Missing Doctor Who stories are like London buses. You wait ages for one to turn up and then two turn up at once. Although in this case, the fact that they are missing is not as welcome as the fact my fucking bus has finally decided to show up.
Galaxy 4 is a curious case. Bang at the beginning of the show's third season, it nevertheless feels like the final gasp of the version of the show that had been prevalent throughout the first two years. Soon The Daleks' Master Plan would happen and the noticeable change in tone that followed it would mean stories such as this one would play out differently in Hartnell's last few stories. Galaxy 4 also feels, unfortunately, reminiscent of the early sci-fi stories. Aside from The Daleks, most of the early non-historicals are distinctly unimpressive. This isn't on the same level as The Sensorites or anything like that, but its a bit of a weak premise stretched out over four episodes. At least its not six like The Web Planet. Thank heavens for small mercies.
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| Although Steven's cardigan is far worse than anything on screen in The Web Planet |
Firstly, however, we should look at the main elephant in the room, that Galaxy 4 is missing three of its four episodes. For once, I'd say there's not much to be missed here. Watching episode 3 and the 5 minute clip of episode 1 that exists, this is a remarkably non-visual story. The dialogue mostly tells the story - I can't imagine recording the linking narration of the CD release of this story was particularly arduous for whichever of Peter Purves or Maureen O'Brien did it (and no, I can't be bothered to check.) This means that there's not really a great deal you miss from the reconstructions.
Now, is this a big problem? Yes and no. A story doesn't necessarily have to be visual as long as it has the plot to back it up - hell, Big Finish have been making stories that aren't particularly visual for 20 years now. The problem with this one is that the plot is pretty damn thin - it's not Black Orchid or Four to Doomsday bad, but there's probably about two episodes in here at best. The remainder of the runtime is just the plot stretched as thin as it can get - the first episode doesn't really have much of a plot advance until about two thirds of the way in, and the climax involves plugging a Maguffin into another Maguffin, taking up the entire final episode. Additionally, the 'Who are the real baddies?' plot is just exhausting - the Drahvins are very blatantly the bad guys, which means the Rills aren't. Also, Steven spends the vast majority of the third episode arguing with Maaga in an airlock. In an awful cardigan.
For such a dialogue heavy story, the dialogue itself is also a bit hit and miss. The title of this blog post comes from episode 3, when a large metal gate separates the Doctor and Vicki. He says "I can't move it. Its immovable!" Whether this was in the script or a Hartnell billy fluff is difficult to tell, but its nonetheless hilariously redundant and gets the coveted prize of 'piece of crap dialogue that makes it into the blog post title.'
Now, is this a big problem? Yes and no. A story doesn't necessarily have to be visual as long as it has the plot to back it up - hell, Big Finish have been making stories that aren't particularly visual for 20 years now. The problem with this one is that the plot is pretty damn thin - it's not Black Orchid or Four to Doomsday bad, but there's probably about two episodes in here at best. The remainder of the runtime is just the plot stretched as thin as it can get - the first episode doesn't really have much of a plot advance until about two thirds of the way in, and the climax involves plugging a Maguffin into another Maguffin, taking up the entire final episode. Additionally, the 'Who are the real baddies?' plot is just exhausting - the Drahvins are very blatantly the bad guys, which means the Rills aren't. Also, Steven spends the vast majority of the third episode arguing with Maaga in an airlock. In an awful cardigan.
For such a dialogue heavy story, the dialogue itself is also a bit hit and miss. The title of this blog post comes from episode 3, when a large metal gate separates the Doctor and Vicki. He says "I can't move it. Its immovable!" Whether this was in the script or a Hartnell billy fluff is difficult to tell, but its nonetheless hilariously redundant and gets the coveted prize of 'piece of crap dialogue that makes it into the blog post title.'
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| The Doctor was glad for his new job as an electrician |
The plot that is there is generally quite strong however. The fact the planet is about to explode is a good ticking time bomb to add a bit of tension to the story, and while the conflict between the Drahvins and the Rills is a bit shit, the conflict between the regulars and the Drahvins is good. Steven and Maaga in particular get some good scenes spitting at each other for instance.
The strongest element of this story is the Drahvins themselves. They are, in case you are unaware, a species made up almost entirely of women, with apparently some men only being kept for breeding purposes. They are also a race with a high proportion of clones: Maaga is the sole normally bred Drahvin in this story and thus orders the others around.
Now, the 'women dominated society' trope ought to have set off a few internal alarm bells, but rest assured, this is not dealt with in the way you'd expect for a TV program made in the 1960s. The 'women need some men to come along and sort it all out for them' trope is, thankfully, almost completely avoided (unlike Gene Roddenberry's enlightened Star Trek: The Next Generation which unironically did an episode with this plot line over 20 years later. Early TNG was fucking wank and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.) The fact that the Drahvins are a female-dominated society is only mentioned in their opening scene to establish Maaga and the other Drahvin's characters and isn't alluded to again. The Doctor's remark that 'Yours must be a very interesting civilisation', in a dry, slightly disapprovingly sarcastic manner, could certainly be interpreted as his distaste at the killing of the male Drahvins they don't use to breed rather than their gender itself (I'm obviously giving the writer the benefit of the doubt here, it could be the same kind of sexism that Steven Moffat thought defined the First Doctor when it obviously didn't). And poof, the rest of the story goes by, and the Drahvin's might as well be blokes. Maybe there's some merit in using a set-up like this to explore the politics of feminism or whatever, but I think we can all agree, that doing this in the sixties would have been utterly disastrous and that they avoided it is what makes this a decently average story rather than an embarrassing dated mess.
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| It also helps that they are dressed in the least sexy clothing imaginable |
This leads onto the story's greatest success, which is the character of Maaga. She is, as mentioned, the only Drahvin in the story not to be a simple-minded drone, and therefore the only one allowed to have actual character. She is, of course, a ruthless and manipulative leader with the sole interest of self-preservation, but this is aided by some interesting bits of character. She is contemptuous and merciless with her useless underlings, but there's a scene in which she laments that their uselessness is not really their fault. She wanted like-minded scientists and explorers, but got a bunch of soldiers - this gives the impression that she really is doing all she can with a bad hand, or perhaps that she's bitter that her grand colonisation plan went to shit because of a bunch of reptiles and idiotic underlings. Her attempts to manipulate the Doctor, Vicki and Steven are also an interesting notch, especially Steven, whom she tries to get to take her off world in the TARDIS, something that Steven resolutely refuses and pisses her off with. There's also something in her ruthless drive for self-preservation which indicates more than just standard villainy and adds a degree of a third dimension to a character. She's still the bad guy of course, and an effective one at that, particularly in her treatment of her subordinates. Her refusal to be saved by the Rills, when they do seem reluctantly willing to help her, undermines this a little however - moustache twirling xenophobe is not really what the character needed, and it gets frustratingly close to escaping from that mould as discussed, but she doesn't quite make it. Still, its a solid character and one that does the story a good service.
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| She regretted doing her eyeliner during that earthquake |
Meanwhile, the Rills are a dull but serviceable race and the three regulars give decent but not spectacular performances. I haven't even mentioned the Chumbleys, as they really aren't anything to the plot aside from being the first instance of the 'robots who could end up being more popular than the Daleks but inevitably won't' phenomenon that would reoccur throughout the sixties. The music and ambient sound is quite solid and give the story a decent amount of atmosphere, which is helpful given the expected naffness of the sets and props.
Aside from the character of Maaga, which is a good but not flawless character, the whole thing is just a bit serviceable, lightweight and average. There's nothing overly bad in here, and I cannot stress enough how glad I am they avoided the 'society of women need a jolly good smacked bottom' approach, but there's nothing particularly great about it either. That its missing doesn't help, but given the slow, more dialogue heavy nature of the storytelling, there's not a great deal being missed. This isn't the final end of The Evil of the Daleks, you get the jist from the reconstruction. This is a decently average story, but not much better than that. Forgettable, but there's worse. Not great, not terrible. Fair bu.... you get the idea.
Final Score: 5/10. A solid villain, an interesting premise and some good world building are evened out by a thin story and a generally pretty dull sensation throughout the story itself, making this an fairly average story.
Next Episode: Genesis of the Daleks
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