Review: Doctor Who Classic: Four To Doomsday

Android Frogs arrive to take over the world!

Doctor Who - Season 19, Story Two - Four To Doomsday

Because they wanted Davison's first story to be at least mildly well-performed, the first one he ever recorded was the second story of the season, Four to Doomsday. Fans don't give it a lot of credit; its shoddy special effects and the fact that it comes between two of the Fifth Doctor's more notable stories certainly doesn't help, but the serial itself is a recent favourite of mine for more reasons than one. It's certainly nowhere near perfect, but no Who story truly is and a lot of the time this story's foibles are what make it so entertaining.     
      The Doctor and his roster of three companions are bickering in the Tardis, Adric showing a bit of a chavanistic side, when The Doctor lands where he thinks is Heathrow Airport 1982 - get used to it, this is a common theme throughout Davison's run and this season in particular. In fact he's landed on a spaceship headed towards Earth, run by the mysterious Monarch (the affably evil Stratford Johns) and his creepy assistants Persuasion and Enlightenment. Carrying what appear to be four groups of Earth based civilisations going back in four-thousand year gaps, Monarch keeps the four Tardis passengers on the ship and they soon discover the truth behind Monarch's plot. He believes himself a God, and through the use of android technology he plans to recreate his entire civilisation as immortal beings, and to do so he's going to invade Earth, kill the inhabitants and then use the planet's crust for his silicon chips. Despite Adric going out of his way to side with the villain, The Doctor wins round the leaders of the android civilisations and defeats Monarch, leaving the androids free to find their own planet and live in peace forever.
     Four To Doomsday's enemies are the frog-like people of Urbanka, and their use is incredibly well-done. Stratford Johns, working under the stresses of a heavy costume, still portrays a likeable but ultimately megolamaniac Monarch, who delivers some of the episode's best lines - "Ah, conformity. Is there any other freedom?" - in a way that, considering the stresses he was under, is admirable. Enlightenment and Persuasion are the first clues to the ship's mechanical nature as they change themselves from the frog-like creatures into two humanoids played by Annie Lambert and Paul Shelly respectively. Shelly is especially good as the sly, manipulative Persuasion, who serves as Monarch's Dragon for the majority of the serial.Lambert has less of a presence, but she doesn't harm the story.

He hasn't grounded his 4026B...

     Guest stars aside from the villains are ok if not stellar; Bond actor Phillip Locke's role as the Athenian Leader Bigon is fascinating to watch and his delivery of the mid-serial bombshell that everyone on the ship is an Android (carved around the new twice-a-week-scheduling) is mindblowing. Elsewhere, and Burt Kwouk plays the Chinese leader with the charm that he brings to every one of his characters.
     Davison makes a point in the commentary that this episode couldn't have been done as a Baker story, and I agree with him. Davison is a lot more active here than Tom was in his final series, and some of the special effects seem like they might have angered his sense of familiarity with the process (flying through space as performed by riding an office chair over a blue screen, for instance). Maybe Tom would have a bit more fun with the megalomaniac villain angle but over all things this was written specifically for Five and thus he fills the role perfectly.
      Companions, however, are another story entirely. Janet Fielding is funny on the commentary, and that's the only solace I can find that Tegan is even here, her unrealistic characterisation carried over from her first few appearances and not improving here any. With so many companions, they all become incredibly one note and if that note is off-key than it strikes particularly badly - Tegan is gobby and yet absurdly skilled (she's able to draw a still-life drawing of what she considers average dress from memory as well as speak a 40,000 year old Australasian dialect), Adric is annoying, chavanistic and whiney and Nyssa... Nyssa doesn't do much. Of course one could blame this on the fact that she wasn't written into these early stories until the last minute - the next story has her faint unexpectedly for no reason and then get better at the end - but it doesn't exactly add credence to the three-companion drive when one of them, and the least irritating one at that, is constantly sidelined.

Tenko, you say? Never heard of it.

      Another thing mentioned in the commentary that is a lot more sublte than one would expect is the use of lighting. The set they had was on the edge of the studio and was plain white, and so to inject some colour lighting is used incredibly well to provide an atmosphere for the story.  One thing I love, probably influenced by other sci-fi, are the swooshy doors which appear to have come at a great cost to the production team but make the setting seem like less of a set and more like a real space ship. There's also no music at all except for a few rare moments, which is strange considering Eighties Who's habit of having intrusive melodies constant in the background.
      Four To Doomsday makes the best of a bad lot, using lighting and music - the notable lack of - to create an atmospheric and interesting piece of television bolstered and complimented by the brilliant acting on display. There are a lot of problems with it, but the story has an inescapable charm that leads me to chuckle at the absurdity instead of groan. Davison's first outing is an entertaining hundred minutes and sets the tone of his serial perfectly after the rough leftovers from Castrovalva.

Thanks.