Rate "Warrior's Gate"

This seems to be a fairly divisive story.

What do people think of it.

Overall i'm a fan but i'm also a bit "What was that all about then?"

And should Doctor Who be something you need to watch more than three times to actually enjoy?

I think it's a clever idea, well directed and well performed. Unfortunately it's also rather dull and a little too opaque. 4/5 from me, but I might well revise that opinion once I see it on DVD.

5/5

I think it's marvellous, and it's on my top 10 classic series list. the reasons why are in this post.

To add to that, may I also say that Lalla Ward is magnificent, Tom almost back to his old self after the earlier, subdued performances in the season, and Matthew Waterhouse is bearable...

Here's another 5.

The thing for me that I find most compelling about this story is the theme of fate and determinism vs. random chance and probability as it applies to decision making: flip a coin, but is the outcome already determined? What do you do, or do you do nothing?

This one is already on my 'must acquire' list when the E-Space trilogy comes out, and I'm eager to see if my recollections of the visuals still hold up after all these years since I last saw it.

Two.

It's not awful. Well, not entirely.

It takes a very long time to go nowhere. The characters involved don't seem to care about anything very much - the obvious answer to the barking mad Rorvik is to belt him on the back of the noggin, throw him off the ship and be done with him, but the crew don't and it's not like he's all that much of a threat. Somewhere, there's a line of dialog missing that runs

"well, you see, we can't get rid of him until he actually puts the underpants on his head and says wibble...and even then we need a two-thirds majority to declare him insane".

Then there's the cack concerning the spatial distortion. Who in their right minds makes a spaceship out of superdense material? If you understand enough science to make the explanation make sense, you also understand that it's a mad idea (because back in the real universe you still have to deal with Newton). Instead, it might have been simpler to attribute the spatial distortion to the Tardis, unless you're trying to make an extremely clever point about inertia as a concept in physics and in human relationships, which you might be but which is going to be lost on the majority of the audience.

Worse, it takes a whole four episodes to do absolutely nothing! By the end of the story, I wanted Rorvik to please aim the fateful backblast at the TV screen. When I rewatched it recently I had exactly the same feeling.

It doesn't help that it's sandwiched between State of Decay, which is very much more my cup of tea, and Keeper of Traken, which has Sarah Sutton in it and is 100% easier on the eye than Gate.

On the upside, it is visually arresting. The performances vary from barely adequate (Waterhouse, who was also better in State of Decay) to really good (Tom, Lalla and Clifford Rose) and it takes a number of risks. It's an adventurous story, even if there's precious little adventure in it, and it's worth watching for those reasons.

Even so, I don't have to like it. So I don't.

Dave Webb wrote:Two.

It's not awful. Well, not entirely.

I don't have to like it. So I don't.

What Dave said very eloquently!

The Co=Ordinator wrote:

Dave Webb wrote:Two.

It's not awful. Well, not entirely.

I don't have to like it. So I don't.

What Dave said very eloquently!

Indeed on all counts.

Sid Seadevil wrote:

The Co=Ordinator wrote:

Dave Webb wrote:Two.

It's not awful. Well, not entirely.

I don't have to like it. So I don't.

What Dave said very eloquently!

Indeed on all counts.

Knickers. It's marvellous.

Frank wrote:

Sid Seadevil wrote:

The Co=Ordinator wrote:

Dave Webb wrote:Two.

It's not awful. Well, not entirely.

I don't have to like it. So I don't.

What Dave said very eloquently!

Indeed on all counts.

Knickers. It's marvellous.

I can see there's only one adult and sensible way to settle this matter...

<Harry Hill>FIGHT!<Harry Hill>

barnaby salton wrote:
.....And should Doctor Who be something you need to watch more than three times to actually enjoy?

My thoughts exactly. This story, and Ghostlight similarly, just come off as puzzles to solve, rather than proper stories that move emotionally and excite. I just find mysef switching off with this kind of thing.

Having said that, I agree with Lee, this is still better characterised than most this season. I quite like it, and prefer it to anything else this season - but thats not saying much.

I never had liked this one very much, as said it seems like it takes forever to move anywhere, and the characters don't seem very alive at all in my opinion.

It's very hard to make a relevant post on this one as my major complaints have been addressed above, but lets just say I gave it a 1 and leave it at that...until the pickles run out.

Hmm. We have another Warriors Gate detractor in our midst.

Tom, my own views on Warrior's Gate are that it needed to have a different feel to it, because the story was about action, inaction and consequence. Even if that story doesn't appeal, the visual quality of story, of moments frozen in a sort of permanent gray, was icing on the cake for me.

When the E-Space trilogy comes out on DVD, I will happily add it to my collection, and I look forward to seeing Warrior's Gate again.

Certainly the visuals were excellent...

I've been watching Who since I was about three (My first memory of the show is the Doc and Jo ducking behind a tree as a blob eats Bessie on a tape of the Three Doctors...), and I had a interesting way of watching Who...

...my dad became a Tom Baker fan (Out here in the states there were more of those in the eighties then Who fans, most hated Davison when he appeared and never looked back.), and then after he gave up on the show he apssed all his Pertwee/baker VHS tapes to me, and I continued to record into Davison and beyond and later the Hartnell/Troughton package.
Because of the nature of video tapes here, in the SLP recording format they held three stories to a tape usually, and warrior's Gate was on the start of just such a tape, followed by Traken and Logopolis.
I always found myself wandering away from WG as a kid, and always staying glued to the screen once Keeper began through Logopolis. Seeing that both of the latter became some of my favorite Who tales of all time, perhaps I became biased based on the simple fact that I knew better things lay beyond E-Space....forgive me for the weirdness of this post.

Tom,
I live in the States, and I discovered Doctor Who in January, 1981 on a PBS station here in Denver. They were showing "The Invisible Enemy" that Sunday, so it wasn't the best possible introduction to the show. But I stuck with it.

By the time they got to the Key to Time series, I absolutely hooked. When they got to Season 18, I was struck by the clear difference in production values the show was trying to make, and the E-Space trilogy held me glued, from Full Circle on.

Consequently, I regard those years from the late 70s to mid-80s as the era I first got acquainted with the show, before I discovered the rich backstory and history with Hartnell and Troughton. They still hold a strong sentimental pull for me, and I suspect they always will.