Nearly 40 years after it was made, many of us are still slightly bewildered by Warriors’ Gate, that oblique, minimalist E-space oddity. It’s well placed at the sombre end of the Tom Baker era, where it’s free to start ridding the series of its trappings. It lets go of Romana (Lalla Ward) and K9 (Voice: John Leeson), in its march towards a new era full of young companions and question mark motifs. But its melancholy tone stretches beyond the fictional story it tells of time sensitives and lion men. It’s also the sadly permanently record of a romance going wrong.

The romance, of course, is Tom and Lalla’s. To date, they remain our only Doctor and Companion hook up (at least the only one I know about. Were there other, more clandestine trysts over the years? Be warned: once you start thinking about this, there are some pretty worrying combinations to ponder on.) They are our only Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, our only Brangelina (Tomalla? No?). An off screen romance which seeps on screen. Watching Seasons 17 and 18, we see a relationship spark and fade in front of our eyes.

Think back to the previous year’s City of Death, which seems to come from an entirely different universe than the one which contains Warriors’ Gate. In that Parisian holiday, Tom and Lalla are clearly in the first flush of love. They run around holding hands, they flirt and flitter about, clearly delighting in each other’s company. Never before had we seen the Doctor besotted, and its slight wrongness only serves to make it more invigorating. And it’s like that for the whole of Season 17. Had we ever actually made it to Shada, we would have seen Tom and Lalla messing around romantically around in boats and larking around Cambridge, reveling in being together. It’s no exaggeration to call it beautiful.

Back to bleak old Warriors’ Gate and there’s very little affection to be seen, let alone love. Tom won’t even look at Lalla. He spends the majority of the story avoiding it. Part One’s introductory TARDIS scenes are static, awkward “Mum and Dad are fighting again” affairs. In these, and in later scenes, they stand rigidly side by side, Tom staring off into the middle distance to deliver his lines and Lalla, looking almost pleadingly at him, trying to generate some interaction. Until Part Four when she finally gives up and just starts trying Tom’s game. Only in their most vigorous exchanges, when there’s really no other option, do they look each other in the face. And they reckon Tom’s antagonism toward Louise Jameson was evident on screen. Surely if you showed Warriors’ Gate to a not-we, their first question after, “what the hell is going on in this story?” and “why are you making me watch this?” would be, “why do those two hate each other?”

Reports from the rehearsal room tell of Tom and Lalla refusing to talk to each other (save for occasionally shouting matches) and stalking opposite perimeters like warring Generals. Like working on Warriors’ Gate wasn’t stressful enough what with the director trying to be Pasolini in TV Centre and the lighting director writing letters to the director-general dobbing him in. But even in season 18, as moody and reserved as a sulky teenager, it wasn’t always like this. Just last story, Tom and Lalla managed to sneak in a coy reference to their relationship. Trapped in a dingy exposition scene together, Tom had whispered to her like a schoolboy passing notes in class, “Psst! You are wonderful!,” to which Lalla had responded with unguarded delight. It’s this year’s only return to the playful banter of season 17. Most of the season, you wouldn’t even though these two were friends let alone lovers.

Given this lack of interaction, it’s no surprise that Romana’s farewell scene is swift and deeply unsentimental. It’s performed in only 11 lines of dialogue on that flat white CSO backdrop. These two who once ran around the city of love and lounged about punting, deliver their lines as if ordered by a court to do so while maintaining a safe distance from each other. “I’ll miss you,” the Doctor finally manages to force out, sounding like he won’t miss her at all. From one viewpoint, it’s interesting to see how two alien superbeings might deal with saying goodbye, with aloofness rather than emotion.  But from another, it’s utterly unfitting for the series’ second lead and a character who’s been in the show for three years. Imagine them trying that in 21st century Who.

So basically, we’ve watched as a romance died before our eyes. Paris is a distant memory. But then, in typical Tom Baker fashion, he pulls an unexpected trick. He and Lalla get engaged and married shortly after. To the astonishment of anyone who had ever shared a studio, a rehearsal room or a conversation with them. What on earth happened here?

Warriors’ Gate is set in a pocket universe which is collapsing in on itself. It’s not hard to see a metaphor here for Tom Baker’s world. He’s ill. Leaving a job he had been in for 7 years. Facing uncertainty and unemployment. Clashing with everyone around him. A production in turmoil. And on top of it all, he’s saying goodbye to seeing his love every day at work. Under these circumstances, who can blame him for disengaging? For not wanting to stare the inevitable straight in the face. Better to look off into the middle distance.

Still, right at the end, there’s a glimmer of better days to come.  When musing on Romana’s departure, the Doctor gives perhaps my favourite line of dialogue in the entire series: “One solid hope’s worth a cartload of certainties.” Which for Tom Baker, facing a world with very little certainty at all, must have been some comfort.

And as for Lalla, Tom allows a moment of his real feelings to slip out when he says, “she’ll be superb.” He means it. It’s his one solid hope.

LINK TO The Pyramid at the End of the World: The Doctor is injured – and has his injury healed – in both.

NEXT TIME: One thing’s sure. We’re not at Southend. We join the search for The Keys of Marinus.