(544) Warriors Gate - Episode 3

After wondering what was going to happen to Romana at the end of the previous episode, it must have been somewhat disappointing to see the hand wander down to the cuffs to release Romana. Or at least attempt to release her because the thing that is revealed about the Tharils in this episode is that they aren’t quite as good as we have been led to believe. This comes after Boric leads the Doctor through some sort of Alice in Wonderland setting and comes across the same banquet hall as before but this time its alive with the sound of people and music. Here humans are the slaves and the Tharils are the rulers and don’t treat the humans with a great deal of respect.

I have to say that I don’t think that this story gets the credit that it deserves in terms of special effects. People are so quick to mock the show because of ‘crappy special effects’ and other stuff but when you look at this episode and in particular the CSO used with the Doctor and Biroc in the Alice in Wonderland setting, it shows how much the show pushed the boundaries of what was possibly. Even by 2014 standards, its hard not to be impressed with what I have seen on screen. There is very little in this story that doesn’t rely on special effects of some kind and its this stuff that I find most interesting. The problem with the story is still that it’s a triumph of style over substance because narratively the story is lacking anything and I feel like Paul Joyce is doing all the work really. Ultimately when Biroc starts talking about time winds then I start to lose interest because it feels like the real science is starting to get into the story and if I want real science then I’ll watch something on BBC 4.

Adric has a slightly more productive episode than the previous one and he feels slightly more part of the team. That said I think that this is largely Romana’s episode because she seems to be everywhere and that’s not a critiscm but just an observation. It’s good to see Tom Baker being more productive than he was in the previous episode. To be honest he’s just more mobile rather than actually progressive in narrative terms.

The episode only really gets going in the final few minutes when the truth of the Tharils is revealed and I think that this is an interesting development. Frustratingly though this happens too late and the episode ends with a visually impressive cliffhanger. I say visually impressive because the shot goes from nice banquet hall to cobweb banquet hall and yet it flows really well. The episode is another one where there are good things to enjoy about this story but its still not working on me and its definelty the weakest story of the season.