Galaxy 4

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For the communications satellite, see Galaxy IV. For the Android smartphone, see Samsung Galaxy S4.

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018 – Galaxy 4
Doctor Who serial
Galaxy 4.jpg
The Drahvins and a Chumbley
Cast
Others
Production
Writer William Emms
Director Derek Martinus
Mervyn Pinfield (uncredited)
Script editor Donald Tosh
Producer Verity Lambert
Executive producer(s) None
Incidental music composer Stock music by Les Structures Sonores
Production code T
Series Season 3
Length 4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Episode(s) missing 3 episodes (1, 2 and 4)
Date started 11 September 1965
Date ended 2 October 1965
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by →
The Time Meddler "Mission to the Unknown"

Galaxy 4 (alternatively spelled Galaxy Four) is the mostly missing first serial of the third season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 11 September to 2 October 1965. Only one episode is held in the BBC archives; three remain missing.

Plot

The Doctor, Vicki, and Steven Taylor arrive on an eerily silent planet and encounter curious small robots, which Vicki names Chumblies. It is unclear whether the robots are hostile, when one is disabled by a party of female, cloned Drahvins, from the planet Drahva in Galaxy 4. It is revealed that this unknown planet is also in Galaxy 4, but is not given a name. The Drahvins are dominated by their leader, Maaga, who treats her other warriors with bullying contempt. The Drahvins are at war with the reptilian Rills, the masters of the Chumblies, and both races have crashed spaceships on this planet.

The planet will be destroyed in 14 planetary cycles and, with the Drahvin ship irreparable, Maaga and her warriors are keen to capture the Rill ship, which they believe has been made functional again. Maaga paints a picture of the Drahvins as the attacked species in the scenario, but the Doctor has witnessed some of the Drahvin aggression and is clearly not convinced. He also reworks the probability on the planet’s destruction and calculates it will break up in just two days' time. The Doctor tries to keep this new finding from the Drahvins, but Maaga reveals her true colours and forces the truth from him at the point of a gun.

With Steven held as hostage to ensure their co-operation, the Doctor and Vicki are sent by the Drahvins to try to seize control of the Rill ship. The Doctor works out that the Rills are a very advanced species: when he meets one he is impressed, not least by their telepathy. The ugly, horned, ammonia-breathing Rill explains that the Rills have offered to take the Drahvins away with them but Maaga has refused, preferring to maintain the state of war she began when the Drahvins shot down the Rill craft. The Doctor tells the Rills of the true life remaining in the planet and promises to help them escape, since the solar energy converters on the Rill craft have not gathered enough power to effect a lift-off.

The Doctor and Vicki return to the Drahvin ship to find Steven unconscious after Maaga has tried to kill him by leaving him in a depressurised airlock. They all then return to the Rill vessel, where the Doctor successfully develops a power converter linked to the TARDIS, which charges the Rill craft. Maaga leads the Drahvins in a final assault on the Rill craft, but the Chumblies defend their ship long enough for it to power up and leave the planet. One Chumbley left behind to aid the time travellers helps them get back to the TARDIS. Once the ship leaves, the planet explodes, with the Drahvins perishing on the dying world.

The story ends with a lead in to "Mission to the Unknown" with Vicki looking at a planet, and wondering what is happening on it. The action then switches to the planet, where Jeff Garvey in a jungle is repeating "I must kill".

Production

The working title for this story was The Chumblies. Different resources alternatively spell out the title: Galaxy Four.

The BBC no longer holds the complete serial in its archives, although on 11 December 2011 it was announced that episode three, "Air Lock", had been discovered earlier that year among material bought by former ITV engineer Terry Burnett;[1][2] however, due to a break in the film, the last 27 seconds of action and the closing credits are all missing from the print.[3] Additionally, almost six minutes worth of footage from episode one, "Four Hundred Dawns", is held in the archive thanks to a 1977 documentary entitled Whose Doctor Who - although only 30 seconds was eventually used, the footage that was discarded was kept by Jan Vincent-Rudzki, then president of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, who acted as a technical advisor on the documentary programme, and who returned the footage he had kept to the BBC in the 1990s.[4][5]

Broadcast and reception

Serial details by episode
Episode Broadcast date Run time Viewers
(in millions)		 Archive
"Four Hundred Dawns" 11 September 1965 (1965-09-11) 22:21 9.0 Only stills and/or fragments exist
"Trap of Steel" 18 September 1965 (1965-09-18) 24:51 9.5 Only stills and/or fragments exist
"Air Lock" 25 September 1965 (1965-09-25) 24:19 11.3 16mm t/r
"The Exploding Planet" 2 October 1965 (1965-10-02) 24:47 9.9 Only stills and/or fragments exist
[6][7][8]

The ratings for this story ranged from 9 million viewers for Episode 1 to a peak of 11.3 million viewers for Episode 3.

Ian Levine claimed that the Doctor Who Appreciation Society obtained legal permission to privately screen this serial at a convention in 1978, only to find that the BBC had junked the episodes about three weeks prior.[9] Later research subsequently showed this to be mistaken, as the DWAS never held any agreement to show the serial, and BBC Enterprises appear to have junked at least one of the episodes by the end of 1976.[10]

Commercial Releases

In print

Galaxy Four
Doctor Who Galaxy Four.jpg
Author William Emms
Cover artist Andrew Skilleter
Series Doctor Who book:
Target novelisations
Release number
 104
Publisher Target Books
Publication date
 November 1985 (hardback) 10 April 1986 (paperback)
ISBN 0-491-03691-4

A novelisation of this serial, written by William Emms, was published by Target Books in November 1985, entitled Galaxy Four.

The script of this serial was published by Titan Books in July 1994, edited by John McElroy, here entitled Galaxy 4. At the time of printing, the only audio recording known to exist was a poor quality copy of the second episode "Trap of Steel" which had several parts completely inaudible.[11]

Home media

All the existing audio-visual material for this story was released on VHS in 1998 as part of the documentary The Missing Years.

The same material was released on DVD in 2004 as part of the Lost in Time box set. The newly rediscovered episode 3, "Air Lock", was released on 11 March 2013 as an extra on The Aztecs - Special Edition DVD.[12] Along with the episode, a reconstruction of the other 3 episodes, which had been originally prepared for the DVD of The Time Meddler, was included, with surviving clips and photographs.[13]

The soundtrack for the serial is intact and was released commercially in 2002, with linking narration provided by Peter Purves.[14]

See also

References

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External links

Reviews

Target novelisation

Audio Adaptation

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