TV Review: Doctor Who: Warriors' Gate (1980)

Doctor Who: Warriors' Gate (1980) written by Steve Gallagher and directed by Paul Joyce

Fourth Doctor Tom Baker comes to the border between E-space (where he's been trapped for several stories) and N-space (where he came from). The area is a white void that is populated with another ship trying to return to N-space and the domain of the Tharils, time-sensitive humanoids with lionish faces. The Tharils are being used as navigators by the crew of the other ship, though basically the Tharil navigator is tortured to get the ship going the right way. And they have a dozen or so Tharils to be sold to other space travelers if they can make it back to N-space. So they are basically slave traders. Can the Doctor both free the Tharils and get back to his own universe?

The story is a bit convoluted and not terribly interesting. The Tharils are sympathetic and have some background, but not enough to give a full picture of them. Companion Romana (Lalla Ward) gets some action in her final episode. Her departure is a bit abrupt even though it had been hinted at during the previous stories. New companion Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) slowly becomes more significant and more active in the story. The slavers are fairly generic space baddies and not at all interesting, other than being mildly bureaucratic.

This is a fairly mediocre Doctor Who story, notable mostly for the departure of Romana and K-9.

Mildly recommended.