DOCTOR WHO-WARRIOR’S GATE part 1

 

DOCTOR WHO-WARRIOR’S GATE part 1

 

So many thoughts watching this. First, my first ep of Adric was THE KEEPER OF TRAKEN part 1. It was shown out of order after part 1 of either THE RIBOS OPERATION or STONES OF BLOOD. Then, the PBS station that did that, fixed it and reran part 1 of that season 16 story. I had to wait a long time before I returned to that story and to this one as well.

 

I liked DOCTOR WHO before that but when I saw someone who was my age and my gender and relatively excited by science (fiction) and history and basically everything and who acted like a real person and talked like a real boy AND  a boy at all in DOCTOR WHO, I loved it. I won’t go into how I loathed the show the first few times I saw it and thought how much of a cheap POS it was and how odd and strange the lead (Tom) was and how unapproachable and unrelatable the companions were (Lis Sladen changed my mind though in stories like PLANET OF EVIL, BRAIN OF MORBUIS and others during that time in the series). Here, though, with Adric, who I read about in STARLOG’s articles and special mini book episode guide, was someone I could relate to who was my own age. In addition, having only read about Adric, I thought he’d be played by some 30 year old and be as unrelatable as other DOCTOR WHO “boys” who weren’t boys and who were unlike anyone you’re likely to meet in real life (think anyone from FACE OF EVIL or UNDERWORLD, both of which I love anyway). I was wrong and found that Adric really turned my like relationship with DOCTOR WHO to love for DOCTOR WHO.

 

The possibilities were endless and I realized how others loved DOCTOR WHO more than I did and from that time until EARTHSHOCK and the slow decent of quality from there the show underwent, I LOVED Doctor Who. I wouldn’t love it again until Chris E took the role and from ROSE to just about MIDNIGHT I LOVED DOCTOR WHO more. RTD (and this is another story really) brought to the idea of DOCTOR WHO more real characters and relationships in ways the Classic Series never did, never seemed to want to or couldn’t. AND yes silly fans, relationships are for the Doctor, too, whether you like it or not. It made sense. Once more, though, “they” meaning Moffat, screwed up DOCTOR WHO and ruined it for me, almost for good….no for good. New Series Season Ten and then the wonderful Season 11 with ROSA and DEMONS seemed to shed the Moffat AWFULNESS (season six, Pandorica, Padernostra Gang, Amy, CRIMSON HORROR, THE CARETAKER, KILL THE MOON and many, many others) for good and his style was gone. To my HORROR, Moffat and his style was back in Chibnall’s DOCTOR WHO destroying season 12, which was not only boring but tried to bring about changes for changes sake…never a good way to do DOCTOR WHO. DOCTOR WHO is all but dead now.

 

BUT onto my feelings in 1980 or 1981. My wonderful and creative imagination constantly created new adventures in fan fic and fan fic ideas for characters and premises I loved from KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER to LAND OF THE GIANTS and LOST IN SPACE to an extensive universe and later multiverse for THE TOMORROW PEOPLE, among a few others (EARTH 2 for one). I hated to see a good series lose potential. I could not help it but when I saw KEEPER OF TRAKEN, I thought wow! The Doctor and a male companion alone together in the universe. I knew Romana and K9 were leaving though when I saw WARRIORS GATE (not to mention FULL CIRCLE and STATE OF DECAY, I not only loved those, I thought of whole stories where this team stayed together far longer and maybe for good; this is my favorite team for DOCTOR WHO). I even thought it would be great if the new, next Doctor (my first second incarnation as I’d only known Tom as the Doctor in the 1970s, the first three Doctor’s adventures seemingly FOREVER cut off to me and only seen in my imagination from the books and from the articles in DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE and while my first regeneration awaited me----Tom into Davison) traveled with just Adric, too. I totally ignored the episode guides that told me the wet Nyssa and the annoying, irritating Tegan would be there, too. Girls were a thing for DOCTOR WHO since 1963. It was time to move on from that and try something different (though Jamie and the Doctor were a team, they were usually given…or saddled with females, too). Adric would NEVER leave the Doctor.

 

And in WARRIORS GATE, it is the first time we see Adric really loving and longing for his family cohesiveness. Here, he, in ep 1, expresses a subtle fear that perhaps the Doctor (dad) and Romana (mom or big sis) will part ways (“You won’t, will you?”). He even has a pet dog (K9, of course). I wish they’d done more audio from BIG FINISH with this team rather than the brief box set they did give us. As for K9, there was one ANNUAL that had Tom, K9, and Adric traveling around together. Long continuity books (which I love; ABOUT TIME; AHISTORY mostly and UNHISTORY) give explanations for this, sort of. At the time I didn’t care how it fit in, I would have loved and was sparked imaginatively by the idea that this trio would travel around. Not only that but the SAME Annual had the 5^th Doctor, Adric AND K9 traveling around, too. WOW! Fan fic not only furthered some of this but took it to new heights. Tom’s Doctor and Adric (but sadly probably not K9) met a girl who was goodly and the Master’s daughter (his real daughter not some clone nonsense).

 

In any case, WARRIORS’ GATE, for me, could do no wrong. First, for fans who complain it was incomprehensible: WHAT? Did you take math?  Did you ever read time travel science fiction? It was zero coordinates in the middle of a graph of the universe! Amazing. Most DW fans say they want new ideas and love sci fi premises but then when something truly innovative and inspiring and different comes along, they rant that they want ferocious monsters out to eat us invading the Earth again. Sigh. Or slap happy Moffat fueled “love triangles that aren’t really about sex or romance but about fun FUN FUN!”. Well, shame on them.

 

WARRIORS’ GATE for those who missed it also has (like THE TWIN DILEMMA later on but let’s not get into that debate, for I LOVE TWIN DILEMMA) a VERY traditional DOCTOR WHO story wrapped in the untraditional or the other way around. Like TWIN, the traditional has aliens, only this time the aliens are slaves and this goes way back to perhaps the Hartnell story THE SAVAGES but can also encompass THE ROMANS and particularly THE DALEKS itself and maybe even the cavemen parts of AN UNEARTHLY CHILD. And let’s not even get into how many of the Troughton stories were about subjugated races. It’s easy to understand that part: lion things can move things through  time and space and are being used by humanoids who have enslaved them to try to get their ship out of a void which is…the middle ground between OUR space and ADRIC’S SPACE, two different universes, which is what has been stated since FULL CIRCLE. The math stuff is just icing on the pudding really. This episode only has a few bits about tossing the coin and probability. And all of it and what is ahead is brilliant and wonderful. BUT Moffatized fans just want to see River spout her nonsense about being energetic and sexual. I don’t.

 

The other thing is I’m having the same problem while trying to get through the last of Tom’s stories and the middle of Matt’s stories but for a different reason. For Tom’s stories, I know them so well because they’re the most watched by me (other than many of RTD’s stories from 2005 to 2008…I mean I know the dialog so well I can recite it almost verbatim without checking…though the same is true of almost every Tom story now and especially season 18 and 19, I watched them so many times). For Matt’s: I only watched them once as they’re mostly PsOS. AND more awful than that, usually but not 100 percent of the time. I watched EVERY Matt story (until this rewatch) only once and was horrified and annoyed by 90 percent of them (and most of Capaldi’s first two seasons, too). I don’t really enjoy watching those but enjoy Tom’s but have seen them too many times, where I don’t want to see most of Matt’s even twice.

 

In any case, here, we have Tom finding the Gundans and for some reason turning his back on the one that he inadvertently reactivated as it lifts its axe over his head and BRINGS IT CRASHING DOWN! Cliffhanger.

 

The slavers crew are sometimes genuinely funny, genuinely bemused, and also a bit non-pulsed. This is deliberate. After months of being stranded in the nothingness of a small pocket universe, they’ve been coping the best they can by pretending to give up or not care or really doing both for real. They make jokes, shrug as orders, laugh things off and then worry about them a bit later, don’t care if Biroc lives of dies (and the two most obvious comedic ones BET on whether or not he will live or die, horrendously). Unlike Moffat aping some of this in the awful A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR, here, the villains seems like real people with real reasons of their own for acting the way they are acting. Oh, and Sagan is, well, nearing hot and rather cute, too. Most of these comic relief crewmen…will die horribly and all of them will die due to stupidity. Which is really just one of the themes: being mean and stupid will get you what you DON’T want in the long run even if it feels good at the time while the educated, the thoughtful will survive.

 

I was told recently that DOCTOR WHO should always be meaningless and brainless and have nothing to do with the real world and be just escapist nonsense. Really. Really? I was almost speechless.

 

This story is not just filled with meaning, it also does what science fiction was born to do: makes us think, reflect, and ponder about how we really should be as opposed to what we really are. It’s also far cooler than any Moffat story or character that really think they are cool but aren’t.   

 

It’s also been said that….and amazingly I never noticed this before…this team is filled with four who think they are the lead character in their own show. It’s an amazing observation and I only heard this on the interviews for one of the BIG FINISH Tom/Romana2/Adric/K9 box sets and I have to admit I love that.

 

I also love that the Doctor doesn’t admonish Adric for or retaliate with disgust against him (Davison should have learned that lesson, so, too Eric Saward) when, briefly, he wonders what Adric did once Biroc gets access to the ship. Did Adric do that? If so, is he responsible for K9 being damaged so badly? I also have to admit that I dislike the idea that K9 is so damaged in many stories and episodes during this season and probably the one before it, too, though they are among my favorite seasons of DOCTOR WHO ever.

 

This episode has Biroc enter the TARDIS but not see the crew as they see him. Amazing and wonderful. It also never has the slavers, YET, meet the TARDIS crew. The Doctor followed Biroc outside while Adric and Romana try to repair K9. While they do, Adric sees the three human(oids) approach the TARDIS. It gives us a reason to watch next episode to see their interactions. And those eps do not disappoint.

 

That K9 calls them humanoid means maybe they are NOT from Earth but maybe Earth descendants? He is not feeling well at the time. Great books like ABOUT TIME, AHISTORY, and TIMELINK suggest they are not from Earth or even from OUR universe at all but from Adric’s universe, E space. One of them is named Kilroy and Kilroy Was Here is written on the walls of their dilapidated spaceship.

 

The random events discussions are funny as the Doctor ponders if he wanted to do what he did and Romana asks if he has a death wish, privately and away from Adric, while Adric questions K9 about the events. It’s all intelligent and wildly exciting. What is happening? It’s not hard to figure out, folks. Go on, you can do it!

 

Even if you don’t, I love this! DW has never been more thoughtful, courageous, and different.