Galaxy 4

Dear Gary—

Following The Time Meddler we have a huge gap of missing Doctor Who episodes. Galaxy 4 should be the next in line after our Monk adventure, but until recently all four episodes of this story have been missing. Thankfully the third episode has recently been found, however it will not be available for a few years yet. In the meantime, Gary, I have discovered a whole new world of reconstructed episodes available on the internet and have been able to view Galaxy 4, perhaps not as originally aired, but with the use of stills, some surviving snippets, and the audio track, I have seen enough to get as good a picture of the story as is possible at this time, and am starting to get a clearer picture of our new companion Steven.

Steven staggered into the TARDIS escaping the Mechanoids back in The Chase; in The Time Meddler he took quite some convincing to believe that the TARDIS is actually a time and space machine. Now that he has settled down into the life of the TARDIS, he is along for the ride. The kidnapped Barbara and Ian, while eventually coming to enjoy and relish in their adventures with the Doctor, ultimately just wanted to get back home. Susan traveled with her grandfather out of love and devotion. Vicki has no home to go back to; the TARDIS is her home. We don’t know about Steven’s home; we don’t know if he has any family or friends that he longs for. He has stumbled into the TARDIS and stumbled into a life of adventure and that seems to be OK with him.

“My dear young man, this is not a joy ride; this is a scientific expedition,” admonishes the Doctor. But Steven just wants to go for a swim on this new and mysterious planet they have arrived on. For Steven this is a joy ride.

This new and mysterious planet, however, is due to explode any day, they learn, and in addition, there are two crashed ships with two crashed crews who lead our newly formed TARDIS group into adventure and danger.

Maaga is especially fascinating: a leader of warriors; female warriors; female warriors born of test tubes.  This mindless army has driven Maaga more than a little mad. They were made unintelligent, she soliloquizes, and will remain that way for the rest of their lives. She is filled with hubris, knowing that she is the only thinking being, and at the same time frustrated by this fact. Confronted with danger, she has no one to rely on but these dimwitted automatons.

While Steven is briefly taken in by the beauty of these beasts, it doesn’t take long for the Doctor and company to realize their true nature. “You want to kill us,” Vicki states bluntly. And indeed, that is Maaga’s intent. Killing is all she knows. She is the only living being, she brags, while the others are merely products; products to fulfill one purpose and that is to kill. As leader of this killing machine, that too seems to be her sole purpose. “The rest we kill,” she casually states of the majority of men on her home planet of Drahva, and she seeks to enlist the Doctor’s aid in killing the Rills, the other crashed crew on the planet. “In the first place, Madam,” the Doctor responds, “I never kill anything; neither do my friends.”

Steven sarcastically asks her, “Have you ever tried being friendly?” No, Maaga doesn’t even know what a friend is. She marvels at the fact that on other worlds people actually help each other, and in some cases even die for one another. This is a concept she cannot comprehend. “There are many strange things in the universe.”

There is a certain poetry in her madness. Alone in her thoughts, she considers the prospects of escaping in the Rill ship, leaving the Doctor, his companions, and the Rills behind on the dying planet.  “And then,” she elegizes, “when we’re out in space, we can look back; there will be a loud, white exploding planet; and know that they have died with it.” True, she admits, they will not be able to see them die, “but I at least have enough intelligence to imagine it—the fear, the horror, the shuddering of the planet in its last moments of life, and then they die.”

The Doctor, too, sees poetry in the dying planet, but while Maaga sees only destruction, the Doctor sees new life. When Vicki laments that shortly it will explode into nothing, the Doctor replies, “No, not nothing, child—hydrogen gas that sprays itself out like molten silver against the other stars in the same galaxy.”

In fact, the Doctor seems to be softening in these last few stories since the loss of Barbara and Ian. He is more poetical, philosophical, and playful; longing for some peace, a chance to stop and “take stock of ourselves instead of being surrounded by dangers all the time.”  Even when confronted by danger, he is less tetchy and more calm.

He advises Vicki on being patient: “First we must observe, note, collate, and then conclude; after that perhaps we can act.” Vicki playfully echoes this back to him after distracting a Chumbley (as Vicki terms the little robot creatures they find on the planet): “That was no risk. I noted, observed, collated, concluded . . . and then I threw the rock.” “I suppose I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” the Doctor good naturedly concedes. And later he humorously notes that he guesses he can drag his “aged limbs” into some “semblance of a run.” William Hartnell’s edges indeed have softened.

This kinder, gentler Doctor has no problem with the Rills, despite their hideous appearance. While the feminine Drahvins were beautiful of form, the Doctor immediately saw through to their barbaric core. The Rills, on the other hand, are intelligent, reasoned, and just, and the Doctor sees past their beastly appearance. The Rills, in turn, admire the Doctor. “We respect you as we respect all life.” And later: “Though we are beings of separate planets, you from the solar system and we from another space, our ways . . . do not seem all that different. It has been an honor to know you and serve you.”

I hope, Gary, that you had a chance to stumble upon this reconstructed episode as I have done, for it is truly a gem. I doubt that this was the case, but perhaps, just as the planet of Galaxy 4 shatters into glittering silver sprays of hydrogen, so too the story of Galaxy 4 echoes through time and space and somewhere, somehow its shimmering shards will reach you.