Trying to escape from E-Space, the Doctor, Romana, Adric and K·9 instead land in an eerie white void whose only feature is a crumbling archway. Also trapped in the void is a privateering ship captained by the cruel Rorvik. When the ship's time-sensitive Tharil pilot -- the leonine Biroc -- escapes, Rorvik has Romana captured and pressed into service as their new navigator. Meanwhile, Biroc lures the Doctor through the archway and into a long-abandoned banquet hall. There, mirrors act as gateways, robotic Gundans wait to attack, and a terrible secret history will be revealed.

In early 1980, Doctor Who script editor Christopher H Bidmead secured producer John Nathan-Turner's reluctant approval to include a three-story arc in the middle of Doctor Who's eighteenth season. It would chronicle the Doctor's adventures while trapped in a pocket universe called E-Space, and would culminate in the departure of Romana and K·9 as part of Nathan-Turner's efforts to make the regular cast more relatable for the viewing audience. Bidmead now turned to the task of assembling the trilogy. Terrance Dicks' State Of Decay was quickly revised to serve as the middle chapter, while Andrew Smith's Full Circle began to take shape as the opening installment by the end of February.

For the concluding serial, Bidmead eyed “Sealed Orders” from Christopher Priest, a science-fiction author he admired. Boasting a premise which dealt with time paradoxes, it was exactly the kind of high-concept science-fiction the script editor wanted to emphasise in Doctor Who. Priest was commissioned to develop his storyline on February 27th, and to write the four scripts on March 24th. However, Bidmead recognised that Priest's experience was as an author of prose, not as a television scriptwriter. As such, he decided to commission a back-up story which could replace “Sealed Orders” at short notice.

“The Dream Time” could be adapted to take the place of “Sealed Orders” or stand on its own and be used during Season 19

For this purpose, Bidmead turned to Steve Gallagher, whose science-fiction radio drama An Alternative To Suicide had been forwarded to the Doctor Who production office. A longtime fan of the show, Gallagher developed a storyline called “The Dream Time” (or simply “Dream Time”). Based on unused concepts for a sequel to his radio play and novel The Last Rose Of Summer, it was commissioned on March 17th. “The Dream Time” could be adapted to take the place of “Sealed Orders” if need be, but could also stand on its own and be used during Season Nineteen. Over the coming weeks, Bidmead's caution was validated when Priest's scripts were deemed unsuitable for television production. Bidmead turned his attention to “The Dream Time”, and Gallagher was commissioned to write the four scripts on April 14th.

The original idea for “The Dream Time”, developed before Gallagher's discussions with Bidmead, involved a person discovering the home of a forgotten civilisation where a hall of mirrors provided access to parallel worlds. This was inspired by the Dreamtime, the metaphysical “time outside time” also called the Dreaming or alcheringa, which is part of the belief system of Australian aborigines. In adapting this concept to Doctor Who, Gallagher was influenced by the films of the French surrealist Jean Cocteau -- particularly 1946's La belle et la bête (that is, Beauty And The Beast) and 1949's Orphée (that is, Orpheus). He also drew upon elements of Alfred Bester's 1953 novel The Demolished Man, which dealt with the telepathic prediction of future events.

By midsummer, the serial had gained its final title of Warriors' Gate; Gallagher had earlier rejected Bidmead's suggestion of “Gateway”, which he feared would invite confusion with Frederick Pohl's 1977 novel of the same name. The time-sensitive race at the heart of the story was called the Calibans, after the half-human slave of William Shakespeare's fantasy The Tempest. Their two most prominent members, Biroc and Lazlo, were named for Academy Award-winning cinematographers Joseph Biroc (The Towering Inferno) and Ernest Laszlo (Ship Of Fools). Amongst the humans, Rorvik and Sagan were named for American authors: David Rorvik wrote the infamous 1978 hoax In His Image: The Cloning Of A Man while, at that stage, astrophysicist Carl Sagan was best known for his 1977 Pulitzer Prize winner The Dragons Of Eden: Speculations On The Evolution Of Human Intelligence.

The director assigned to “The Dream Time” was Paul Joyce, who had recently directed an edition of Play For Today that was much admired by Nathan-Turner. Joyce was keen on Gallagher's Cocteau-fuelled imagery, and wanted this influence to extend throughout the production. He envisaged making the story in the style of a feature film, and was enthusiastic about pushing the boundaries of what could be accomplished on a Doctor Who production. However, Joyce became concerned that -- like Priest before him -- Gallagher's inexperience in writing for television was resulting in scripts that would not translate well to a visual medium. By late summer, Gallagher had had to move on to other work and so, on August 29th, Joyce received formal permission to overhaul the scripts. However, he refused to take a writing credit on Warriors' Gate out of respect for Gallagher.

Paul Joyce omitted an opening sequence depicting an attack on the privateer by an Antonine Killer

Working closely with Bidmead, Joyce's version of Warriors' Gate omitted elements like an opening sequence depicting an attack on the privateer by an Antonine Killer which resulted in the ship becoming trapped in the Void. Also dropped by this stage was the notion that Rorvik had allowed Biroc to escape so that he could lead the slavers to a Time Lord, and Rorvik and his crew becoming phantasmal entities at the story's conclusion. Crewmen named Dulles, Jos and Nestor were excised, while Waldo was rechristened Royce. The MZ was introduced and named after Bidmead's Vector Graphic MZ computer. The Shogun robots became Gundans (with “Guns” also considered), while the Calibans were renamed Tharks, Thars, and then Tharls. A final change to Tharils came about at a late stage when fan adviser Ian Levine fretted that longtime fans would confuse Tharl with Thal, an alien race which had appeared in 1963's The Daleks and 1973's Planet Of The Daleks.

It was not only Gallagher's work that elicited some concern. Production assistant Graeme Harper, a Doctor Who veteran, became increasingly worried that Joyce was not adequately planning the creatively and technically complex recording, and conveyed his fears to Nathan-Turner. Studio recording was originally due to begin in early September, but it was agreed that these dates would be delayed to allow for more preparation time, especially since the scripts remained in flux. The first studio block was rescheduled for September 17th to 19th, only to be further postponed at the last minute due to a carpenter's strike.

The atmosphere during rehearsals was tense. Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, who had renewed their romantic relationship some weeks earlier, were fighting. Baker was still not fully recovered from the illness he had endured since March, and his mood was further dampened by the imminence of Ward's departure from Doctor Who. Both actors were deeply unhappy with their dialogue, which resulted in several scenes being substantially overhauled. Ward also disliked the fact that Romana's final scene was written so dispassionately, but Nathan-Turner and Bidmead were adamant that they did not want soap opera elements to creep into Doctor Who. Meanwhile, on September 1st and 2nd, Joyce and his girlfriend travelled to Powis Castle -- a thirteenth-century edifice in Powys, Wales -- to shoot photos which would be inserted as backgrounds for the Gateway sequences.

In the event, the first studio session for Warriors' Gate ran from September 24th to 26th at BBC Television Centre Studio 6 in White City, London. It was intended to concentrate on scenes aboard the privateer, but there was an immediate delay when Joyce's decision to incorporate the studio lighting gantry into the spaceship set drew the objections of John Dixon, who was in charge of lighting. Recording was delayed for two hours, and Joyce came close to relieving Dixon of his duties. As a result, only a small number of scenes was recorded.

John Nathan-Turner had now lost confidence in Paul Joyce's ability to complete Warriors' Gate

Nathan-Turner had now lost confidence in Joyce's ability to complete Warriors' Gate, and contemplated firing him. With Joyce having been so closely involved in developing the final drafts of the scripts, however, the producer decided to stick with him. The final two days of the block remained fraught, even with Harper taking a larger role in running the shoot. Despite losing even more time due to safety concerns with some of the sets, Joyce managed to squeeze in some TARDIS sequences on the last day; however, he remained far behind schedule.

By the time the second three-day block began in TC1 on October 2nd, the strenuous production was visibly taking its toll on Joyce. Nathan-Turner, too, had come under fire, with Head of Series and Serials Graeme MacDonald expressing his concern about the situation. The first day of the session involved the completion of the scenes in the TARDIS console room, as well as those in the palace gardens and corridor, and in the banqueting hall in the days when it was new. The banqueting hall set was then redressed to appear abandoned, and it was the centre of work on the second day, along with material in the adjacent passage and the space behind the mirror. In the gallery, the relationship between Joyce and Nathan-Turner deteriorated to the point that the director was told that he was fired, only for the producer to relent a short time later.

Finally, October 4th saw the taping of sequences in the Void, the privateer entrance hatchway, and the space behind the mirror. By now, Joyce was so fatigued that Harper had largely taken over the production, with assistance from Nathan-Turner. These events cast a pall over Ward and Leeson's final day on Doctor Who, and neither Ward nor Baker appeared at the subsequent wrap party. Two months later, on December 13th, many observers were surprised to learn that the pair had wed; however, their marriage would end in divorce sixteen months later.

In post-production, the Episode Two cliffhanger was re-edited. The installment originally closed on the Doctor disappearing through the mirror, but it had now been decided that Romana's terror as Lazlo approached was more dramatic. Another significant change to Episodes Two and Three was the removal of several sequences in which Adric was seen to have detached one of K·9's ears to aid in the process of triangulation. This meant that the robot dog should have been missing an ear during the scenes in the old banqueting hall, but nobody had remembered to alter the prop accordingly.

Doctor Who now aired at 5.20pm, as the BBC searched for a solution to the year's ratings woes

It was originally planned that Episode One of Warriors' Gate would air on December 20th, the week after State Of Decay finished. However, it was ultimately decided that Doctor Who should be rested over the holiday period. The 1942 adaptation of Jungle Book took its place on the 20th, and the news (and, in some regions, a Tom And Jerry animated short) on the 27th. Doctor Who returned on January 3rd, 1981. Its timeslot was now brought forward even further, to 5.20pm, as the BBC schedulers searched for a solution to the year's ratings woes. Episode One was preceded by Grandstand and a Tex Avery cartoon, and was followed by the news and then The Dukes Of Hazzard. This was the first installment of Doctor Who to feature closed captioning, via the BBC's Ceefax teletext service. The animated short was then dropped, meaning that the rest of Warriors' Gate aired at 5.10pm.

Despite the chaos surrounding the making of Warriors' Gate, Nathan-Turner was delighted with the finished serial. Joyce wrote the producer to apologise for the debacle on January 26th, but Nathan-Turner was effectively obliged to remove him from consideration for any future Doctor Who work. The tense production also deterred Bidmead from extending his contract as script editor beyond Season Eighteen. He felt that he was expending too much time and energy on Doctor Who without suitable respect or reward, and his working relationship with Nathan-Turner was beginning to sour. Like Baker before him, Bidmead's decision became final when his request for a substantial raise was rejected.

• Doctor Who Magazine #315, 3rd April 2002, “Archive: Warriors' Gate” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #9, 22nd December 2004, “Another One Bites The Dust” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #33, 2017, “Story 113: Warriors' Gate”, edited by Mark Wright, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Eighties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1996), Virgin Publishing.
• Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1992), Virgin Publishing.
• In·Vision #50, April 1994, “Production” edited by Justin Richards and Peter Anghelides, Cybermark Services.