Helping to free the Tharils is a noble aim – but as Romana starts to realise, it can come at a cost…

Lizbeth Myles kicks off the new set of female-led stories released for The Eighth of March, International Women’s Day subtitled Protectors of Time with a story featuring Romana and K9 in the aftermath of Warriors’ Gate. It’s a part of Romana’s life that has been little chronicled – bar Stephen Gallagher’s own Beyond the Doctor story last year – and Myles gives us a Time Lord who’s learning very rapidly that not everyone can have the high ideals that have driven her to try to help. John Dorney reprises the role of Biroc from the War Doctor Begins series, and the set up that Time Lord and Tharil have created feels well established by this time… even if Romana isn’t totally up to speed with what everyone working with them has been up to.

Warriors’ Gate created its own very particular set of rules and Myles extrapolates nicely from them, to give us a story that embraces the paradoxes at its heart (and on this occasion, I think it is embracing them rather than trying to lampshade the issue by having Romana mention them). This is a younger Romana than we’ve got used to hearing in the Gallifrey series, and director Louise Jameson pulls real fire from Lalla Ward’s performance.

Verdict: Another enjoyable tumble through the mirror to E Space. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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