Doctor Who/Galaxy 4

Galaxy 4
Season 3, Serial 1
Airdate	September 11, 1965
Production Number	T
Written by	William Emms
Directed by	Derek Martinus
← 2x09 The Time Meddler	3x02 → Mission to the Unknown
Doctor Who — Season Three

Galaxy 4 is the first serial of the third season of Doctor Who, and the eighteenth serial overall.

Four Hundred Dawns: William Hartnell (Dr. Who), Maureen O'Brien (Vicki), Peter Purves (Steven), Marina Martin (Drahvin One), Susanna Carroll (Drahvin Two), Lyn Ashley (Drahvin Three), Stephanie Bidmead (Maaga), Jimmy Kaye, Angelo Muscat, Pepi Poupee, Tommy Reynolds, William Shearer (Chumbley Operators)

Trap of Steel: William Hartnell (Dr. Who), Peter Purves (Steven), Maureen O'Brien (Vicki), Stephanie Bidmead (Maaga), Marina Martin (Drahvin One), Susanna Carroll (Drahvin Two), Lyn Ashley (Drahvin Three), Jimmy Kaye, Angelo Muscat, Pepi Poupee, Tommy Reynolds, William Shearer (Chumbley Operators)

Air Lock: William Hartnell (Dr. Who), Maureen O'Brien (Vicki), Peter Purves (Steven), Stephanie Bidmead (Maaga), Marina Martin (Drahvin One), Susanna Carroll (Drahvin Two), Lyn Ashley (Drahvins Three and Four), Robert Cartland (Rill Voice), Jimmy Kaye, Angelo Muscat, Pepi Poupee, Tommy Reynolds, William Shearer (Chumbley Operators)

The Exploding Planet: William Hartnell (Dr. Who), Peter Purves (Steven), Stephanie Bidmead (Maaga), Maureen O'Brien (Vicki), Marina Martin (Drahvin One), Susanna Carroll (Drahvin Two), Lyn Ashley (Drahvind Three), Robert Cartland (Rill Voices), Jimmy Kaye, Angelo Muscat, Pepi Poupee, Tommy Reynolds, William Shearer (Chumbley Operators), Barry Jackson (Jeff Garvey)

Plot Overview

Four Hundred Dawns

The Doctor, Vicki, and Steven land on a desolate asteroid. A robot, that looks a bit like a short, squat, snowman, takes them prisoner. Vicki dubs the robot a "chumbley".

A group of women, the Drahvin, rescue them. The Drahvins are a female dominated, warrior race - like the Amazons. When they need men (to replenish their numbers), they raid neighboring planets and then kill the men when they have no further need for them. Back at the Drahvin ship, they learn that the chumblies belong to a race known as the Rill. The chumbley outside, tries to get in, but fails.

Steven and the Doctor return to the TARDIS, where the Doctor verifies that the planet will indeed explode ... but not in 14 days. No, it will explode tomorrow!

Trap of Steel

The Doctor, suspecting treachery, lies to their leader, Magga. He tells her that she was correct: the planet will blow up in 14 days. Maaga demands that they help her capture the Rill ship. Their own ship is beyond repair. The Doctor refuses to help her, saying that he never kills anything. Maaga aims her gun at him, forcing him to admit that the planet will actually blow up in two days, not 14.

The Doctor and Vicki go. Steven says behind as a hostage. As they approach the Rill ship, they sneak past several chumblies. At the Rill site, they find a drilling rig, a control box, and other equipment. The Doctor sets about sabotaging the atmospheric system of the ammonia-breathing Rill. Vicki screams when she sees one of the Rill through a window. It looks horrible.

Air Lock

The Rill communicate through thought. Vicki maintains enough composure to have a conversation with the Rill. She learns that they killed no one - it was Maaga who killed the first solider... her own soldier. The Rill even offered to take the Draivin with them - an offer which still stands.

Vicki realises that the Rill are not evil, and rushes to stop the Doctor from sabotaging their atmosphere generator. The chumblies repair the damage that the Doctor had already caused.

Back the at Draivin ship, Steven]has a gun and is cornered in the air lock. Maaga begins draining the air, in order to force him to surrender. The chumblies hear Steven's sounds of distress, and soon a chumbley is sent with the Doctor and Vicki.

Along the way they are stopped at gunpoint by one of Maaga's subordinates. Vicki lies to her, telling her that they have captured the Rill ship and they now control the robots. The Doctor takes her gun in a brief lapse of attention.

The Exploding Planet

The chumblies rescue Steven and force the Drahvins back into their ship, where they immediately begin plotting a new scheme for taking the Rill ship.

At dawn the Drahvin attack, but the chumblies are able to thwart the attack, stunning them. After saying goodbye, the Rill ship takes off. The Doctor and the others then make their way to the TARDIS. Another Drahvin attack is warded off by a chumbley left behind to assist them. This gives the Doctor and his companions the time they need to get inside the TARDIS and leave. Seconds later, the planet blows up.

Trivia

The Show

• Only episode three, "Air Lock", exists in the BBC Archives as a 16mm black & white film telerecording, having been recovered in 2011. However, the print is incomplete due to film damage and is missing the last 27 seconds of action, the "Next Episode" caption and the closing credits. No complete copy of the episode is known to exist. However, 6 minutes of footage exists from "Four Hundred Dawns". The surviving clips come from a number of sources, including a Lively Arts documentary Whose Doctor Who.

Behind the Scenes

• The stars greatly disliked the scripts for this serial. Peter Purves was upset that Dennis Spooner was leaving shortly after he arrived and Maureen O'Brien was unhappy with her dialogue and asked many times for her lines to be amended. Hartnell was also unhappy with the script and things got so heated that John Wiles threatened to fire Hartnell if he didn't follow the script. O'Brien's complaints led Wiles to not renewing her contract beyond it's expiry during The Myth Makers and therefore she departed from the show.

• This serial was originally written with Barbara, Ian, and Vicki, but had to be hastily rewritten with many of Barbara's lines being given to Steven. Both Purves and William Emms were unhappy with this change.