Warriors’ Gate

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Quest of the Engineer

That was quite possibly, one of the strangest 1 hour 40 minutes of my life. I genuinely don't even know what to put in this review. I was tempted to just put "wtf" and leave it at that, as that entirely sums up my thoughts on this episode.

We say goodbye to Romana and K9. I like how sudden it was done. I'll definitely miss them as they're probably one of my favourite TARDIS teams, though I say that about every TARDIS team.

You either love this story, or you hate it. There is no inbetween. Personally, I love it, but I find it difficult to find Doctor Who that I hate.

Next Story: The Keeper of Traken

As The 4th Doctor is stuck in e-space, we teeter on the end of his era in this fascinating story.

There is a strong moral throughout this story that The Doctor presents to the two sides about the need to treat any creature with the power of reason with respect and not as an opportunity for free labour.

The timey-wimey aspect is exciting, flipping between different realms, states and times where the forties of our lion looking friends change and fade. The intersection between e-space and n-space reminds me of Big Finish’s Scherzo, this is a good thing. The direction, CSO and editing is wonderful here, it’s a refreshingly slick production. The lion looking alien being out of phase when he enters the TARDIS is extremely trippy - very impactful.

The only way The Doctor and his human enemies will escape e-space is to listen to his reasoning. He is a great negotiator. Romana’s decision to stay behind with K-9 “to be true to herself” is far less satisfying. Whilst K-9 has a motive, being unable now to work beyond the mirror, Romana just does it to help a group of people she’s spent very little time connecting with. From what I’ve seen there is little to love about e-space, so it’s an odd place to call home, even if they do have a mission.

I will miss Lalla Ward - she has been exceptional and played perfectly against Tom Baker. For K-9 however, this does feel like the right time to depart.