18x5. Warrior's Gate
Writer: Steve Gallagher
Director: Paul Joyce
Script Editor: Christopher Bidmead
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Synopsis: The TARDIS arrives in
a whitish void that registers "zero coordinates," indicating the
intersection between E-space and N-space, where an interstellar
freighter is also trapped. The freighter, commanded by a man named
Rorvik, relies upon the enslaved, time-sensitive "Tharils" to navigate
properly. The time travelers soon encounter Biroc, an escaped Tharil
who appears to have seen the future of both the TARDIS travelers and
the freighter crew, as the Doctor learns of the Tharils' own
imperialist past. Eventually the void collapses in on itself,
destroying the freighter as the Tharils escape, with Romana and K-9
staying behind to help them free their kin on other worlds.
Review: "Warrior's Gate" is certainly one of the more unique entries in the Doctor Who canon,
and it can also be rather baffling at first glance. Unlike most
serials, which simply use time travel as a device to place the Doctor
and his companions into an otherwise conventional sci-fi situation,
"Warrior's Gate" revolves almost entirely around the characters'
attempts to deal with spacetime anomalies, and even the Doctor is a bit
in over his head. The only character who truly seems to understand
what's happening is Biroc, and he tends to respond to the Doctor's
queries in an elliptical manner that often leaves both the Doctor and
the audience wondering what exactly he means.
I'm
still not sure I quite understand the mechanics of the "gateway," with
its mysterious mirror that serves as a sort of portal for the Tharils,
or what it means that the Tharils were able to establish power by
navigating the "time winds." But the script plays all this as an
effective mystery by maintaining a certain internal coherence. We
understand broadly that the Tharils are conquerors turned slaves who
have time-traveling abilities of their own, and we understand that
Biroc, as a time-sensitive, may already know how this situation is
going to play out and perhaps even experiences time in a non-linear
manner. Can I explain exactly *how* he's able to show the
Doctor the Tharils' past on the other side of the mirror, or why he can
apparently communicate with the Doctor through the mirror without
Rorvik's crew noticing? Do I understand what exactly is meant by the
term "riders on the winds of time"? No, I can't, and no, I don't - but
the script and the direction effectively present this in a somewhat
surreal, poetic style, so that it never just seems like a set of
arbitrary contrivances or empty wordplay. Again, this is a story that
is
actually about time travel,
and in a way it's actually rather appropriate that we can't always
understand the interactions of characters whose understanding of space
and time is, after all, beyond human comprehension.
This occurs
against the backdrop of some interesting exchanges among the TARDIS
crew in Episode 1, as the Doctor begins to wonder if random, unplanned
action might get them out of E-Space and prompts a conversation between
Adric and K-9 about the I Ching,
while Romana voices skepticism of his seemingly irrational notions. As
it turns out, what is required of them is neither rational nor
irrational action, but no action.
When the Doctor asks Biroc what to do to escape E-Space, Biroc advises
him to do nothing at all and further states that "it is done," another
hint that he may be capable of non-linear perception. "Warrior's Gate"
is the rare Doctor Who serial
in which the Doctor is really in over his head and cannot gain control
over the situation, perhaps because the Tharils are free of the
constraints of time to an even greater extent than the Time
Lords. Of course, this also raises the issue of whether free will
exists in a universe with time travel, since knowledge of the future
could arguably preclude changing it. *Could* the Doctor have
disregarded Biroc and persisted in his attempts to stop Rorvik from
trying to blast through the gateway? It's not entirely clear,
but I suppose Doctor Who has
implicitly shrugged off this question from the very beginning, so I
can't be too surprised that "Warrior's Gate" doesn't really try to
answer it.
The writing of the guest characters is a notch above
average in "Warrior's Gate." While they certainly qualify as villains
for their treatment of the Tharils, who experience considerable pain
and potentially even death when forced to help them navigate spacetime,
they spend most of their time engaged in fairly mundane tasks and
interactions, which actually carries a slightly disturbing implication.
These aren't screaming megalomaniacs or mad geniuses, but mostly
average people who at some point allowed themselves to objectify the
Tharils and other living beings who might be of use to them (they are
also very callous towards Romana). Many of their scenes are actually
played for humor: Packard's increasing exasperation with the verbose
and malfunctioning K-9 makes for a good running gag, and Aldo and Royce
are amusing as the two laziest members of the crew who seem wearily
resigned to whatever the fate of the freighter may be. Even Rorvik,
while certainly the nastiest of the bunch, is not interested in power
per se so much as he is simply impatient with the situation and with
his crew's seeming listlessness and apathy. When he eventually does
have an "over-the-top" moment at the end, his proclamation is not of
the "It's mine, all mine!" variety, but rather, "I'm finally getting
something done!" - a portrait of the self-satisfied capitalist taken to
absurd extremes. It is somewhat surprising, then, that none of them
ever manage to realize that what they are doing to the Tharils is wrong
- we expect at least one or two of them to have a moment of redemption,
but instead they all continue down the path of banal, unthinking
selfishness, and it seems that they are all killed when the freighter
explodes.
This still seems like an excessive punishment, at
least for the less actively ruthless among them, and it's perhaps here
that the script could have been a bit clearer. The Doctor and Romana
are both unwilling to just abandon the situation and escape E-Space as
Adric suggests at one point, with Romana ruling it out as long as the
Tharils remain trapped on the freighter. They don't express concern
about the crew per se, so does that mean they see it as just
comeuppance (which would be unusually unforgiving by their standards)?
Or are they mostly just convinced by Biroc that they can't change the
outcome anyway? Still, in general this is a solid serial for the leads,
and while Romana's departure is a bit abrupt, it makes sense given that
she's determined not to go back to Gallifrey and has experienced
first-hand some of what the Tharils have endured since their
enslavement. The Doctor's praise of her as "the noblest Romana of them
all" comes off a little odd given that he's only known two of her
incarnations, but still, I'd say she earned the title, even if the more
cynical first incarnation was arguably more interesting at times. It's
clear that the Doctor does indeed think highly of the Time Lady whose
presence he at first resisted; when Adric asks if he thinks she'll be
all right in E-Space, he responds, "She'll be superb!" K-9, also making
his final appearance, manages to be both amusing and integral to the
plot. Rather than simply breaking down, as is often the case when he
malfunctions, he spends much of the serial seemingly unable to shut up,
and yet amidst his ramblings he does detect and point out the imminent
collapse of the void.
Though I liked both "Full Circle" and
"State of Decay," both were stories that could easily have taken place
without the E-Space premise. "Warrior's Gate," with its skillful blend
of solid character writing, unusual style, and a plot centered around
spacetime anomalies, is the serial that really marks out the E-Space
Trilogy as a distinct chapter of Doctor Who. While I would not want every serial
to be as oblique and mysterious as this one, it is nevertheless a
successful attempt to explore some of the more unusual aspects of the
series' fictional universe.
Rating: ***1/2 (out of four)
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