and past some instrument panels and graffitied walls. This is followed by yet another gorgeous slow tracking shot (in reverse!) past Aldo and Royce playing cards, then up to the bridge set before panning all the way around it, ending on Biroc clamped into the navigator's chair. Later, in part three, there's a languid one-shot pan down and back up as the Doctor and Romana kneel to chat with K-9. I can only imagine that this is part of the reason that the production was so stressed for time, but gosh, am I ever glad Joyce managed to get these sequences in the can.
And then there are the less showy shots: a dramatic close-up on Sagan as he says "Lane's taking a look."; a shot from behind as Aldo and Royce walk into the Tharil hold; several shots from both Lazlo and Romana's POVs, as he staggers up to the bridge while Romana struggles to escape her clamps; a model shot which starts at the ship and pans across to the gateway and TARDIS; a close-up of the Doctor being surrounded by guns pointed at his head; the Doctor's face peering over the gantry as Rorvik towers over him, feet planted either side of his head; and the close-up of Sagan's death grimace as his head falls into shot. Joyce either exploits or introduces some lovely parallels in the script, too: Aldo and Adric simultaneously flipping a coin, and Rorvik's crew eating lunch in the banquet hall (now) while the Doctor joins the Tharil banquet (in the past).
It's unfortunate that a combination of factors led to Joyce being replaced mid-shoot by Graeme Harper, though this does perhaps explain why I felt like the direction became rather less showy and interesting as the story went on. It's hard to maintain such a high creative bar when you're running far behind schedule, and/or when someone else takes over (even someone as talented as Harper, who was probably under orders to complete the story yesterday). It also likely explains why this was Joyce's one and only directorial effort for Who, a fact which I lament!
I have to commend a few other effects that were unrelated to the direction. First, the shots of various people walking through the mirrors look decent. Second, the Tharils' makeup is executed well, particularly their leonine mouths and their very '80s manes. Third, the modelwork is uniformly excellent. Rorvik's ship has an almost cutesy design, with two big bulbous eyes which presumably serve as observation ports, and the shots of it repositioning in front of the TARDIS are superb. There's a convincing shot of the TARDIS glowing red-hot in the path of the backblast before it dematerializes, and the effect of the gateway blowing up and the ship catching fire is magnificent.
I do love June Hudson's costumes, even beyond Romana's. The Tharils' tunics, in particular — with their woven design — look expensive and well-tailored and I think I want me to have one.
Minor points:
Doctor: "It's always darkest before the storm."
Romana: "Dawn."
Doctor: "Dawn. Isn't that right, K-9?"
Romana: "Well, according to your theory, we just press any button and hope for the best."
Doctor: "Yes, well, that might help."
(He reaches for a random one.)
Romana: "But not that button!"
Doctor: "You didn't really think I'd activate the reverse bias, did you? Ha!"
Packard: "Are you alone?"
Romana: "Not while you're here."
Romana: "Where are you from?"
Lane: "Our ship. The warp drive packed up."
Rorvik: "Do you know what a Tharil looks like?"
Romana: "Would that be a sort of leonine mesomorph, with a lot of hair?"
Packard: "Yeah, that's him. Our navigator."
Rorvik: "Have you seen him?"
Romana: "Vision is subjective."
Doctor: (to an attacking Gundan robot) "You're a machine! I usually get on so well with machines."
Packard: "Close the door!"
(The door closes, in his face.)
Packard: "After I've gone through!"
K-9: "The accuracy of this unit has deteriorated below zero utility."
Adric: "You mean you're worse than useless?"
K-9: (calculates) "Affirmative."
(K-9's head droops sadly.)
Romana: "What are you actually up to?"
Rorvik: "Ah, more questions."
Romana: (unimpressed) "Not many answers."
Rorvik: "My team! Best drill you can get! Efficient as anything on the spaceways. Isn't that right, lads?"
Lads: (unenthusiastically) "Yeah."
Packard: "Are you sure she's a time-sensitive?"
Rorvik: "No."
Packard: "Oh. Because if she isn't, she'll be burnt to a frazzle."
Lane: (nods) "That's how you tell."
Gundan robot: "There were always slaves, from the beginning of time. The masters descended out of the air, riding the winds, and took men as their prize, growing powerful on their stolen labors and their looted skills."
Doctor: "Yes, well, look... Look, I'm sure this is frightfully interesting. Could you get back onto the bit about the gateway, please?"
Gundan robot: "The masters created an empire. Drained the life of the ordinary world."
Doctor: "Your ordinary world. I'm from N-Space."
Gundan robot: "They came from the gateway."
Doctor: "Ah-hah...!"
Gundan robot: "There are three physical gateways, and the three are one."
Doctor: "Well —"
Gundan robot: "The whole of this domain, the ancient arch, the mirrors."
Doctor: "The thing is, it's, it's not actually a physical gateway that I'm looking for."
Gundan robot: "All the gateways are one!"
Doctor: "...Ha! So it is here! The way out."
Rorvik: "Something we're all interested in, I think."
Doctor: "Oh, hello!" (to the robot) "You seem to have attracted a big audience."
Rorvik: "Let's have the rest of the recital."
Doctor: "Ah, ahem, well, he, erm, he, er, he, er, er, he doesn't seem to be too sure of his lines."
Rorvik: "Prompt him. Go on. More."
Doctor: (shrugs) " 'All the gateways are one'! 'All the gateways are one'? You see? I'm so sorry, he's completely run down. I'm the Doctor, by the way, and that's K-9, and we just happened —"
Romana: "K-9 says its dimensions are contracting."
Rorvik: "Well, that's the silliest thing I've heard all day. Who's gonna believe that?!"
Packard: "Well..."
Rorvik: "I thought you might!"
Doctor: "It would need a huge mass to disturb time and space to that extent. Even the TARDIS doesn't weigh that much. Neither does their ship."
Romana: "It might. The hull is made of dwarf star alloy."
Doctor: "What?!"
Romana: "Dwarf star alloy."
Adric: (aiming the MZ at Rorvik and his crew) "I don't know what these levers do, but it's pointing in your direction."
Adric: "We found it!"
Doctor: "Yes, well, that's one of the advantages of living in a rapidly shrinking micro-universe."
Romana: "What are the others?"
Doctor: "Other what?"
Romana: "Other advantages!"
Doctor: "Ah, well... It's difficult to say."
Aldo: "I'm not going near that thing. That's a dangerous weapon, that is."
Royce: "Nah, Rorvik knows what he's doing. He's seen us right up to now. Hasn't he?"
(They both consider, as Royce glances nervously at the gateway, then they lock eyes. Aldo jerks his head away from the gateway, and by tacit agreement, they both scarper.)
Romana: "He's mad! The backblast backlash'll bounce back and destroy everything!"
Romana: "I am not letting you go alone."
Doctor: "That's an order. It's about time you started accepting orders."
Romana: "It is long past time, but how do you think you're going to find the cable?"
Doctor: "I like that! I think you're improving."
Romana: (shrugs, flouncing off) "It's a matter of complete indifference to me."
Doctor: "Never mind the clipboard!"
Doctor: "I'll miss you! You were the noblest Romana of them all!"
Biroc: "Our people are enslaved on many planets."
Romana: "And you and I, K-9, are going to help Biroc free them. That's something we've got to do, don't you think?"
K-9: "Affirmative, Mistress."
Adric: "Will Romana be all right?"
Doctor: "All right? Heh. She'll be superb."
The E-Space trilogy has been a true imaginative highlight of not just season 18 but the series as a whole. (Between this and the Key to Time season, plus the entropy trilogy to come — the seeds of which are planted throughout these three stories — Tom Baker had excellent luck with long-form story arcs, didn't he?) Which makes it all the more lamentable that the E-Space saga is wrapped up so unsatisfyingly, with the TARDIS finally escaping E-Space because... well, it just does, okay??? At least Romana departs the TARDIS crew for a truly worthwhile cause, a situation that's vanishingly rare in any era of the series, while also allowing her to grow into the Doctor's equal, rather than just his assistant. And at least the script gives Lalla Ward lots of interesting scenes to play, even though the plot left a lot to be desired. I'll always have a deep soft spot in my heart for the glorious combination of Joyce's ambitious direction with the production team's cutting-edge effects. But no matter how impressive the visuals, and how important the message, it's hard to fall in love with a story that's basically one long runaround.
| posted: | 30 January 2024 |