Doctor Who/Recap/S18/E05 Warriors Gate



"One good solid hope's worth a cart-load of certainties."

- The Doctor

The Doctor, Romana, K-9 and Adric are still stuck in E-Space. While they're trying to figure out a way back into N-Space (our universe), the TARDIS is hijacked by a lion-headed Humanoid Alien that walks in through the TARDIS doors while the TARDIS is still in flight. The alien brings the TARDIS to land, announces that his name is Biroc and that they should not trust the people they are about to meet, and departs as mysteriously as he came.

Our heroes find themselves in a featureless white void, empty except for the TARDIS, a stranded spaceship (whose crew, led by Captain Rorvik, are indeed untrustworthy), and an incongruous ruined stone building.

Many confusing things happen. And Adric flips coins a lot.

It turns out that the void is some kind of Pocket Dimension that is on (or, perhaps, somehow is) the boundary between N-Space and E-Space. When they eventually find the way out, consequently, our heroes are able to choose which way out to go. The Doctor and Adric return to N-Space in the TARDIS, while Romana and K-9 decide to return to E-Space and help Biroc in his continuing quest.

Tropes

 * Almost-Dead Guy: "The secret to the gateway is... [thud]"
 * Animated Armor
 * BFG: Adric holds off the slave traders with their own giant cannon. "I don't know what these levers do...but it's pointing in your direction."
 * Deliberately Monochrome: Some of the weirder parts of the story, for thematically-appropriate but difficult-to-summarize reasons.
 * Distressed Dude: All the Tharils we see prisoner are male.
 * Feudal Future
 * Gravity Sucks
 * Grey and Gray Morality: Between the Privateer crew and the Tharils. Rorvik and his crew have the air of ordinary people just doing their job. Of course, that job is slavers, but as it turns out, the Tharils themselves were slavers of humans in the past.
 * Hand Signals: Romana tells Adric not to come out if she gives the danger signal...then mimes putting her hands up.
 * Humans Are Bastards
 * I Choose to Stay: Romana
 * Ironic Echo: The weak enslave themselves.
 * Killer Robot: The Gundan robots.
 * King of Beasts: The leonine Tharils were once kings.
 * Made a Slave
 * Meaningful Name: The Tharils are thralls to the Privateer crew.
 * Mind Screw: So, imagine you're in a cubby-hole you found behind a mirror, and that hole is in a different universe from the main room. Seriously, don't think about that too long, or you know what will happen.
 * Pocket Dimension
 * The Revolution Was Not Civilized: The reason for the Tharils' plight.
 * Slave Race: The Tharils, but this wasn't always the case.
 * Too Dumb to Live: Rorvik
 * Used Future: The spaceship clearly comes from one.
 * Villainous Breakdown: "I'll finally be able to GET SOMETHING DONE!"