SYNOPSIS
The TARDIS lands on an arid and seemingly deserted planet, but
the travellers soon discover two crashed spaceships. The crews are
physically diametrical - the humanoid Drahvins are beautiful, whilst
the reptilian Rills are ugly. But appearances can be deceptive - the
Drahvins are mindless female clones controlled by the cruel and
xenophobic matriarch, Maaga (played by Stephanie Bidmead),
whereas the Rills are friendly and intelligent explorers.
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor learns that instead of the supposed
"fourteen dawns" the planet has only one day of life left - the
stranded aliens must escape. The Doctor uses his Ship's power to
jump-start the Rill spacecraft, and they now leave the Drahvins to
their fate - they perish when the planet explodes.
BACKGROUND
Penned by former English teacher, William Emms (1930-1993),
the central premise of Galaxy 4 is simple: never judge a book by
it's cover. In his draft scripts (which still featured Ian and Barbara),
the Drahvin 'baddies' were male, but producer Verity Lambert
changed the race into women, which reinforced the message that
beauty is only skin-deep. In 2004, feminist writer, Kate Orman
commented on the genre cliche of 'Amazonian' women: "[female]
soldiers and astronauts were such an exotic idea in 1965 that they
warranted a sci-fi rationale" (DWM Special Editon #7).
The writer creates two interesting alien cultures here. Women
were the dominant gender in the militaristic, almost Aryan, Drahvin
society, which consisted of two castes: the governing Elite, (bred
in the usual manner) which produced their limited science; and the
artificially created 'Warrior' or slave class (not necessarily a cloned
race like the Sontarans), described by Maaga as "inferior products".
A small male population was cultivated purely for reproduction, and
servitude, the rest were culled. Their homeworld of Drahva was in
Galaxy Four, and was "400 dawns" from the unidentified, dying
planet seen here.
The technologically advanced and pacifistic Rills are telepathic, can
live hundreds of years, and breathe ammonia. They are large, scaly,
monstrous creatures, and possess six human-like hands, but cannot
speak vocally. They could communicate via their "blind" robots,
christened 'Chumblies' by Vicki.
- this four-part adventure originally aired in September and October 1965 - it achieved average ratings of 9.9M
- the working title was The Chumblies
- Derek Martinus replaced Mervyn Pinfield as director
- part three, Airlock (the only surviving instalment) was returned to the BBC archives in September 2011 - its discovery was announced at the BFI that December
- the missing episodes were animated, and the completed story was released on DVD in November 2021
- Emms novelised his scripts for Target in 1985
- a script book (correctly titled Galaxy 4) was published by Titan in 1994
- Peter Purves (Steven Taylor) provided linking narration on the CD soundtrack, issued in 2000 and 2010
- the cast included Robert Cartland (Rill Voices) who was Malpha in the next story, Mission to the Unknown; Bill Lodge (Rills) made uncredited appearances in The Silurians and The Daemons; and Chumblie operator Tommy Reynolds was the Troll Doll in Terror of the Autons
- Emms' rejected serial, The Imps (commissioned in July 1966), was eventually reworked into the Mission to Venus book in 1986 - he also submitted The Harvesters (aka The Vampire Planet) in 1969, The Zeldan, and The SCI (both circa 1983)
- the Drahvins were even referenced in The Pandorica Opens
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