Galaxy 4

Galaxy 4 (part 1)

Oh eck, we're back in the world of recons.

The TARDIS lands on a planet. We get a snippet of a great camera shot tracking from the console to a worried Doctor. Who directed this? Derek Martinus! Oh hell, this would have looked sublime, he was a great visual director.

The Doctor worries about the atmosphere. Somethings up.

DOCTOR: Well, the atmospheric pressure's quite normal. Oxygen, temperature, radiation. It's all quite normal. I wonder. Hmm. I wonder if it's possible to have a planet so obviously conducive to life and yet without any?

(All quotes come from the great Dr Who Transcripts site)

That'll be it!

Steven offers to go for a swim, and the Doctor tells him off for not being scientific minded, which suggests this is written by someone who isn't a regular viewer of Dr Who.

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A robot walks around the TARDIS. It looks cool. It's a Chumbley. According to my Auld Yin, they were a massive hit at school at the time when this was broadcast, to the point where he was delighted an episode of this was found in 2011. (And in 2021, when I reminded him it existed!)

The Chumbley tries to communicate with the TARDIS.

"It's got a chumbley movement," says Vicki, coining a nickname.

The team leave the TARDIS.

VICKI: Mmm. I can smell flowers.
DOCTOR: Oh, indeed, how delightful. Well, there's one thing child, there's no Chumblies about.
STEVEN: Vicki. Look at this.
VICKI: Three suns?
STEVEN: Yes, I wonder which one we're revolving around.
VICKI: Oh look, there's those flowers that I could smell. Hey, they're roses. No, they're not. Not quite roses, but almost.
DOCTOR: This silence reminds of the planet Xeros.
VICKI: You don't think we've jumped the time track again, do you?

To be honest, not much is happening. A Chumbley wields a weapon. That'll help.

Steven picks up a rock but is threatened by the Chumbley gun.

The Chumbley leads the TARDIS crew on.

It sets a bush on fire.

"Two women watch", the recon helpfully tells us.

Its really hard to say much about this one as there are entire 30-40 seconds without any dialogue at all. The incidental music is cool but its stock.

The two women put a net over the Chumbley and disable it.

DRAHVIN 1: We are the Drahvin.
STEVEN: And very nice too.
DOCTOR: What might the Drahvins be?
DRAHVIN 1: We are from the planet Drahva, in Galaxy Four.
STEVEN: Yes, well you seem to have put a pretty effective stop to this thing.
DRAHVIN 1: As long as the metal mesh covers it, the control waves cannot reach it.

So if they are from Galaxy 4, why is this story called that? Did William Emms look through his script at random?

The Doctor and crew follow their Drahvins to their leader, Maaga.

The other Chumbleys go to rescue the trapped one. Aww, they're friends. I can see why kids liked them.

Well, actually, I can't see why. Because the episode is ¤¤¤¤ing missing...


Everyone gets to the Drahvin ship, and suddenly William Hartnell is huffing and puffing in actual footage.

The Doctor giggles at Maaga's name.

The guards couldn't get the mesh back so will be punished.

MAAGA: This is a fight to the death for existence itself.
DOCTOR: I see.
MAAGA: in which one of us will be obliterated.
DOCTOR: Oh, as bad as that?
MAAGA: Yes. So bad that it is conceivable that you, too, will be obliterated.
DOCTOR: Oh, come now, there's no need to exaggerate.
MAAGA: It's no exaggeration.
VICKI: You want to kill us, don't you? You want to.
MAAGA: When a planet disintegrates, nothing survives.
DOCTOR: Disintegrates? This planet?
MAAGA: Yes, it's in its last moments of life. Soon it will explode.
DOCTOR: When?
MAAGA: In fourteen dawns time.

"As bad as that?" We get a brilliant Hartnell glance and it just makes you wonder what we're missing from early on. Lots of close ups as people talk. Peter Purves in the background of the shot watching everything. Hartnell grabbing his walking stick and talking with his hands. Just little snippets promising so much more.

Drahvins are grown in test tubes which leads to another hilarious dead pan Billy moment:

STEVEN: Grown for what purpose?
MAAGA: To fight. To kill.
DOCTOR: Yours must be a very interesting civilisation.

The Drahvin spaceship is broken and the planet is about to explode, so they want the Rill spaceship for their own. They are clearly gits and meant to be gits, and the Doctor clearly knows this so the whole "and it was a twist" appears to be a bit of a fan myth.

A Chumbley is fired on but survives.

The Doctor laughs at this.

Oh... the moving pictures portion of this ended.

The Doctor is going to do tests to find out what is happening to the planet. Vicki is left at Maaga's orders as collateral.

The Doctor does his planet destruction tests in the TARDIS and gets worried.


STEVEN: Well, Doctor? Will this planet explode?
DOCTOR: The Rills were quite right.
STEVEN: We've got to get off the planet.
DOCTOR: Yes, if the Drahvins let us go.
STEVEN: We've got to make that sure they do.
DOCTOR: They need our help with the Rills! Why do you think they've held Vicki back?
STEVEN: Okay, but we've got to get off here somehow!
DOCTOR: It's imperative that we leave at once.
STEVEN: Why is that that? The Drahvins did say fourteen dawns.
DOCTOR: Two dawns! Tomorrow is the last day this planet will ever see.

Duh duh duh.

Enjoyable fluff, but now I think the need is to go and be depressed about the 97 missing episodes and the treasures they are hiding from us.

Galaxy 4 (part 2)

Where was I again? Oh yes. NOOOOOOOOO Damn you, you destroyed us all.

Uh, yeah, so missing episodes, eh?

That 5 minute snippet that existed from Part 1 is just a killer. It hints and tempts but there's nothing more.

A Chumbley is heading towards the TARDIS.

An explosion then rocks the TARDIS, sending the Doctor flying. The TARDIS crew really are making friends and influencing people here.

A second explosion refuses to destroy the TARDIS but does KO Steven for a bit.

DOCTOR: Oh, thank you. Oh! Oh! I think Guy Fawkes must have been resurrected.

I think he means the Chumbley? LOL anyway.

The audio for this recon is really bad too.

The Doctor and Steven leave the TARDIS.

Back at Drahvin HQ, Maaga tries to small talk Vicki to no avail.

MAAGA: Everything that lives must eat.
VICKI: They've been gone ages. It must be at least two hours.
MAAGA: They'll be back soon.
VICKI: Not if a Chumbley gets them first.
MAAGA: They won't allow themselves to be caught. They're much too worried about you.
VICKI: That's why you've kept me here, isn't it. Isn't it?
MAAGA: You're safe here.

Outside the spaceship, the Doctor and Steven literally create their own padding:

STEVEN: I was just saying that it's a strange kind of spaceship. Old-fashioned.
DOCTOR: Yes, yes. I don't think much of it. It's not very well advanced, is it? In fact, as you say, it's old-fashioned. Yes. I don't think these Drahvins are very intelligent, do you?
STEVEN: Yeah, but it's the metal, I mean, Doctor, you know. Well, it's inferior.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, it's tough, but, it's not impregnable. No, it's very common metal really. Yes, its it's nothing unusual, nothing unusual. Well, I suggest that we go in instead of standing around here admiring the scenery. Come along.
STEVEN: Well, what are you talking about, Doctor? It's you who stopped to fiddle around on the outside.
DOCTOR: But you brought up the subject. Now don't argue, please. Don't argue. I've never heard such rubbish.

This is Nancy and Sandra in 90 Degrees levels of padding out a scene. It's so blatantly padding, that a panda would get quite snuggly in it as a bed.

The Doctor, Steven and Vicki reunite.

MAAGA: Did you find out about this planet?
DOCTOR: Yes.
MAAGA: Will it explode?
DOCTOR: I'm afraid so.
MAAGA: When?
DOCTOR: Exactly when the Rills said it would. In fourteen dawns time.
MAAGA: Fourteen dawns.
VICKI: Well, we should go, shouldn't we?

The Doctor lies, he doesn't trust them.

The script for this isn't the most subtle or engaging so I'm afraid that most of the enjoyment was probably with the visuals.

But then the Doctor reaffirms his number one philosophy in black and white for the first time, really.

STEVEN: Why couldn't you take them off with you?
MAAGA: Because they're evil. You only have to see them to know. Evil!
DOCTOR: We only have your word for that. In any case, I can't help you.
MAAGA: Why not?
DOCTOR: In the first place, madam, I never kill anything. Neither do my friends.

Go on, my Doctor!

(Yeah we know he lies. But he intends not to...)

Maaga suddenly tries to shoot the Doctor but Steven prevents her. Pretending to be amiable was too much hardworking and it was going so smoothly so far too.

The Drahvin guards arrive and Maaga threatens to kill Vicki, making the Doctor admit the planet is going to explode tomorrow. It was probably a Thursday. He never could get the hang of Thursdays.

Vicki and the Doctor set off to find the Rills and this time Steven is held as prisoner.

A long scene happens, where Steven tries to outwit a Drahvin, only for Maaga to come and try to outwit him, only for Steven to point out if she actually meant her peace offer she'd have given it to the Doctor instead. Which undersells Steven somewhat, but this scene again probably works better with audible audio (I'm having to follow along on the Transcripts site, oft-quoted, just to follow the plot) and MOVING VISUALS FFS. I don't think I've been this depressed about missing episodes since the time I was 10 years and not yet an atheist and tried to do a deal with god to bring back Fury from the Deep and the bugger did nothing.

I like long and wordy Doctor Who, when I can hear and see the long and wordy bits. The first audio I heard of The Macra Terror (which is great) was godawful and I couldn't hear a thing off it.

And this is low down the list of my most wished for missing episodes, but its Doctor Who, after all. Who doesn't want to see the missing treasures?

It feels foolhardy to compare Doctor Who to genuine literature classics of old, but as Vicki is still talking about Chumblies for the 10000th time, here's a bit from Carl Sagan's great Cosmos which has stuck with me since I first read it.

"The glory of the Alexandrian Library is a dim memory. Its last remnants were destroyed soon after Hypatia's death. It was as if the entire civilization had undergone some self-inflicted brain surgery, and most of its memories, discoveries, ideas and passions were extinguished irrevocably. The loss was incalculable. In some cases, we know only the tantalizing titles of the works that were destroyed. In most cases, we know neither the titles nor the authors. We do know that of the 123 plays of Sophocles in the Library, only seven survived. One of those seven is Oedipus Rex. Similar numbers apply to the works of Aeschylus and Euripides. It is a little as if the only surviving works of a man named William Shakespeare were Coriolanus and A Winter's Tale, but we had heard that he had written certain other plays, unknown to us but apparently prized in his time, works entitled Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet." (Carl Sagan)

A human can have multitudes of interests, which is how I find room to mourn the loss of Sophocles and the rest of Kublai Khan, alongside the missing planet scenes here from Galaxy 4. The former would certainly enrichen humanity more, but the latter was plagued my mind for far longer.

The Doctor tries to poison people he's never met. At least I think that's what he's set out to do. Doesn't feel very Doctorish. Some Chumblies move about. Well, I assume they do.

The Rill spaceship looks like a nice design.

Vicki looks at a small Chumbley and giggles, and then suddenly screams.

Oh right, some eyes are starring back at her.

Galaxy 4 (part 3)

Hartnell's moving! Hartnell's moving! Not a drill. We have an actual episode.

Apparently Shaw Taylor narrated a trailer for this episode, which is so random a stat in the Handbooks that it feels like it was made up.

Anyhow, the Doctor with walking stick, and Vicki see a big eyed monster that looks like a creature from Star Wars.

A Chumbley glides through the mud seen through the mirrored walls of a crashed spaceship. Look, that's a great atmospheric shot. As mentioned before this was directed by Derek Martinus, a man with an eye for the dramatic shot so renowned he was poached in later life to TEACH how to direct impactful TV to younger students! Also, note he was a late addition to this story, as Mervyn Pinfield was set up to direct before his health suddenly went into decline.

Muddy, snowy ground. The Doctor and Vicki try to run away and duck down behind a monitor. Then the Doctor gets out of the ship but Vicki is caught by a door. So the Doctor...threatens the Rills by tampering with their breathable air. Why is everyone acting like a ¤¤¤¤ in this?

Vicki is taken away by the Chumblies.

William Emms got into a right bloody huff over this one, apparently. Not only did Verity Lambert change his script - he originally had an all male army, so kudos Verity for making the story a bit more interesting - but apparently William Russell and Maureen O'Brien adlibbed and changed most of the script in rehearsals too!

Now we see Maaga but this time as she gets increasing desperate about her situation, her desk is filmed in shadows and gloom, and you can see the worry and tiredness deep on her face.

MAAGA: I don't know. I have heard that on occasions, they even die for one another.
DRAHVIN 3: Die? For their friends?
MAAGA: There are many strange things in the universe.
DRAHVIN 2: I do not understand.
MAAGA: I know you don't. But despite that, you will obey orders. It may be that we shall kill neither the Rills nor the Earth creatures. Not with our own hands, that is. It may be better for us to escape in the Rills' spaceship and leave them here. And then, when we are out in space, we can look back. We will see a vast, white, exploding planet and know that they have died with it.
DRAHVIN 1: But we will not see them die.
MAAGA: You will not. But I, at least, have enough intelligence to imagine it. The fear, the horror, the shuddering of a planet in its last moments of life. And then they die. But that is for later. Attention!

And at moments like this, as you see Maaga's crazed eyes in close up, you realise Stephanie Bidmead was giving one hell of a performance here (the sort Richard Shaw would have given if not concussed in The Space Museum) which has been utterly hidden by the low quality audio and lack of footage. She's as crazy as Rorvik and ready to lose as long as everyone else loses too, but more so, she thinks she's going to win. Desperate and dangerous.

Vicki gets to talk to the big Rill face behind the steamy window.

VICKI: No. No, you see the Drahvins are keeping a friend of ours prisoner. So, we had to do as they said.
CHUMBLEY: What was that?
VICKI: To capture your spaceship.
CHUMBLEY: Why do they want to capture it? We have offered to take them with us.
VICKI: They didn't tell us that.
CHUMBLEY: No. They would not. They would rather kill. They hate us.
VICKI: Well, you did kill one of them.
CHUMBLEY: We kill no one.
VICKI: But they. Look, who is talking? Is it, is it this Chumbley, or is it someone else?
CHUMBLEY: You call the machines Chumblies?
VICKI: Yes.
CHUMBLEY: The Chumblies have a speaker in them. They are transmitting our thoughts.
VICKI: Your, your thoughts.
CHUMBLEY: We do not speak like you. We have no vocal chords. We communicate in thought.

Finally someone goes "LOL what a daft name!" But yes, the Drahvins are the bad ones. Who'd that thought it? Well, probably everyone who watched.

William Hartnell examines some equipment like it was artefacts in an archaeological field.

The two ships met in space and the Drahvins shot first. Earlier they also shot Greedo first.

Its a flashback, told in slightly off kilter camera. Maaga appears in the forefront of the shot, gun loaded, smiling, and this is us seeing how she truly is through the eyes of her enemy.

Maaga also killed an injured Drahvin too, thus setting up the entire state of war on the planet.

The Doctor is casually trying to poison everyone.

Steven waits for his guard to fall asleep and KO's her and grabs her gun. He tries to make a break for it but Maaga is waiting. Again, watch the desperate nature of Maaga's pleas for Steven, she's in check and panicking. Steven locks himself out of the Spaceship but sees a Chumbley and still thinks they are deadly so locks himself in the Air Lock, as Maaga smirks.

CHUMBLEY: We were told your friend is in danger.
DOCTOR: Is that a Rill talking?
VICKI: Yes. Well, answer him.
DOCTOR: Oh yes, you were told correctly.
VICKI: Doctor, they're not deaf.
DOCTOR: Oh, I'm sorry. I beg your pardon. I thought you couldn't hear.
CHUMBLEY: We are not deaf, you know. Perhaps you will both come inside.
DOCTOR: Ah, yes, it does occurs to me that if we do that we might be trapped.
VICKI: Doctor, if the Rills wanted to harm us, the Chumbley could shoot us now.
DOCTOR: Well, yes. Indeed. Of course, child. Yes, that's quite true, quite true. Yes, well, lead the way, lead the way. As it happens, I'd like to take a look round. What's this? What's this fellow doing?
CHUMBLEY: Going to repair the damage you have done.
DOCTOR: Ah, yes. Quite so.

The Doctor looks wonderfully bashful.

He also tells the Rills they have two days left.

The Doctor makes plans to sort out a power supply from the TARDIS to the Rill ship.

Steven gets told to surrender, or Maaga will cut his oxygen supply, leaving at the mercy of the Drahvins or the Chumbleys. This is Steven stuck in a visual representation of Frank Stockton's The Lion or the Lady, of course. In which a man who wishes to marry the Kings daughter is convicted to the 50/50 persecution of opening a door. One door leads to the lady. The other leads to a hungry lion. Stockton leaves us on a cliffhanger as to which door was opened.

Now of course, Steven's issue is he doesn't know this (he thinks both sides endanger him) otherwise the solution would be fairly simple!

The oxygen is being removed from the airlock.

The Chumbley (which the voice of the Rills pronounces Cum-bley) tries to make peace with the Drahvins and fails as everyone rushes to save Steven.

We see the planet in gloom and shadow.

Steven realises he is in that Edwardian dilemma, decides to leave the ship and face the Chumbley and Maaga goes "OK, that options gone, surrender to me or die!"

Stevens falls unconscious.

How much better it flies by when we can actually see what is going on!

Galaxy 4 (part 4)

Maaga continues to torture Steven.

The Chumbleys fire at the Air Lock, opening it. Steven escapes to find a not so sympathetic Doctor.

DOCTOR: Come along, my boy. Up on your feet. Quickly! Come along. Come on, come on. Put your head down. Now breathe deeply. Come along.

You were trying some casual poisoning earlier, Doctor, mate.

The Chumbleys order the Drahvins into their spaceship as prisoners.

Maaga probably looks even more insane by this point.

The Doctor and Vicki show Steven the Rill ship.

Steven chats to the Rills.

STEVEN: All right. You said it would take hours to charge this ship properly.
CHUMBLEY: The Doctor said he could do it in time.
STEVEN: Yes. But supposing, just this once, you're right, and he's wrong. Would you take us with you, or would you allow us to leave in our own ship?
CHUMBLEY: In your own ship, if possible.
STEVEN: Come off it. I mean, if you don't get this charged in time, you aren't going to let us go just like that.
CHUMBLEY: We are strange beings to you. You've never met anything like us. You come from Earth, a planet we don't know, but clearly it is a planet which still knows conflict.
STEVEN: What? So?
CHUMBLEY: If we are right and the power-charge is going to take too long a time, then the Doctor, the girl, and you must leave. We believe in self-preservation.
STEVEN: Oh yeah, I'm sure.
CHUMBLEY: But if there is a choice, the Doctor must go. He travels further than we can. And everything he has shown he stands for is what we believe in. So it is better that he goes.
STEVEN: I'm sorry. You can't blame me, though, for being suspicious. In that case, there's something you ought know. Whilst I was in the Drahvin ship, they said they intended to leave this planet in yours.
CHUMBLEY: We are prepared to take them with us.
STEVEN: Well, that's not what they mean. They take your ship, you stay here.
CHUMBLEY: We must hope they do not succeed.

The top of the Rill spaceship looks a bit like the Gravitron set. Let's hope it weighed less.

That sounded like a bloody good Peter Purves scene we are missing out on.

The Drahvins escape their spaceship.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is in philosophical mood.

VICKI: It's getting darker, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Hmm? Oh, it's nothing to worry about, my dear. I think the evenings last here for about four hours.
VICKI: It's strange. To think that at dawn all this will explode into nothing.
DOCTOR: No, not just nothing, child. Hydrogen gas that springs itself out like molten silver against the other stars in the same galaxy.

A Drahvin smashes a Chumbley with an iron bar.

The energy hook up between the TARDIS and Rill Ship is complete but will take 5 hours to complete. The planet is due to explode in 4 minutes. I like how calm it is for being so close to an explosion!

Calmest. Armageddon. Ever.

Maaga leads the Drahvins on the attack.

A Drahvin appears at the Rill Ship and goes to kill Steven but is shot by a Chumbley and "completely paralysed". Fate worse than death with 5 hours left...

Maaga and team battle some Chumbleys.

The Doctor gets to see the Rills.

CHUMBLEY: Now you know what we look like.
DOCTOR: I do. And I, for one, am glad of it.
CHUMBLEY: We apologise for the glass partition, but you will understand we must keep our atmosphere in here.
DOCTOR: Yes, of course, of course.
CHUMBLEY: Our appearance shocks you?
DOCTOR: Not now. I must admit, it did at first.
STEVEN: Well, I don't see why the Drahvins should hate you.
VICKI: I know. I mean, after all, we must look just as strange to you.
CHUMBLEY: To the Drahvins we are ugly, so they become frightened.
DOCTOR: You are different from us, of course, but at least you are intelligent.
STEVEN: Yes, what difference does it make what your form is?
DOCTOR: Importance lies in the character and to what use you put this intelligence. We respect you as we respect all life.

The Doctor has managed to make it that the energy transfer only needs one more hour, and there is 90 minutes till planet explosion. And you thought your school essay deadlines were tight...

VICKI: Dawn will be here in half an hour now.
STEVEN: Yes, and when dawn comes this planet explodes like a bomb.
DOCTOR: Oh, really, you two.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Just adding some jeopardy for those reading at home.

The Rill Ship is charged but now the TARDIS crew have to get back to the TARDIS. A Chumbley escorts them back to the TARDIS. Vicki is sad as it will be sacrificed to save her and she is quite fond of the little robots.

The TARDIS crew rush back to the TARDIS, the Drahvins chasing them. With Chumbley aide, they get into the TARDIS just in time. The TARDIS takes off as the planet starts to explode, and Maaga looks horrified as the planet starts to explode around her. A nasty end for a nasty villain.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor reveals they are millions of light years and thousands of years away from that galaxy. Vicki points on the scanner to a planet and wonders what is going on there, and I think Derek Martinus zooms in on the scanner and then down to the planet to reveal... a jungle planet, and a worried man rocking back and forth going "I must kill! I must kill!"

Being honest, this was probably a fairly decent middle of the road opening with dynamic direction, but we'll never know fur sure. We can only guess, like with the snippets of the Library of Alexandria...