Galaxy Four

The Doctor, Vicki and Steven come to a silent planet which is capable of supporting life but appears to be devoid of any, at least any that is indigenous; they soon find out that they are not the only visitors. Two parties of aliens are also on the planet, both with ships crashed from a firefight they had overhead: the militaristic all female Drahvins, and the tucked reptilian Rills who are served by small utility machines Vicki calls "Chumblies". Both groups are eager to leave as they know the planet is in its last days and will soon break up, but the TARDIS crew are not sure who they trust and who they should help.

Almost every science fiction series goes here eventually; the concept of a female dominated society where men are either not present at all or just there are servants, slaves or decoration. The Drahvins don't have much use for men and see them as a waste of resources, preferring to only keep as many as they need handy for reproduction and killing the rest off. Even within their female ranks there is a division, with their leader, Maaga, being considered a "real" person with more intellect and a better set of menu options at meal time. The rest are still female but they are drones with a limited intelligence, only assigned numbers as names, and they are not treated very well at all - bullied, cajoled, threatened and mocked. Maaga seems amused that the Doctor and Steven are there, but shows no immediate empathy towards Vicki either, probably because she allows herself to be in the company of these men.

The Rills, on the other hand, look like hideous monsters, and are only glimpsed at times rather than seen full on. They are heard, though, with a big booming voice which is somewhat akin to the voice of the Morok computer bank on Xeros. The Rills require a specialized atmosphere to breathe - ammonia gas - and have their workforce of small domed robots which come to be known as Chumblies to do the work for them where they cannot go. And in another science fiction cliches, the ugly scary Rills are actually the benevolent ones here; they just want to get away and not die with the planet. They will even take the Drahvins with them to save them, but Maaga won't let herself move past her revulsion of them, preferring to die than take help from something so hideous.

This isn't a really complicated story, with the TARDIS crew split up here and there and then reuinted after having discovered something important to their plight which they must share. As far as televised continuity goes this is Steven's first full on adventure, having been found in the TARDIS in The Time Meddler unaware of his surroundings, and he and Vicki are set up to squabble here and there which annoys the Doctor.

With Galaxy Four we are not only at the start of the original series third season but also at the start of the era of the missing episodes; this one is four episodes long but all that exists is a six minute clip in episode one, and all of episode three which was found in 2011. Aside from that it's all stills, fragment clips and the full audio. My own first encounter with the adventure was a paperback adaptation published in 1985 written by original script author William Emms, and then the BBC Radio Collection some years later in 2002. I got a hold of the third episode when I bought the special edition DVD of The Aztecs where it was included as a bonus feature, but only finally got round to watching it for this project. I said to my partner when we watched it the other day that it was like brand new Doctor Who to me, and despite the fact that it is 51 years old I still enjoyed it more than anything I saw in the 2012 season.

At the end of the story the TARDIS is once more in flight, and looking at the scanner Vicki muses about what is going on down on a planet they pass. The action switches to that planet where something very sinister is going on indeed...

NEXT EPISODE: MISSION TO THE UNKNOWN