Masterpiece Theatre
Number 12: Galaxy 4
Galaxy 4 has
always been one of those stories in which I have never been interested. Like The Savages, The Myth Makers and The
Massacre of St Bartholemew’s Eve, it has long since been lost to the
archives. Very few images of Galaxy 4
survive, and those that exist do very little to pique the interest and
stimulate the imagination. It doesn’t help that the Target novelisation of the
story, by the serial’s author William Emms, is perfunctory at best, offering
very little in terms of world-building and character development. Even the
people who worked on it struggle to remember too much about it, and that’s
never a good sign.
When it was announced that the third episode, Airlock, had been returned to the
archives, the general consensus was that, although it was good to see that
horrible number of missing episodes inch ever closer to a double figure total,
most fans would have cheerfully swapped Airlock for any of the missing episodes
of Power of the Daleks or The Web of Fear for example. So when the
recovered episode was announced as one of the special features on the DVD
special edition of The Aztecs, I
certainly approached it as a curiosity piece and nothing more; just another
orphaned episode amongst way too many others.
How wrong I was. Galaxy
4 is, for the most part, extremely enjoyable and thematically interesting.
In many ways it’s a prime example of sixties sci-fi and deserves a fast and
radical re-evaluation. In the Doctor Who
Magazine Mighty 200 survey of 2008, Galaxy
4 placed 172, thanks in no small part to some of the elements listed above.
Nobody remembered it; ergo it was unmemorable and average. Yet Galaxy 4 is so much better than that.
One can only imagine that it will chart so much higher when the next survey is
carried out. Certainly it is far superior to fellow Hartnell tales Planet of Giants, The Chase and The Celestial
Toymaker, all of which feature much higher than Galaxy 4.
The main reason for this reappraisal, and indeed the main
reason for seeking out a copy of The Aztecs
to watch the superb reconstruction of the missing episodes of Galaxy 4, is Stephanie Bidmead as the
main villain, Maaga. If there is any justice in the world, Bidmead’s
world-weary portrayal of a superior intellect surrounded by idiots will be
remembered as one of the best villain turns in the entire history of Doctor Who. Her annoyance and
frustration at the lack of imagination in her Drahvin soldiers hides a sadistic
and malevolent blood-lust that is chilling to behold. Tellingly, the Doctor and
companions Steven and Vicki see through her smiling facade immediately. Vicki’s
observation that Maaga would enjoy killing them, within minutes of meeting her,
has a power that very few character interactions possess. Make no mistake;
Maaga is lethal. She is a psychopath on the verge of detonating, and all the
characters know it. The Drahvin clone-drones are terrified of Maaga, and for a
group of soldiers bred to kill to be afraid of their leader is a frightening
prospect, leaving the viewer in no doubt about the threat Maaga poses. For a
long time, it is debatable which will explode first: the unnamed planet or
Maaga. That threat is not even diminished by the last episode where Maaga’s
potential is squandered in a show of underwritten impotence. Her grandstand moment
comes in Airlock, when she delivers a speech about what the end of the planet
will look like, straight to camera, a smile playing on her lips as she tells
her soldiers that her final moments will be spent gleefully watching her
enemies die.
The Drahvins are well-served by now properly existing in
moving footage. Far from the dolly-bird window-dressing they have sometimes
been described as, Maaga’s subordinates demonstrate rather touching child-like
qualities, always looking to Maaga for the approval they will never receive. When
one Drahvin questions why she is not allowed to go on patrol, she is told that
she is not allowed. Her bewilderment at the order, because patrolling is what
she always does at this time, is reminiscent of a small child struggling to
come to terms with a unexpected change in routine. Carrying on this theme, we
are told that only Maaga is allowed to carry a gun, because she is leader. This
draws comparisons with children’s games, where one child is in charge of the
game because they happen to have the correct prop or because it is their house,
and the others docilely accept this as being how the world works. The Drahvins
are children caught up in a game that they do not understand, and it is
difficult not to have some sympathy for their plight. The way they look to
Maaga for comfort or reassurance reinforces the concept that they are nothing
more than children. They are a peculiarly touching and therefore interesting
race.
The most shocking moment in Airlock flashes back to just after the Rill and Drahvin ships have
crash-landed. From a Rill’s point of view, we see a wounded Drahvin soldier,
face covered in blood (highly unusual for any Doctor Who not written by Eric Saward), reaching out for help,
before Maaga puts her out of her misery with a callous blast from her gun. She
doesn’t even attempt to help her soldier or to ascertain her injuries. Maaga’s
first instinct is to kill, and her drone dies not understanding what is
happening to her. It’s a powerful moment, mostly because it is so unexpected.
The soundtrack gives no indication of what has happened. It is only through
viewing the episode that we understand how horrific Maaga’s casual execution
truly is.
Vicki comes across very well in the story. The scene where
she tests her theory about the Chumblies (the oddly cute robot servants of the
Rills) is as amusing a scene as sixties Doctor Who ever offered. Bunging a rock
at the Chumbley, she ducks down like a naughty child, listening to the Doctor’s
splutters of outrage. Then she calmly tells the Doctor: ‘I noted, observed,
collated and concluded. And then I threw a rock.’ The Doctor, oddly enough, is
unable to muster a reply. It’s practically modern Doctor Who in its execution.
The Doctor gets his own moment of childishness when, dismantling
the Rill’s ammonia production unit in an act of ill-considered vandalism, he is
stopped by Vicki and then told off by the Rills. When a Chumbley moves off and
the Doctor asks where it is going, we get a lovely moment where the Rill tells
him it is going to repair the damage he caused, making the Doctor glance at his
feet in embarrassment. By this point, William Hartnell’s mannerisms are
well-established, with little harrumphs and constant clutches at his lapels,
but this only endears him to us. In his second season, Hartnell owns the
Doctor.
For many, many years, as long as I can remember, it was
received wisdom that the Rills are the only monster for which there was no
visual record. Not entirely true, as some of the delegates in Mission to the Unknown, to my knowledge,
have no photographic representation. Regardless of the truth of this widespread
claim, it was not without a degree of trepidation that fans gazed upon the
Rills for the first time in fifty years. They needn’t have worried. Looking
like an early design for Jabba the Hutt crossed with a walrus, and voiced like
a Star Trek monster, the Rills are quite competent. Obviously they are too
ambitious for Doctor Who’s budget,
but they suit Galaxy 4’s parable
themes of beauty and the beast. That they spend much of their time swathed in
smoke hides some of their shortcomings, although it is a pity they weren’t
shown in little glimpses, like the 456 in Torchwood:
Children of Earth. There’s one great image of them in the reconstruction
that finally settles once and for all what they look like.
In a way, the most thrilling bit is the last thirty seconds
when, safely aboard the TARDIS, the three travellers survey a nearby planet.
Then the camera moves in on that planet and we see Garvey sprawled out on the
ground, repeating the same phrase over and over again: ‘Kill, kill, kill.’ It’s
as tantalisingly close as we perhaps will ever get to seeing Mission to the Unknown, the ultimate ‘Doctor-lite’
story. It almost makes you weep when you know you can’t watch more.
Galaxy 4 is a much
better story than I could possibly have imagined. Once again, it’s painfully obvious
just how much of a loss those missing 106 episodes are to the world of
television. If a story like Galaxy 4
is deserving of re-evaluation, what of tales like The Savages or The Smugglers?
How many real bona-fide classics have we been denied? Maybe we will never know,
but what is very clear indeed is that, no matter how good a job the soundtracks
and John Cura telesnaps do of filling in the gaps, only the moving images
reveal the true measure of a story’s quality. Take a trip to Galaxy 4 – it’s a surprising
entertaining place.
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