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Galaxy 4 Format Reviewed: CD Review Galaxy 4 opens the third season of Doctor Who adventures, and is the second story in the shows history of which no episodes are known to still exist. This adventure also sits just before Mission to the Unknown which is the prelude episode to The Daleks' Masterplan twelve episode epic later in the series. By this time, Doctor Who had become staple Saturday night viewing, but even at this stage it wasn't without its controversy, or threat of cancellation. It seems that for whatever reasons, Doctor Who will always have powerful detractors who would rather see the Tardis fly off into a dusty cupboard somewhere and not materialise again. While many other stories are complex with twists abound in the plots, Galaxyy 4 is a very simple and somewhat shallow story. The Tardis has landed on a planet that is about to explode, and the crew encounter two space ships carrying two different races who are at odds with each other and cannot escape. The Drahvins have an interesting matriachal society structure, where women are born to rule or genetically created to serve. Some men are kept, presumably for their useful input to breeding. They are a xenophobic species, and are against the Rills, who breath amonia and manifest themselves through robots nicknamed Chumblies by Vicki are a peaceful race, only intent on getting off the planet before it explodes. For the story itself, the above is probably about as deep as it gets. I was listening to this expecting there to be some more twists, and the Rills to be some kind of even worse race than the Drahvins, but there just wasn't. Perhaps with the epic Daleks' Masterplan later in the season, the production team thought it best to give a very light story. Sure, it is not without its peril, and this is built up well in the lead up to the escape at the end, but I think the length of the preview of the following episode a the end of this story is an indicator of just how little plot there was here. The following episode, Mission to the Unknown, is the prequel to the Daleks' Masterplan, and was given a good few minutes here at the end as a taster. Given the lack of an engrossing plot and deep storylines, it is therefore surprising that the story actually translates fairly well to audio. There is a pretty limited cast, with the regular Tardis crew members of Hartnell, Maureen O'Brien as Vicki and Peter Purves Steven Taylor being joined by four Drahvins and a Rill voice, apart from the chumblies. Purves and Hartnell have strong personalities, and this comes over very well. They are also the main people involved as Vicki is relatively redundant here. All three though give pretty typical performances. Of the small guest cast, only really Maaga played by Stephanie Bidmead is too predominant. She does well in a role that is basically a humanoid automaton. Further to the shallowness and apparant cheapness of this story, the one thing that really struck me about the production was the use of so many Dalek sound effects. The door sounds are taken from the first Dalek adventure, and there is even the familiar heartbeat noise at one point if I am not mistaken. Whether this is a pre-cursor to the main dish of the season I don't know, but I seriosly doubt it. I suspect that it's just a bit of recycling, which is a very green thing to do. Overall, Galaxy 4 is a relatively harmless story that appears to have been commissioned to fill a gap in the schedule. There is very little plot depth, and if the story had survived on videotape I suggest this would be largely forgotten as an eminently missable episode. As the videotape is not available though, the story transposes to audio rather well despite the lack of depth, and is fairly pleasant to listen to. Rating:  |