DOCTOR WHO:  WARRIORS' GATE

commentary by Judy Harris

visit my home page at  http://judyharris.net/index.htm

or E-mail me at foosie@bestweb.net

index of all Tom Baker stories:  http://judyharris.net/whoindex.htm

#40: WARRIORS' GATE (4 Parts)
ORIGINALLY AIRED: 1/3/81 to 1/24/81
WRITTEN BY: Steve Gallagher
DIRECTED BY: Paul Joyce
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner 
SCRIPT EDITOR: Christopher H. Bidmead
	

This is the last story of the E-space trilogy and certainly the most confusing DOCTOR WHO ever aired. Part of the problem is certain scenes are flashbacks, but there's no hint which scenes they are; you must figure that out after the fact. And, as with THE LEISURE HIVE, part of the trouble is important plot points are contained in dialogue almost impossible to hear or understand.

The Color Separation Overlay worked particularly well in this story, since the backgrounds were meant to be very unreal to begin with. The void was represented by a totality of whiteness. The universe behind the mirror was depicted with black and white photographs of gardens, statues and a large, palatial estate (actually Powys Castle, Welshpool in Wales). Very striking and surreal.

Aboard the cargo hold of a bulk freighter, some lionlike humanoids called Tharils are in suspended animation. The countdown to jump the time lines reaches zero and the ship lifts off, but Biroc, the Tharil navigator, refuses to show where the ship is heading. Captain Rorvik connects a high tension cable to Biroc to elicit his cooperation. Instead, the ship heads for a time rift. Time slows down. Some controls on the ship explode. Suddenly Biroc visualizes the TARDIS.

The TARDIS is also caught up in the time rift; the controls are jammed. The Doctor has lost control. He, Romana, Adric and K9 are adrift in E-space.

On the freighter, the instrument readings show no space, no time. The ship has been damaged; the outer shell is torn, the electrics are falling apart, the warp drive is shot and communications are breaking up.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor admits he doesn't know what he's doing. He's just following intuition. "Ever heard of the I Ching?" he asks, "Random sampling to reflect the broad flow of the material universe." The holistic view. K9 explains to Adric the I Ching is an ancient Chinese book of philosophy casting doubt on the value of normal causalistic procedures. Instead it accesses by random sampling, such as tossing a coin.

On the freighter, Sagan and Kilroy take Biroc below; he breaks free and manages to get off the ship.

In the TARDIS, while Romana and the Doctor argue, Adric flips a coin and presses a button on the console. K9 tells the Doctor it was "nondeterminate activity" in accordance with the Doctor's own theory.

The TARDIS is jarred, tossing everyone to the floor. The doors open, letting in the time winds, which cause several small explosions on the console. The Doctor's hand accidentally is touched by the time winds. He wraps up the injury with his handkerchief. K9 is smack in the path of the time winds and starts to spew smoke.

Biroc enters the TARDIS, out of phase with its time frame. He sets the coordinates on the control panel. When the Time Lords ask him who he is, Biroc replies he's a shadow of his past and of their future. He warns of others who are coming--to believe nothing they say. He leaves.

The TARDIS coordinates are all locked off at zero. N-space is positive; E-space is negative; the TARDIS is at their intersection.

The Doctor leaves the TARDIS to find Biroc, while Adric and Romana try to repair K9. His memory wafers have crumbled but he's still functional though erratic. He reports 3 humanoids approaching the TARDIS.

Carrying a portable mass detector, Lane, Rorvik and Packard locate the TARDIS.

Passing through a white void, Biroc goes through a stone archway, incongruous in the middle of the nothingness. The Doctor follows. Inside is a cobweb-covered banquet table and some suits of armor. Biroc walks up to a mirror and passes through it.

The Doctor fusses with some utensils and straightens the helmet on one of the suits of armor. The figure comes to life and tries to smash him with an axe. The Doctor eludes the blow and hides in a line of armor, pretending to be a statue.

In the TARDIS, Romana and Adric have been watching their visitors on the scanner. Romana hopes they may have compatible memory wafers for K9. She opens the door to talk to them.

She tells them they're all stuck in the theoretical medium between the striations of the continuum. They ask her where her Tharil navigator is. She tells them she doesn't need a Tharil to navigate, saying, "I use a digitally modeled time cone isometry parallel bussed into the image translator."

Lane tells Romana their ship uses supralight speed with dampers. She thinks the problem is probably their toroidal time dilators. She signals Adric, watching on the scanner, to stay put, and goes off with the men from the freighter.

The Doctor has gone through a number of stout wooden pikes fending off the automaton. "You're a machine; I usually get on so well with machines. I don't suppose you happen to know the way out into N-space," the Doctor says.

In the TARDIS, K9 senses danger, so he and Adric set off. K9's circuits aren't working very well. His data has a probability of error of 87.7948%

In the banquet hall, another automaton comes to life. The Doctor maneuvers himself between them and they knock each other out. "They've cut each other dead," he puns.

Rorvik has decided Romana must be a time sensitive. He leads her to the bridge of his ship and announces to the crew she's the new navigator. Despite her protests, they push her into the navigator's chair and strap her into a harness.

In the void K9 tells Adric he detects mass via triangulation with his articulated sensors--located in his ears. Accuracy depends on the distance between K9's sensors. Adric removes one of K9's ear sensors and walks a little distance away, resolving the mass detection error. They set off again.

Romana doesn't work out as a navigator, so Rorvik orders some of the cargo revived. An image of the gateway Biroc and the Doctor went to appears on the freighter's navigation scanner. Rorvik decides to check it out.

In the banquet hall, the Doctor opens the head of one of the automatons and removes a memory wafer for K9. The automaton starts to talk, saying: "We are Gundan. We exist to kill. Slaves made the Gundan to kill the brutes who rule. The Gundan were sent where no slaves could go. We faced the time winds and we lived. They had only the Gateway to flee for safety." The Gundan runs down as K9 arrives.

Aldo and Royce get a Tharil from the cargo hold. Although Rorvik told them not to revive him, they decide to do it anyway, which is very painful for the Tharil--Lazlo.

At the banquet hall, the Doctor connects K9 to the Gundan and asks him to power it up. The Gundan continues its recitation: "There are three physical gateways, and the three are one: The whole of this domain, the ancient arch, the mirrors. All the gateways are one."

Rorvik and his crew arrive in time to hear this and pull guns on the Doctor.

The Gundan continues, "Here a great empire once stood, ruling all known space. For all their skills, the slaves could not approach the Gateway in their own persons. But once they learned its secret, we were built, the Gundan robots, to wage war on them."

Just as the Gundan is about to reveal the secret of the Gateway, his fellow robot chops off his head, gets up and walks through the mirror.

The Doctor grabs K9 and hides in the upper level above the banquet hall. Rorvik's men give chase and capture him. They back him into the mirror and the Doctor disappears through it.

Lazlo heads toward Romana, who is still strapped to the navigator's chair. She screams when she sees him; he's been burned by the revival process, but he tries to free her from her chair. Aldo and Royce come looking for him, so Romana tells him to hide.

On the other side of the mirror Biroc appears and tells the Doctor he got through the mirror because the time winds touched his hand, which is now healed. Biroc says when the time is right, K9 will be able to pass through as well. Biroc explains the Doctor's hand is living matter and will remain healed when he returns to the other side of the mirror; but K9 can only be revived on this side of the mirror, where he must stay.

For the Tharils and those with them, the Gateway opens onto a whole universe. Biroc disappears. "It's like talking to a Cheshire cat," the Doctor remarks.

Rorvik sends Packard, Lane and K9 back to the ship for the M Zed, a powerful energy weapon. The readings on the portable mass detector indicate it took a shorter distance to return to the ship than it did to get to the Gateway. K9 calls this a mass instability anomaly, but no one pays any attention to him. "Microcosm universe system unbalanced and contracting," K9 warns.

The Doctor sets off after Biroc through a black and white world, crossing the striations of the time lines.

Adric, somehow separated from K9, has been tossing coins to decide which direction to take. Now he sneaks into the freighter and hides beneath a blanket which covers the M Zed. Romana frees herself and hides under this blanket as well.

Aldo and Royce carry the M Zed outside. Romana and Adric follow Lane to a hole in the outer skin of the ship. Romana notes the warp motors are three times what is needed for a ship of this size. She finds a piece of the hull, which is extremely heavy. It's made of dwarf star alloy, whose molecules are compacted under enormous gravitational forces.

K9 arrives, still disturbed about the dimensional contraction of the microcosmic system. He warns of imminent danger of mathematical vanishing due to mass conversion anomaly. Adric and Romana ignore him.

Lane and Packard recapture Romana. Inside the ship, Lazlo frees her and they walk through the hull of the ship, out into the void and arrive at the Gateway.

On the other side of the mirror, a female Tharil leads the Doctor into a banquet room. It is identical to the one he first saw, but there are no cobwebs and the table is full of Tharils being served by a human slave.

The M Zed arrives at the Gateway. As Rorvik speaks to his crew, Lazlo and Romana go through the mirror. On the other side, Lazlo's burns are healed.

At the banquet table, one of the Tharils slaps the human maid. The Doctor helps her up. The Tharils are the masters--the enslavers the Gundan spoke of. Suddenly the Gundan dash in and smash the table. Instantly the table is covered with cobwebs again and the Doctor and Romana are on the other side of the mirror, where Rorvik and his men hold guns on them.

The Doctor tells Rorvik there's no way out through the mirror, but Rorvik doesn't believe him.

K9 enters and tells the Doctor of the mass conversion anomaly--dimensional contraction of the microcosmic system; mathematical vanishing is imminent.

Romana explains space and time are contracting. The Doctor says it would need a huge mass to disturb time and space to that extent. Romana tells him the hull of the freighter is made of dwarf star alloy. The Doctor realizes Rorvik and his crew are slavers, trading in time sensitives. Dwarf star alloy is the only material that will hold them.

In the mirror the Doctor sees Biroc, who counsels the Doctor to do nothing. Just as Rorvik is about to shoot the Doctor, Adric points the M Zed at him, allowing the Doctor, Romana, K9 and himself to get away. They return to the TARDIS very quickly. "One of the advantages of living in a rapidly shrinking microuniverse," the Doctor notes.

Rorvik tries the M Zed on the mirror but it doesn't work. He decides to try a back blast from the ship's oversized engines--to use the jets to try to smash through the mirror. The Doctor knows this will just bounce back, destroy everything and accelerate the collapse of space.

Rorvik's ship starts to move as he repositions it so the engines point at the Gateway. Its mass attraction shakes the entire Gateway, including the TARDIS.

Romana tells the Doctor the main cable insulation in Rorvik's ship is exposed. They might be able to short out the power. The Doctor tells Romana if he's not back in 13 1/2 minutes, dematerialize. Romana insists on going with him.

Packard activates the backblast. Rorvik orders all the Tharils revived. Biroc and Lazlo sneak back on the freighter.

The Doctor and Romana go to short out the cables. Romana tells the Doctor a clipboard marks the spot, but Rorvik is waiting for the Doctor and kicks him off the ladder. He tries to strangle the Doctor with his own scarf.

Romana comes to his aid, and the Doctor gives her Biroc's manacles to short the cables, draining the main power line by earthing it to the ladder. She succeeds, but Rorvik just removes it.

Suddenly Biroc stands next to the Doctor and again advises him to do nothing. Romana agrees. Biroc, Romana and the Doctor touch hands and disappear. Lazlo enters the cargo hold and electrocutes Sagan. He wakes the other Tharils.

The Doctor, Romana and Biroc return to the TARDIS, but Romana refuses to enter. The Tharils need a Time Lord and Romana doesn't want to return to Gallifrey. The Doctor gives K9 to Romana. "I'll miss you," he says, "You were the noblest Romana of them all," a paraphrase of Shakespeare and a slighting reference to Mary Tamm. The Doctor closes the TARDIS door.

Biroc, Romana and K9 go through the mirror. The TARDIS dematerializes. The backblast blows up Rorvik's ship, but the Tharils and the Gateway are unharmed.

Behind the mirror, a revived K9 tells Romana he contains all the necessary schedules to duplicate the TARDIS. Biroc will help them use the Gateway to travel anywhere in E-space and Romana can give the Tharils time technology. Romana and K9 will help Biroc free the Tharils still enslaved on many planets.

The captive Tharils leave the destroyed freighter and pass through the Gateway.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor can get nothing on the scanner. "If the E-space image translator doesn't work, I'm hoping we're in N-space," the Doctor says, but he's not sure; "One good solid hope's worth a carload of certainties."

This was Lalla Ward's last show. Shortly after she left, she and Tom Baker were married on December 13, 1980. They had been dating all during her time as Romana and apparently Tom Baker was instrumental in getting her the role in the first place. Her full name is the Honorable Lady Sarah Ward; she's the daughter of Viscount and Lady Bangor. Prior to DOCTOR WHO, she appeared in VAMPIRE CIRCUS (1972), ROSEBUD (1975), THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER (1978, known in the United States as CROSSED SWORDS); and on TV in THE DUCHESS OF DUKE STREET. She and Tom Baker were married for 16 months and then divorced. She has subsequently illustrated two books, ASTROLOGY FOR DOGS and ASTROLOGY FOR CATS.

K9 was spun off in a pilot called K9 AND COMPANY (1981), which costarred Lis Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. It aired in Britain but never developed into a series. K9 returned in 1983 for the 20th anniversary story THE FIVE DOCTORS.

Tom Baker found the K9 prop difficult to act with, but is full of praise for John Leeson's subtlety and powers as a sharp observer. Baker called Leeson an unsung hero who contributed enormously to the show. Baker was especially grateful for Leeson's contributions during rehearsal, when he would get down on his hands and knees to give the other performers something to react to.  From Tom Baker's autobiography, WHO ON EARTH IS TOM BAKER:  " During the run of the series I had to be a bit tactful on the subject of K9.  Graham Williams knew that I didn't like it but we glossed over our hatreds by simply ignoring them.  It was a bit like the days of my religious mania.  If we didn't mention a problem then it didn't exist.  It was no use trying to tell our producer that John Leeson's performance in rehearsal was sublime, poor Graham couldn't see things like that, he was hopelessly earthbound.  I have read that people say he crawled about the floor with enthusiasm -- John Leeson, that is, not the producer -- but that is not true.  The mischievous quality and the affection in John's voice was reflected in his performance at the North Acton rehearsal rooms.  Only the actors can know that.  When I gave K9 an order or praised him for being clever, we used to cut to this boring, expressionless, little robot and nothing could nourish the viewers.  Some people said that the creation of it was to do with the commercial arm of the BBC looking for something to exploit.  I can't believe that.  But in my opinion the dog was a disaster compared to what John Leeson could have done.  The wonderful thing about John Leeson's performance was that he helped the scenes to move swiftly and often very wittily.  He would scamper about, stand on his back legs and smile and was just so expressive that we were captivated.  But our producer was already committed to the tin dog that I disliked so much.

"Every shot was the same because the dog was on the floor. Two shots had to be realized by me kneeling down.  If there happened to be a matchstick on the ground, K9 stopped abruptly.  John used to scamper about and be terribly concerned with the tensions of the tale.  Sometimes we could hardly contain our love for him.  I wanted to do scenes where I gave him biscuits for being clever and which allowed the viewer to see that K9 used to put the biscuits back for me to have later.  This meant that if he thought that I had been clever then he could give me a biscuit."  Leeson returned to the show during it's 25th anniversary year to provide a Dalek voice in the McCoy story REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS.

David Weston, who plays Biroc, played Nicholas in the Hartnell story THE MASSACRE.