Doctor Who (TV Series) Warriors' Gate: Part Four (1981) User Reviews

Goodbye K-9 and Romana 2

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 14 August 2015]

Warrior's Gate became more deep and intricate as it went on, each part has been very satisfying, there were big hopes for it's concluding part.

The Doctor and Romana have jumped across streams and are now in the hands of Rorvik and his guards. They demand to know the route of escape, K-9's ramblings indicate the Space is contracting, and they are in mortal danger. The Tharil admit they abused their power and Biroc engineers the Doctor and co's release. They escape and reach the TARDIS, but refuse to take off as there are prisoners on board Rorvik's ship, he tries to take off, but the Doctor fears if he does it will cause collapse of the area. The guards attempt to resuscitate all of the remaining Tharil in an attempt to acquire a time sensitive navigator to take off and smash force his way through the mirrors. Romana and K-9 decide to stay to help the Tharils free their kind from other planets, Rorvik's ship explodes and the Doctor escapes with Adric back into N-Space.

Rorvik calls Adric a 'Poisonous Child' haha, how right he was, sadly Matthew again, wasn't great. Clifford Rose continued to impress as a growingly insane Rorvik. The music was a little too much and a bit intrusive.

Romana's departure was a little flat, The Doctor would have questions to answer about her whereabouts in years to come.

Episode 4 gets an 8/10, and the Serial as a whole gets 8/10, it aimed very high, and in part achieved what it set out to, it's a little over complicated in parts.

S18: Warriors' Gate: Odd serial but interesting in content, and the uneven but serious tone works quite well

[bob the moo · 9 March 2019]

The final serial in E Space concludes with an engagingly odd story which has an uneven tone, interesting ideas played straight, and comedy supporting bits. It shouldn't really work at all well, but yet I enjoyed it for what it did, even if the way it which it did it wasn't always spot on. The plot sees the TARDIS and crew trapped in white space between universes - a space which contains a race of time sensitive Tharils. This race once were masters with the universe at their command until their robot army rebelled. Now the remaining ones live in a time-locked universe, but are being hunted by a ship using them for time travel.

In the unfolding of the story we see the serial use stark white space really well, have well designed creatures, and have a serious tone which suits the slipping around in time. Perhaps it is not perfect, but I liked the universes and timewinds - not least because it was a nice change from the current seasons where such things would be done with banter and winks. There is comedy here though, but it fits in with the serious tone and is relief more than 'wacky' overplayed humor. I read after watching that the makers stripped a lot of the comedy out, and the lines that got left were played straight - which to me made them funnier thanks to this delivery.

The cast in support are good in the way that they play it straight. Sometimes it gives the show a nicely sinister tone, other times it makes it funnier as I said. Baker is on good form, as is Ward. This turned out to be Ward's final serial as companion, and as with some previous exits, this one felt quite abrupt. She deals with it well, but the nature of the exit could have been more connected to actions in previous episodes. I guess this leaves Waterhouse as the companion though - and his performance here offers no reason to be excited by that news.

All in all, Warrior's Gate is an odd serial in terms of tone, but it has interesting ideas and content, and the serious tone works pretty well - even when it isn't trying to be serious.

The Lion's Sting...

[Xstal · 5/10 · 19 July 2022]

All style over substance, but it ends with a fact, as Romana bows out, Acrid can't act, but change can be good, there's nothing to fear, by the end of the season, the vet will appear.