Doctor Who 18x19

Matthew Waterhouse as Adric • Jeremy Gittins as Lazlo • Clifford Rose as Rorvik • Kenneth Cope as Packard

While Biroc leads the Doctor to a view of the Tharil's lordly past, Romana learns more about the damaged freighter and the coldheartedness of its crew. Meanwhile Commander Rorvik, confounded by the time mirror inside the universal center gateway, ignores evidence that it's no simple mirror and decides to blast it, imperiling the lives of everyone.

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1. "What lies beyond the Mirror?

2. "Who is Romana's strange ally?

3. "How is the Tharils' feast disrupted?" (Radio Times)

4. This episode was first shown on 17 January, 1981.

5. It was seen by 8.3 million viewers, the largest audience for the entire 1980-1 series of Doctor Who.

6. In the next shot, look at the left-hand edge of the mirror.

7. The frame's missing!

8. That detail may tell you something about the mirror's secret, which we'll come back to next time someone goes through.

9. This sequence was shot with a hand-held Ikegami camera.

10. None of the studio's pedestal cameras could get upstairs onto the scaffolding gantry, where we are now,

11. or indeed give us a point-of-view shot like this one.

12. The Ikegami was new technology.

13. There was only one of them available in the entire BBC, and it was much in demand - and indeed expensive.

14. It was allocated to the 'Warriors' Gate' production for a single day's recording in each block:

15. 25 September for the privateer scenes and 3 October for the banqueting hall scenes.

16. In the script, there's an extra scene here, set out in the void:

17. Adric seems to hear Romana's scream, but ignores it and goes back to tossing his coin.

18. This area behind the mirror was originally envisaged as an outdoor avenue.

19. The script calls for the Doctor to see the scars fade before his very eyes.

20. Lazlo is played by Jeremy Gittins (born 1956),

21. who was later best known as the Vicar in the sitcom eeping Up Appearances (1990-95).

22. Rorvik and Sagan were named after well-known American science writers:

23. David Rorvik (born 1944), a writer on cloning and cosmologist Carl Sagan (1934-96).

24. In the script, the ricochet hits a tattered chandelier, which crashes to the ground.

25. Also cut was K9's citation for his quote: "Newton's Law of Gravitation, 1683".

26. Mass and gravity, the keystones of Newtonian physics, will become central as the story moves into crisis later on.

27. Enjoy Adric's tossing while you can. Steve Gallagher's version contained a lot more of it in the later episodes,

28. but it was among the material which Bidmead and Joyce judged to be surplus to requirements.

29. The script often calls for expressive actions from K9 which were beyond the physical limitations of the prop.

30. Here, for instance, it says that his head lolls to one side "in an attitude of complete exhaustion and dejection".

31. Steve Gallagher had never seen K9 in action when he wrote the script.

32. The effects team explored ways of adapting the K9 prop to allow the head to move from side to side.

33. At first, John Nathan-Turner was unwilling to allow this.

34. He was worried about what future directors might do with K9 in his later appearances.

35. (That's right, later appearances. K9 was indeed due for retirement at the end of 'Warriors' Gate',

36. but Nathan-Turner was already thinking of making a K9 special, with perhaps a series to follow.)

37. One thing he wanted to avoid was a K9 who could nod and shake his head in a human-like "yes/no" response.

38. The Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland (1865) famously disappears in mid-conversation.

39. Paul Joyce had wanted to show Aldo and Royce idly smoking.

40. He'd privately decided that one of their few pleasures on the privateer, along with gambling,

41. would be an illicit joint of marijuana.

42. Of course, there'd be nothing on screen to show they were smoking anything other than a legal drug like tobacco,

43. but the idea was firmly stamped on anyway, further up the BBC hierarchy: Aldo and Royce were to remain smoke-free.

44. The production of 'Warriors' Gate' began in early August with the casting.

45. The principals were due to be cast by 8 August,

46. giving costume designer June Hudson a clear six weeks to design and make the frocks before the studio.

47. In the event, most casting was finished by 14 August, but with a few crucial exceptions.

48. Rorvik was the first character to be cast, and his contract was issued on 11 August.

49. Freddie Earlle (Aldo) got his contract on 13 August and Kenneth Cope (Packard) The next day.

50. David Kincaid (Lane), Robert Vowles (Gundan), and Harry Waters (Royce) Were all contracted on 15 August.

51. The most difficult roles to fill were the communications clerk Sagan and the two Tharils,

52. so decisions about the all-important Tharil designs were delayed until a meeting on 21 August.

53. A sequence coming up draws on a striking moment in Cocteau's Testament d'Orphée.

54. It's a black-and-white film, but in one shot a flower and a bloodstain turn red against the monochrome background.

55. The end of this scene was cut: As the slavers go, Adric sneaks up and replaces K9's ear.

56. This was conceived as a place where different times jar together.

57. The Doctor's line was dubbed on in post-production

58. after it was felt that viewers needed just a little more explanation.

59. The script calls for formal gardens in the style of the French royal palace of Versailles, with a light frost on the foliage and stonework.

60. Pre-production chat mentioned Hampton Court and its maze,

61. but these are the world-famous Italianate grounds of Powis Castle in Wales, a National Trust property open to the public.

62. Paul Joyce took the photos himself on 1 and 2 September, 1980.

63. Prints measuring 20 inches by 16 were supplied by the firm Martin Axon, and the actors keyed into them by CSO.

64. One thing they also hoped to key in, but couldn't, was mist.

65. Also missing were the scripted sounds of conversation and birdsong in the deserted garden,

66. and the noise of spattering water from a motionless fountain.

67. There are two K9 props in this shot.

68. The motorised, remote-controlled K9 goes into the ship,

69. but a lightweight, hollow replica comes out.

70. As well as Cocteau, Steve Gallagher drew influences from literary science fiction.

71. His acknowledged sources include Joe Haldeman's exploration of future sexuality, The Forever War (1974),

72. and Alfred Bester's ESP/crime novel, The Demolished Man (1953).

73. Biroc and Lazlo, the names of the two principal Tharils, are of Hungarian origin.

74. It is perhaps no coincidence that the inventor of the ballpoint pen was named Lazlo Biro

75. The MZ, an element added to the script when it was revised by Joyce and Bidmead, was originally called the "56K Machine".

76. Bidmead renamed it after another writing device: His own Vectorgraphic MZ System B computer.

77. Look to the lower right of the screen and, when this subtitle disappears, you'll see a microphone pop out of the MZ.

78. Aldo (the shorter of the two handymen) Is played by Glaswegian stage comic Freddie Earlle (1924-2007).

79. He worked with Laurel and Hardy towards the end of their career (and early on in his).

80. He was so keen to appear in Doctor Who that he accepted 'Warriors' Gate' without even seeing the script.

81. The original idea was that nobody really knew which was Aldo and which was Waldo,

82. so Paul Joyce aimed to cast a Waldo who was physically more of a match for Freddie Earlle.

83. He approached an actor in his early 40s who was best known in seedy working-class roles, notably in Danger. ; UXB (1979).

84. Joyce had worked with the actor before, on the Tom Stoppard comedy, The Engagement (1970),

85. but he was in America making the mini-series Masada on the studio dates.

86. In the scripted version of this Alice-like sequence, the Doctor finds a sequence of three windows, but can see through none of them.

87. The first is made of thick bottle glass, the second too high (and barred), and the third is obscured with a layer of dust.

88. Maybe it is getting heavier.

89. If casual conversations reveal the strange things that are happening to space, then what about the density of matter?

90. The point here is that Adric hasn't rescued her at all.

91. This was a running gag: He also didn't rescue her in the previous serial, 'State Of Decay'.

92. When this was recorded, Matthew Waterhouse was slow to exit on his cue,

93. so Lalla Ward gives him an unscripted, in-character prompt.

94. The damaged section of hull was sculpted in jabolite (the trade name for polystyrene) By the contractors Estdales.

95. Lane's report resolves Barry Letts's objection that the warp motors have to be damaged to get them into the situation,

96. but functional to get them out of it.

97. The script indicates that we see Lane wedge his clipboard into the damaged area.

98. That's important for continuity, because the clipboard will still be there in the next episode.

99. With rehearsals due to start with a 6 September read-through, the incomplete casting grew more urgent as August wore on.

100. One actor who was considered for Biroc, but proved unavailable, was Michael Gothard (1932-92)

101. Who was best known to older viewers as the exorcist in Ken Russell's The Devils (1971),

102. and to teenagers as the Saxon Kai in Arthur of the Britons (1972).

103. Casting was complete in time for the first full pre-production planning meeting on 22 August,

104. with the remaining contracts issued to David Weston (Biroc) on 18 August,

105. Vincent Pickering (Sagan) on 20 August, and finally Jeremy Gittins (Lazlo) On 21 August.

106. In the script, the Doctor meets a somewhat younger Tharil, but it was more practical to cast a teenager.

107. She is played by Erika Spotswood, who later sang with the folk-rock group, Ruby Blue.

108. Romana is unconscious in the script.

109. Lane was scripted to enter from the opposite direction (that is, from right of screen), having run all the way around the ship.

110. This was simplified in rehearsal.

111. It took a very long time to make a Tharil ready for the cameras.

112. Jeremy Gittins had to be in the make-up chair at 4.30 a.m. On the day this scene was recorded.

113. That was an even earlier call than usual, because he needed the scarring on top of his usual face-mask.

114. The make-up also took an hour to remove after each session wrapped for the evening at 10 p.m.

115. Like the Tharil palace gardens, the original corridor is at Powis Castle.

116. Once Steve Gallagher's story idea was incorporated into the E-Space section of the 1980-1 series' narrative arc,

117. it became necessary to rename the The setting was no longer the dream time of the original title.

118. One suggestion was 'Gateway', but Gallagher pointed out that this was also the title of a 1977 Frederik Pohl novel.

119. The title 'Warriors' Gate' was adopted at his suggestion.

120. The minstrels' gallery was originally supplied without the safety rail Tom Baker is leaning on here.

121. Though specified in the design drawings, it was overlooked by the set builders and had to be added at the last moment.

122. The script calls for vermin activity on the table, including an infestation of mice.

123. The table's centrepiece looks an iced cake,

124. but it is actually "a mass of teeming maggots".

125. Dipping Lalla Ward into a vat of mercury wasn't an option, so how did they get her through the mirror?

126. The left-hand half of the mirror isn't really there: It was added electronically.

127. The mirror itself was angled to one side for shots like this,

128. letting the actors walk straight through the gap and into the masked-off area of the shot.

129. The banquet comprised two large roast birds, three large lobsters, a suckling pig, a large joint of beef, three pineapples,

130. grapes, apples, pears, ten oranges, and six loaves.

131. Meanwhile, Rorvik's repast was 24 sandwiches, 36 "ice pops", 24 chicken legs, wrapped cheese and cold meat (12 portions each),

132. a large jar of pickled onions, and five pounds of apples (plus knives, forks, paper plates and napkins).

133. In the script, he actually fires at the centre of the table, scattering foodstuffs old and new.

134. The end of the scene was cut.

135. As scripted, a hand sneaks up from under the tablecloth and takes a chicken leg, while Rorvik says, "I need everybody's help.

136. "Even yours, perish the thought," he concludes, lifting the mouldering tablecloth to reveal Aldo and Royce.

137. The music here sounds like a medieval shawm.

138. In fact, not even one olde instrumente was played in the making of 'Warriors' Gate'.

139. The "shawm" was generated on a synthesiser, just like the electronic music you can hear now.

140. Now, remember that goblet the Doctor set upright in the first episode?

141. Here's how it came to be knocked over.

142. The original cliffhanger showed the Doctor and Romana standing face to face as the Gundans advance on them, axes raised.

143. The camera script calls for a crash zoom into a Gundan's face, followed by the end credits.

144. Also seen in this episode were:

145. John Blackman, Maurice Connor, George Gordon (Gundans)

146. Pat Gorman, Chris Michelle, Brian Moorhead (Gundans)

147. Carl More, Tony Pryor, Terry Sartaine (Gundans)

148. Marianne Lawrence (Serving Wench)

149. Uncredited production contributors

150. Gordon Phillipson (Grams Operator)

151. Lesley Holmes, Wendy Holmes, Helen Johnson (Make-Up Assistants)

152. Lan Hewett (Graphics)

153. Gill Meredith (Props Buyer)

154. Carole Vigurs (Facilities)

155. Laura Gilbert (Floor Assistant)