Warriors' Gate

The TARDIS has drifted farther into E-Space to where all the co-ordinates read zero. With E-Space reading negative co-ordinates, and N-Space being positive, the Doctor and Romana believe that they are in the region where both universes intersect and the way out must be nearby. The white void outside the ship in an opaque nothing, but the travellers meet a lion-like man named Biroc who is running from his captors, slavers who are also marooned in E-Space. The slavers use Biroc and his people, the Tharils, to navigate their ship as the creatures are time sensitives, and they are desperate to escape, even desperate enough to strap Romana into their machinery and use her in place of one of the Tharils. The Doctor discovers the physical Gateway, which is guarded by the Gundan robots, and in turn discovers the secret of the Tharils and how they came to be slaves.

I remember times as a younger person when I would randomly come across something that looks to be confusing, overly complicated, and boring. At first glance, Warriors Gate seems to be just that, and I remember feeling somewhat drained after watching it. People can really only take so much bad CSO white void screens and cryptic lion people, but then throw in a severely damaged and babbling K9 and at first it can become intolerable. But then, maybe when you get older, you realize, as I did, that this story is beautifully crafted. The whole concept of the intersection between universes and the way it is falling apart is fantastic, the Tharils realized quite well on screen, the Gundan robots incredibly creepy, and the crew of Rorvik's space ship a real bunch of thugs, even those two clods playing cards below decks while counting their union dues. I think the best bit was the flashback sequence at the climax of episode three, with the Gundans raiding the Tharil banquet hall, and then the sudden flash forward back to real time. The fake axe hitting the table could have been done better though. Don't tell me it wasn't fake; you saw how it bounced when it was dropped on Tom Baker's back in episode two.

Warriors' Gate sees the end of the "E-Space trilogy" with the TARDIS going back to N-Space, but with a lighter crew than before. Romana doesn't want to go back to N-Space and spend the rest of her life on Gallifrey, and being with the Doctor has opened her eyes to the plight outside its bounds. Romana joins with Biroc to help free his people, leaving the Doctor in what has to be one of the most casual departures ever in the show, except maybe for when Dodo blew the Doctor off at the end of The War Machines back in 1967. Both being Time Lords, maybe there's no point in getting attached as their lives are so long they might run into each other again. But off Romana goes, and she takes K9 with her as he can only function properly in E-Space now due to being blasted by the Time Winds. The Doctor and Adric leave, the Doctor stating that Romana will be incredible.

NEXT EPISODE : THE KEEPER OF TRAKEN