Warrior's Gate is the last part of the E-Space Trilogy. It aired in January 1981 and it's the 114th serial. The 5th story of the 18th season was written by Stephen Gallagher and it's the first of two serials he would write. It was directed by Paul Joyce and an uncredited Graeme Harper. According to the featurette in the dvd, and the Wikipedia entry for the story, the BBC and producer John Nathan-Turner weren't too keen on the way Paul was working. He was pushing the limits of the tv production and it wasn't working too well. They temporarily suspended him and Graeme filled in. Joyce wouldn't work on the series again but Graeme continued working on the series over the decades. Tom Baker is the 4th Doctor and Lalla Ward plays Romana for the last time. Michael Waterhouse is Adric and John Leeson plays K-9. It would be John's last appearance on the series for a while.
The tardis is travelling in E-Space with the Doctor, Romana and Adric trying to get out of it. They encounter a freighter with some humans in charge. The lion man is one of the Tharil race who are used as navigators. There are more in storage, either to replace the current one or stock for sale. The two ships are stuck in null-space. It's all white and foggy. They find a ruin of a castle and that's mostly where the story plays out. Here's the sketch of the doorway to the castle ruin. It's a nice sketch.
Turns out the lion men used to be powerful and now they're slaves. Bummer for them. The Doc and Romana run about and figure out what's going on with the lion men and the humans. The null-space is shrinking so they need to get out of there. The lion men have a stable space on the other side of a mirror. The humans think they can escape null-space through the mirror but it only leads to their destruction. By the time that happens Lalla has left the Doc and Adric and joined the lion men. The Doctor gets some info from the lion men on how to get back to regular space. He and Adric are off on another adventure. It's another one that won't get on my list of favorite stories.
There's a commentary with Paul Joyce, John Leeson, effects supervisor Mat Irvine, script editor Christopher H Bidmead and Lalla Ward. The featurettes are ok and there a few pictures in the Photo Gallery.
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