Doctor Who - Galaxy 4 Steelbook (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray] [2021]: Amazon.co.uk: DVD & Blu-ray (original) (raw)

Another Doctor Who dvd that uses animation to bring back to life a story that no longer survives in it's entirety. In this case, Galaxy Four. Which was four episodes long. And was the first story in William Hartnell's third season in the role, back in 1965.

This one was completely gone, save for a clip or two, for years. Till episode three turned up about a decade ago.

The story sees the TARDIS land on an unnamed planet in the fourth galaxy. Where they find two spaceships. One crewed by a squad of Drahvins, beautiful females. And one by a crew of Rills. Who you don't initially see. They have robots called Chumblies who do all the manual work for them. The planet is about to come apart due to natural events. Both ships landed here after a battle, and both are working hard to leave. But then the Doctor discovers the planet end's is more imminent than anyone thought. But in the race to leave the planet on time, who can be trusted?

There's a moral to the story, and a very obvious one. But to it's credit it never really states this and lets the viewer learn it for themselves.

This is a rather forgotten little story. It's not the most spectacular one, or one that might live in the memory that long after viewing. But it is an interesting little creation. There is a bit too much tooing and froing in the first three parts, but part four does up the pace and have good action and a satisfactory finale.

It's not a great story for Steven as a companion, in only his second full tale, as he just gets to say lines written for recently departed characters. It is a good one for Vicki, though, who does get some decent stuff to do.

And the Drahvins are quite a fascinating creation. Actress Stephanie Bidmead, as their commander, delivers an excellent performance of very subtle menace.

Then there's the music and the sound. Both are quite unique, and have a very otherworldly atmosphere to them, so these are good at creating the feeling of a strange place.

This does end on a cliffhanger that leads into a one off episode that was called 'Mission to the Unknown.' But that's another story.

Not all Doctor Who stories can be classics. These episodes were only originally made to ensure they had twenty five minutes of television at a certain time on a saturday night. But this one is not without it's charms, so it is worth a look. Animation is of the same standard as others, and is effective at bringing it all to life. Although the animated Doctor probably runs a lot faster than William Hartnell could have managed.

The dvd as ever has a reversible sleeve so it will fit in with the others on your shelf.

There's the usual production booklet with details of how the original was made.

This is a two disc release, rather than the usual three disc ones. Doubtless by virtue of being a four not six parter and with a little less in the way of extras as well. It does though do the animation both in colour and black and white, on separate discs.

Languages are subtitles are both English only. With English audio navigation.

Extras:

The surviving live action episode three. With both the option for a commentary and/or production subtitles.

There's plenty of commentaries for the animated episodes, and production subtitles on those also.

A six minute long clip of the live action episode one. All that survives of it. With a commentary.

There's the usual reconstruction of the episodes using clips and telesnaps, and optional narration. The latter being the narration that was released as a cd in 2000.

There's also a photo gallery. A teaser trailer for the animated version that came out months pre the release.

Scripts and radio times cuttings as ROM PDF files.

Two documentaries:

The trouble with Chumblies. A forty min long look at the making of the story. Done as a chat with many involved this lacks some structure, but it is an amiable watch that flies by.

Finding Galaxy four: a twenty min look at how episode three was returned. Possibly of more interest to those who have been in fandom a long time and followed the hunt for the lost episodes, but still a pretty good watch.