Warriors' Gate
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''Warriors' Gate'' is the fifth serial of the 18th season of the British
science fiction television Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s, during what is called the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary ...
series ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
''. It was written by
Stephen Gallagher Stephen Gallagher (born 13 October 1954) is an English screenwriter and novelist. Gallagher was born in Salford, Greater Manchester. Career Gallagher has written novels and television scripts, including for the BBC television series '' Docto ...
and was first broadcast in four weekly parts on
BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
from 3 to 24 January 1981. The serial is set at an intersection between the universe of E-Space and the home universe of the alien time traveller the
Fourth Doctor The Fourth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He is portrayed by Tom Baker. Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time Lord from the ...
(
Tom Baker Thomas Stewart Baker (born 20 January 1934) is an English actor and writer. He is well known for his portrayal of the Fourth Doctor, fourth incarnation of The Doctor (Doctor Who), the Doctor in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Wh ...
). In the serial, the Doctor and his travelling companion Romana (
Lalla Ward Sarah Jill "Lalla" Ward (born 28 June 1951) is an English actress, voice artist and author. She is best known for playing the role of Romana II in the BBC television series ''Doctor Who'' from 1979 to 1981. Career Early career Ward's stage na ...
) seek to free the time-sensitive Tharils from a group of slavers led by Captain Rorvik (
Clifford Rose John Clifford Rose (24 October 1929 – 6 November 2021) was a British actor. Life and career Rose was born in Herefordshire. He was educated at the King's School, Worcester, and King's College London, before appearing in rep and began his ass ...
). ''Warriors' Gate'' is the last of three loosely connected serials set in E-Space. It is the last serial to feature Ward as Romana and the last regular appearance of
John Leeson John Francis Christopher Ducker (born 16 March 1943), known professionally as John Leeson, is an English actor, voice artist and freelance wine educator. He is known for portraying Bungle in ''Rainbow'' and voicing K9 in ''Doctor Who'' and s ...
as the voice of K9.


Plot

Inside the
TARDIS The TARDIS (; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension In Space") is a fictional hybrid of the time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' and its various spin-offs. Its exterior ap ...
, the
Fourth Doctor The Fourth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He is portrayed by Tom Baker. Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time Lord from the ...
, Romana,
Adric Adric is a fictional character played by Matthew Waterhouse in the long-running British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He was a young native of the planet Alzarius, which exists in the parallel universe of E-Space. A compan ...
, and K9, while travelling between E-Space and the normal universe (N-Space), become trapped in a white null space between the universes. Elsewhere in the void, a slave vessel, run by Captain Rorvik, has also become trapped. It uses members of the leonine Tharil race as their navigators. On becoming stuck, the current navigator, Biroc, escapes the ship and makes his way to the TARDIS on the winds of time. Biroc warns the TARDIS crew of Rorvik's treachery before disappearing. K9's memory wafers are shredded by the winds of time, leaving him functional but lacking long-term memories. The Doctor leaves on his own to explore the null space. He encounters some robots, called Gundans. Meanwhile, Rorvik and his crew have discovered the TARDIS. Romana leaves to talk to them. Rorvik, believing Romana to be time-sensitive like the Tharils, dupes her into returning to their ship to examine the engines. When Romana does not return, Adric and K9 leave to recover her, but get separated; Adric eventually makes it to the ship and hides aboard, while K9 reunites with the Doctor and aids in repairing the Gundan, after which he learns from it that they were built by slaves and used to overthrow their masters in a violent battle. The Doctor's work is disrupted when Rorvik and several of his men arrive. During a stand-off between the crew and the Doctor, another Gundan activates and walks through the seemingly-solid mirror. Rorvik demands an explanation from the Doctor, revealing he has Romana captive, but the Doctor's only response is to walk through the mirror himself. Aboard the slaver ship, Romana is freed by another Tharil named Lazlo, and she hides in the hull. She encounters Adric; the two work out that the ship is made from an incredibly dense
dwarf star A dwarf star is a star of relatively small size and low luminosity. Most main sequence stars are dwarf stars. The meaning of the word "dwarf" was later extended to some star-sized objects that are not stars, and compact stellar remnants which ar ...
alloy that can contain the Tharils. K9 arrives, and informs the two of dimensional instability in the null space, which they attribute to the alloy, causing the space to collapse in on itself. Romana rejoins Lazlo, and takes her to the gateway and through the mirror, while Adric remains aboard the ship. On the other side of the mirror, the Doctor and Romana are reunited with Biroc in a stable, time-locked universe. A repentant Biroc explains they were the slave masters, travelling on the winds of time in order to ravage other planets and subjugate their populations as slaves until the Gundan revolt. The Doctor and Romana are returned to the null space, and are immediately captured by Rorvik. Rorvik's crew realise that the null space is shrinking as the distances between the gateway, the TARDIS, and slaver ship continue to decrease. Rorvik has ordered the crew to try to blast through the mirrors in gateway, believing it to be the way out, but the mirrors resist all attacks. With the gateway and ship in visible distance of each other, Rorvik resorts to one last attempt to break the mirrors by using the exhaust of the ship's engines against them. While the Doctor warns that this action will be as doomed as the previous ones, Romana regroups with Lazlo and Adric, and together they free the remaining Tharils on the slaver ship. The TARDIS crew flee to the TARDIS as Rorvik initiates his plan—the blast from the engines is reflected by the mirrors back onto the ship, destroying it and its crew. As the saved Tharils pass through the mirror, Romana announces that she will be staying with them, having become empathetic to their plight and not wanting to return to Gallifrey. The Doctor gives her K9, as passing through the mirror will restore his memory but he will be unable to return. The Tharils, in exchange, provide the Doctor with information on how to leave the void back to N-Space.


Production

Originally, the fifth story of season 18 was ''Sealed Orders'' by novelist Christopher Priest before being abandoned.
Stephen Gallagher Stephen Gallagher (born 13 October 1954) is an English screenwriter and novelist. Gallagher was born in Salford, Greater Manchester. Career Gallagher has written novels and television scripts, including for the BBC television series '' Docto ...
, who had written a number of radio plays, was called upon for a replacement, resulting in ''Warriors' Gate''. Commissioned in March 1980, this was Gallagher's first script for ''Doctor Who'' and had the working title ''Dream Time''. The story was influenced by a radio serial he had done in 1979 called "The Babylon Run" as well as the films of
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...
, such as '' Orphée'' (1950), in which mirrors provide a gateway into another world.''Warriors' Gate'' BBC DVD liner notes, 2009 On completion in June, script editor
Christopher H. Bidmead Christopher Hamilton Bidmead (born 18 January 1941) is a British writer and journalist. Bidmead trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), later playing several roles on stage, television and radio. By the early 1970s h ...
found the scripts to be overlong, as well as needing more work to keep them in line with other stories in the series. Therefore, he and director Paul Joyce re-worked the story significantly, including re-writing much of the dialogue. Originally, the script was much more comedic, with Rorvik's crew being given a lot of humorous dialogue, two of the workers being played as a double-act. Executive producer
Barry Letts Barry Leopold Letts (26 March 1925 – 9 October 2009) was an English actor, television director, writer and producer, best known for being the producer of '' Doctor Who'' from 1969 to 1974. Born in Leicester, he worked as an actor in theatre ...
in particular was against this, saying that it was turning the show into pantomime and stated that the crewmen must be played for real. As many of these lines were cut from the script, the few remaining "comedy" lines were to be played straight as well. The scripts were finalised in late August 1980, but were then criticised by Letts, who found them rather confusing. By this time however, there was no more time to rework them further as Bidmead needed to begin work on the following story. Producer
John Nathan-Turner John Nathan-Turner (''né'' Turner; 12 August 1947 – 1 May 2002) was an English television producer. He was the ninth producer of the long-running BBC science fiction series ''Doctor Who''. He was also the final producer of the series' firs ...
too found the story complicated but had not got involved with the story during its scripting stages. Bidmead met with Gallagher with the revised scripts, the latter being none too happy with the extensive changes. ''Warriors' Gate'' was significant in that it was the last story to feature companion Romana played by
Lalla Ward Sarah Jill "Lalla" Ward (born 28 June 1951) is an English actress, voice artist and author. She is best known for playing the role of Romana II in the BBC television series ''Doctor Who'' from 1979 to 1981. Career Early career Ward's stage na ...
as well as the last regular appearance of
John Leeson John Francis Christopher Ducker (born 16 March 1943), known professionally as John Leeson, is an English actor, voice artist and freelance wine educator. He is known for portraying Bungle in ''Rainbow'' and voicing K9 in ''Doctor Who'' and s ...
as long-running companion K9. Ward had requested to leave earlier, having been offered a part in another series, but Nathan-Turner kept her to her contract. It was also during the making of this serial that
Tom Baker Thomas Stewart Baker (born 20 January 1934) is an English actor and writer. He is well known for his portrayal of the Fourth Doctor, fourth incarnation of The Doctor (Doctor Who), the Doctor in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Wh ...
let it be known that he would leave at the end of the series. Ward and Baker were in a relationship and had been for some time, but by now things were turning acrimonious between the two, with many production personnel believing that they were on the point of splitting-up. It was with much surprise when they learned that just a few weeks later they had married. Leeson, who left the series at the end of Season 16, returned for Season 18 on the understanding that K9 would be written out toward the end of the season. Joyce was keen to push the limits of the series by directing the serial like a film as he considered some of the earlier productions to be quite bland and workmanlike."The Dreaming", DVD Special documentary, 2009 This approach however caused problems early on with significant delays in order to achieve various shots such as the pan through the spaceship in the opening sequence. This included shooting the camera upwards where the gallery lights could be seen - known as "shooting off set", something which is forbidden by the BBC. Problems such as this increased as time began to run short and he and producer Nathan-Turner clashed frequently and even executive producer Letts had to step in to advise Joyce. With letters being written to higher executives complaining of Joyce's style of work (also seen as inexperience), Joyce was asked to leave part way through production. His duties were taken up by assistant
Graeme Harper Graeme Harper (born 11 March 1945) is a British television director. He is best known for his work on the science-fiction series ''Doctor Who'', for which he is the only person to have directed episodes of both the original run (1963–89) and ...
, who directed a number of scenes before finally Joyce was re-instated. Setting up of certain shots that Joyce had envisaged proved to take up too much time and shooting over-ran on a number of days. In the end, the serial was completed and was indeed a departure in terms of style over the norm and was complimented by Bidmead, but Joyce was never to work on ''Doctor Who'' again. Background photographs utilised in many sequences were taken at
Powis Castle Powis Castle ( cy, Castell Powys) is a British medieval castle, fortress and grand country house near Welshpool, in Powys. The seat of the Herbert family, Earls of Powis, the castle is known for its formal gardens and for its interiors, the fo ...
, Welshpool.


Commercial releases


In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by
Stephen Gallagher Stephen Gallagher (born 13 October 1954) is an English screenwriter and novelist. Gallagher was born in Salford, Greater Manchester. Career Gallagher has written novels and television scripts, including for the BBC television series '' Docto ...
under the
pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
"John Lydecker", was published by
Target Books Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. The imprint was established as a children's imprint to complement the adult Tandem imprint, and became wel ...
in April 1982. It and
Terminus Terminus may refer to: * Bus terminus, a bus station serving as an end destination * Terminal train station or terminus, a railway station serving as an end destination Geography *Terminus, the unofficial original name of Atlanta, Georgia, United ...
(Gallagher's other novelisation of his own script under the John Lydecker byline) are the only two Target novels that consist of continuous prose with no chapters. The novelisation contains many elements abandoned during the story's production, including the slaver's opening pursuit and damage at the hands of an Antonine Killer craft.


Home media

''Warriors' Gate'' was released on VHS as part of "The E-Space Trilogy" boxed set in November 1997. It was released on DVD in January 2009, again in a boxed set entitled "The E-Space Trilogy". This serial was also released as part of the
Doctor Who DVD Files This is a list of ''Doctor Who'' serials and episodes that have been released on DVD and Blu-ray. DVD Release Most ''Doctor Who'' DVDs have been released first in the United Kingdom with Region 2, and released later in Australia and Ne ...
(issue 87) in May 2012.


References


External links

*


Target novelisation

*
On Target – ''Doctor Who and Warriors' Gate''
{{K9 stories, selected=Television Doctor Who serials novelised by Stephen Gallagher Fourth Doctor serials 1981 British television episodes