567 Four to Doomsday: Part Four

EPISODE: Four to Doomsday: Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 567
STORY NUMBER: 118
TRANSMITTED: Tuesday 26 January 1982
WRITER: Terence Dudley
DIRECTOR: John Black
SCRIPT EDITOR: Antony Root
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 9.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Four to Doomsday

"He is not concerned with bringing civilisation. He has the greatest contempt for anyone but himself. He wants to rob Earth of its minerals in order to travel faster than the speed of light."

Nyssa deactivates the robot executing the Doctor saving his life. The Doctor, Adric & Nyssa are taken to Monarch where the Doctor feigns co-operation. Nyssa is held hostage to insure his good behaviour and a recreational is organised. The Doctor convinces first Adric and the Lin Futu to help him. They rescue Bigon and recruit him and then free Nyssa. The Doctor & Adric attempt to get the Doctor to the Tardis using borrowed space gear but they are interrupted by first Persuasion & the Enlightenment. Both ministers have their circuits thrown overboard but not before the Doctor is cut loose. He uses a cricket ball's momentum to propel him to the Tardis which he brings back to the ship. Monarch deactivates the ship's life support forcing them to use the breathing gear again. The Doctor takes Monarch's poison to the Tardis but Monarch intercepts them.

The Doctor throws the poison at Monarch which kills him: he was still organic. The Tardis crew take their leave of Bigon and the android copies, but once they are in the Tardis Nyssa collapses.

A little bit of a rushed mess.

The Doctor's escape from the Grecian Swordsman is cleverly engineered by Nyssa...

MONARCH: The graphite of the pencil conducted the power of the sonic device causing a short circuit.

For which she is rightly praised.

DOCTOR: Oh, thank you, Nyssa. It was brilliant, by the way. Quite brilliant.

We then go through a round of clearing out the Doctor's pockets, something we've not seen for a while:

PERSUASION: What is this?
DOCTOR: Eye glass. I'm a bit short-sighted in this one.
PERSUASION: This?
DOCTOR: It's a piece of string.
PERSUASION: And this?
DOCTOR: It's a cricket ball. A memento. I used to bowl a very good chinaman. I took five wickets once for New South Wales.
PERSUASION: His Majesty wishes to see you. All of you.

For those who don't know, a Chinaman in cricket is a delivery bowled by a left handed wrist spin bowler. He must have been rather good at it took support the claim that he once took 5 wickets for New South Wales! Fine in itself.... but it creates problems later.

Having gained Monarch's forgiveness

MONARCH: Ah, Doctor. Your machine is reluctant to break free from mine.
DOCTOR: I can't think why.
MONARCH: A more considerate guest than you, perhaps.
DOCTOR: Oh, is it usual for a host to kill a guest?
MONARCH: Oh, in certain rarified circles, but your life is forfeit because you were plotting against me.
ADRIC: Doctor?
DOCTOR: My actions were motivated by scientific curiosity.
MONARCH: Not as they were reported to me.
DOCTOR: Reports can be garbled, your Majesty.
MONARCH: Not this time. Was it scientific curiosity which caused you to interfere with my monopticons?
DOCTOR: I wouldn't dream of interfering with your monopticons.
MONARCH: Enough of these recriminations. I propose to show my moral superiority by sparing your life. I'm not, as you would have others believe, a wanton destroyer, but I must protect myself and my mission. Now the girl Nyssa will be held hostage. If you're restrained, you'll come to no harm. Beware you're not the cause of her destruction. Take her to Lin Futu. Let him sedate her and await my orders. Control, let there be a recreational. For while my eyes are restored from the results of the Doctor's scientific curiosity, I would have my family under my benevolent gaze. You have my permission to withdraw.
DOCTOR: Thank you, your Majesty.

The Doctor then starts on a lengthy to do list, first persuading Adric back on side:

DOCTOR: Now listen to me, you young idiot. You're not so much gullible as idealistic. I suppose it comes from your deprived delinquent background. Monarch is the greatest being in the known universe for evil. He will destroy Earth and much more if he's not stopped.
ADRIC: Back there you said
DOCTOR: Yes, back there he could hear us. Here he can't. I'm playing for time.
ADRIC: But you're wrong, Doctor. He's civilised
DOCTOR: Do you want to save Nyssa?
ADRIC: Of course I do.
DOCTOR: Then shut up and listen. He is not concerned with bringing civilisation. He has the greatest contempt for anyone but himself. He wants to rob Earth of its minerals in order to travel faster than the speed of light.
DOCTOR: All right, all right, if that doesn't convince you, why does he carry poison on his ship?
ADRIC: Poison?
DOCTOR: It's stored in the Mobiliary. If his mission is peaceful, why does he want the poison?
ADRIC: Well, history, research.
DOCTOR: Do you really think that?
ADRIC: He could have had you killed and yet he spared your life. Why?
DOCTOR: Because he doesn't want to upset you yet.
ADRIC: I don't believe you.
DOCTOR: Look, he wants to use you. His subjects are all synthetic. You are flesh and blood. If you speak up for him on Earth, you can delay their opposition.
ADRIC: I still don't understand.
DOCTOR: No, you don't, do you. Look, the Urbankans are synthetic. They are not like you and me. However sophisticated their circuitry, they are still machines. With me?
ADRIC: I think so.
DOCTOR: Well, make up your mind. We haven't much time.
ADRIC: Why, what are you going to do?
DOCTOR: I haven't the slightest intention of telling you until I know if you're with me.
ADRIC: Yes. All right then, yes.
DOCTOR: I don't believe it.

Then he need to recruit Bigon.... and for that he needs help from Lin Futu:

LIN FUTU: What are you doing here?
DOCTOR: Saving your life, I hope.
LIN FUTU: Seize him!
DOCTOR: No! No, hear me out. You are in great danger.

DOCTOR: You must know all I say is true. Put them back. Bigon must have them back.
LIN FUTU: You know I cannot do this.
DOCTOR: You must. Lin Futu, you are a very old and wise man. You have been promised leadership of your people on Earth.
LIN FUTU: Yes.
DOCTOR: Do you think for one moment that Monarch will honour that? The Chinese are the most populous and powerful race on Earth. Once Monarch grasps that, what hope is there for you?
LIN FUTU: How can I re-circuit Bigon without Monarch knowing?
DOCTOR: Leave that to me. Will your dragon dance be included in the recreational?
LIN FUTU: It can be.
DOCTOR: Then let it be next.

The recreational stuff is wearing a bit thin by this stage in the story but at least it proves useful to the plot with the dragon dancers providing the cover needed to abduct Bigon from the hall to the mobiliary where Lin Futu can repair him.

BIGON: Thank you. I am very glad that you are with us.
DOCTOR: What about the Princess and Kurkutji?
BIGON: They too will be with us when they hear the truth. I will summon them.
ADRIC: What are we going to do?
DOCTOR: Well, somehow I must get to the Tardis. There are hatches. I must try to get to it on a lifeline.
BIGON: Hatch nine is nearest.
LIN FUTU: You will need life support and protective covering.
ADRIC: We have this.
DOCTOR: Oh, no, no, no, that won't do for the temperature out there. And anyway, I'll need your help.
LIN FUTU: Here. Used for repairs and maintenance topsides. Our lubrication freezes and our joints seize up.
DOCTOR: Splendid. Adric. I can use this, but we have only six minutes. That's as long as I can stand sub-zero temperatures.

Sub zero temperatures are one thing Doctor, but what about the vacuum of space? Just an air breathing helmet will prove of little use then!

The spacesuit Adric uses makes him look a bit like a Sontaran!

Both Persuasion and Enlightenment meet their end trying to stop the Doctor getting to the Tardis, their chips flung into space. Enlightenment does succeed in marooning the Doctor though before her demise, leaving the Doctor to improvise a solution with the cricket ball we saw earlier, bowling it at the ship and taking a return catch to gain it's momentum.

The science is relatively decent here the problem is he throws the ball right handed when previously he's claimed to bowl left arm wrist spin! Three stories later we'll see him having a bowl and he definitely bowls right handed there. Is the Doctor ambidextrous or was his spell as a left arm wrist spinner for New South Wales in a previous incarnation and he has he changed which hand he uses between regenerations?

Monarch's demise might seem a little contrived, suddenly he's flesh when they've made him out to be an android for the last few episodes. But it is hinted at: who else is eating the food and why else does he have the ship restore the atmosphere? However the Doctor does seem a little quick to be removing his helmet afterwards, has the poison's effect been that local or dispersed that quickly? If so it's not going to be a lot of use on Earth is it?

So how's the serial as a whole? Well it's a little bit of an oddity. Stratford Johns makes Monarch into a decent villain and Persuasion & Enlightenment are suitably slimy henchmen. Annie Lambert's Enlightenment is perhaps a little underused and Paul Shelley's Persuasion spends most of this episode coming into Monarch's chamber and getting sent out again. But while the threat to the Tardis crew is there, the overall menace to Earth seems remote and the recreationals get a bit repetitive after a while.

Four to Doomsday was novelised in 1983 by Terrance Dicks.

It was released on video in 2001 and on DVD in 2008.

Doctor Who Season 19, containing Castrovalva, Four To Doomsday, Kinda, The Visitation, Black Orchid, Earthshock & Timeflight, was released on Blu Ray on 10th December 2018.

566 Four to Doomsday: Part Three

EPISODE: Four to Doomsday: Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 566
STORY NUMBER: 118
TRANSMITTED: Monday 25 January 1982
WRITER: Terence Dudley
DIRECTOR: John Black
SCRIPT EDITOR: Antony Root
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 8.9 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Four to Doomsday

"In the Mobiliary there is a deadly poison. The deadliest in the known universe. The Urbankans secreted it in a gland. It causes organic matter to shrink in on itself. One trillionth of a gram would reduce you to the size of a grain of salt. With this he will conquer Earth."

Nyssa & Adric are taken to Monarch where Adric, taken in by the leader, co-operates but Nyssa resists. Adric is sent to ask the Doctor to admit Monarch to the Tardis while Nyssa is taken away to be turned into one of Monarch's robots. Tegan is appalled by what's happening on the ship and wants to leave but the Doctor gets her to remain in the quarters while Bigon shows him the bits of the ship Monarch has kept hidden. She argues with Adric, seeking the Doctor, and accidentally knock him out before fleeing to the Tardis to try to get it leave, eventually succeeding. The Doctor is show the mobiliary where the poison is kept and Nyssa is being converted. They free her but Persuasion apprehends them, removing Bigon's control circuit and sentencing the Doctor to death at the hands of the Greek gladiators.

If last episode was all about the revelation of the android technology .....

BIGON: This is my memory of two thousand five hundred and fifty five years, linked to that, which is my reason, my intelligence, linked to that, which is my motor power.
DOCTOR: Incredible engineering.
BIGON: This compound is a polymer stretched over a non-corrosive steel frame.
TEGAN: It's wicked. Evil.
BIGON: Not in itself. As with all technology, it is the use to which it is put.
DOCTOR: Exactly. Just three silicon chips.
BIGON: My reasoning chip contains more circuits than there are synapses in your brain, Doctor, each linked by lines one hundred nanometres thick.
TEGAN: What's a nanometre?
DOCTOR: Oh, a thousand millionth of a metre.
TEGAN: No. I'm sorry, I can't believe that.
DOCTOR: Well, like it or not, Tegan, you're looking at a fact, if not a fact of life. This ship contains the entire population of Urbanka. Nine billion silicon chips.
BIGON: Not so many. Some are slaves, robots. They have but one chip, the motor circuit. Those are they that wear the discs.
DOCTOR: So, the Aborigine, the Chinaman and the Mayan are
BIGON: All as I, yes. The leaders of four ethnic groups.

..... then this is about revealing the threat posed by Monarch.

BIGON: We have been made immortal.
DOCTOR: So it would seem. As long as you have spare parts you could go on forever. All you need is the raw materials.
BIGON: The reason for Monarch's invasion of Earth. The visits established its suitability.
DOCTOR: Of course! That's it, he's after the silicon.
TEGAN: What?
DOCTOR: One of the biggest components of the Earth's crust is silicon. All the chips he wants.
BIGON: And the fossilisation.
DOCTOR: Oh yes, carbon too.
BIGON: First he intends to replace the population of Earth with his own.
TEGAN: What, three billion people?
BIGON: He can do it. The landing will be peaceful. He has prepared a message of peace and will offer them the help of his advanced alien intelligence. That is why he will want your help. To convince the people of Earth that he means them no harm.
TEGAN: He'll get no help from me.
BIGON: Don't be too sure. In the Mobiliary there is a deadly poison. The deadliest in the known universe. The Urbankans secreted it in a gland. It causes organic matter to shrink in on itself. One trillionth of a gram would reduce you to the size of a grain of salt. With this he will conquer Earth.

Monarch's overall plan is barking though:

BIGON: Unless he is stopped, he will eventually destroy Earth just as he destroyed Urbanka.
DOCTOR: I thought he said Urbanka's son was a supernova?
BIGON: A lie. He exhausted the planet of its minerals and then polluted it with his technology. The pollution destroyed the ozone layer and left ultraviolet light to scorch Urbanka.
DOCTOR: And all this for what?
BIGON: His great plan. For him to travel faster than light.
DOCTOR: What?
BIGON: Monarch is obsessed with solving the riddle of the universe.
DOCTOR: Absurd. So he believes that to travel faster than light would mean going backwards in time, back to the Big Bang?
BIGON: And beyond. Monarch believes he will meet himself there. He believes he is God.

And there does seem to be some confusion over the poison: When Bigon explained it earlier, it had been secreted by the Urbankans. Now however:

DOCTOR: Intensified ultraviolet for photosynthesis.
BIGON: Yes, this is all that was saved from Urbanka.
DOCTOR: And now it's a source of oxygen.
BIGON: For those who need it.
DOCTOR: Point taken.
BIGON: And this is the graveyard of all those taken from Earth.
DOCTOR: There were others?
BIGON: Many. After the experiments, only the highest intelligence was allowed to live on, as I.
DOCTOR: And the frogs?
BIGON: To ensure a supply of the poison with which Monarch will conquer Earth.

So how are the frogs supplying the poison? Yes there are poisonous frogs, have these ben modified to produce the Urbankans' poison?

Unfortunately Adric, who's already assisted the Great Vampires in State of Decay and, perhaps unwillingly, The Master in Castrovalva seems to fall for Monarch's spiel:

NYSSA: You're androids.
MONARCH: Oh no, girl, don't irritate me. And above all, don't disappoint me. I hold you to be intelligent. I've already explained simply and succinctly that we're fully integrated personalities with a racial memory.
ADRIC: Then what are these, your Majesty?
MONARCH: No, no, no. There must be a class system. It is absolutely essential for good government. Now these are second-class citizens. You could call them assisters.
NYSSA: Or slaves.
MONARCH: If you will, girl. It is, however, a very emotive word.
ENLIGHTENMENT: Very flesh time.
ADRIC: Flesh time?
ENLIGHTENMENT: It is the name Monarch to the primitive time. In your terms, the time of the chickenpox, of hunger and heart disease, arthritis, bronchitis and the common cold.
MONARCH: I have over thrown the greatest tyranny in the universe. External and internal organs.
NYSSA: What about love?
MONARCH: Love?
ENLIGHTENMENT: The exchange of two fantasies, your Majesty.
MONARCH: Ah. Thank you, Enlightenment. Oh, my children, I would like to have held you captive by my words, not by assisters.
ADRIC: But you have, your Majesty.
MONARCH: My boy?
ADRIC: What you've done is almost beyond belief. You've performed a miracle.
MONARCH: Did you hear that, Enlightenment? We have been receiving messages from Earth for fifty years. Have you ever heard a more intelligent statement? Release them. Release them at once.
MONARCH: You will be invaluable to me in my crusade.
ADRIC: Crusade?
MONARCH: To come to the aid of the Earthlings. To save them from themselves. They're not as intelligent as you. They war amongst themselves. They make more weapons than food and two thirds of them are starving. It is all a problem of the flesh time. We come to rid them of it.
NYSSA: Perhaps they don't want to be rid of it.
ADRIC: Well, that's silly, Nyssa. How can anyone want to live like that?
MONARCH: He's right.
ENLIGHTENMENT: Think, girl. Think.
NYSSA: I am thinking.

And doesn't hesitate to spill the secrets of the Tardis to the Urbankan!

MONARCH: So, this Doctor of yours is also a Time Lord, eh?
ADRIC: Yes, your Majesty.
MONARCH: Whence comes his power?
ADRIC: From other Time Lords. He speaks of the one called Rassilon.
ENLIGHTENMENT: There is a galactic legend about a Rassilon. He who found the Eye of Harmony.
MONARCH: You know very well, Enlightenment, I regard such tales as superstition.
ENLIGHTENMENT: Yes, your Majesty.
MONARCH: Yes, now tell me more about this Time Lord Doctor. He seems to be a very agreeable person.
ADRIC: Yes.
MONARCH: He has a powerful mind.
ADRIC: Yes, yes.
MONARCH: Yes, I like that. Has he any power outside his machine?
ADRIC: Well, he has two hearts.
MONARCH: Oh, poor fellow. That must make him very vulnerable.
ADRIC: And he has the ability to go into a trance that suspends life functions.
MONARCH: Oh, that must be useful. But I'm interested in this er, machine of his.
ADRIC: The Tardis.
MONARCH: Hmm?
ADRIC: Short for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.
MONARCH: Fascinating. It's very small. I mean, is it not uncomfortable.
ADRIC: No, the interior's in a different dimension.
MONARCH: Really?
ADRIC: Yes, it's quite large.
NYSSA: Why don't you shut up!
MONARCH: Oh, mind your manners, my dear. Go on, boy.
ADRIC: Oh. Well, it's got a power room, it's got a bathroom. It's even got cloisters.
MONARCH: Cloisters?
ENLIGHTENMENT: A covered walkway, your Majesty. An architectural feature of ecclesiastical and educational establishments on Earth.
MONARCH: All that inside this Tardis?
ADRIC: Yes, your Majesty.
MONARCH: Fascinating. I should love to see all this.
ADRIC: Well, I'm quite sure the Doctor would be only too pleased to show you around. He's the only one of us who really understands it and how it operates.
MONARCH: Oh, I like that. Could you ask this Doctor now if I could look inside his Tardis?
ADRIC: Of course, your Majesty.

But to do that he needs the Tardis Key. Tegan has the spare, and she just wants to run away:

ADRIC: Tegan, where's the Doctor?
TEGAN: I don't know.
ADRIC: What's the matter?
TEGAN: We've got to get off this ship. We must or we'll all die.
ADRIC: What utter rubbish! Monarch has no reason for harming us. He wants our help. Tegan, the Doctor was right about these Urbankans. They're light years ahead in their technology.
TEGAN: Oh, silicon chips!
ADRIC: You know?
TEGAN: Yeah, and a lot more than you. Now out of my way.
ADRIC: Where do you think you're going?
TEGAN: To the Tardis.
ADRIC: Why?
TEGAN: To try to get out of here. Somebody's got to.
ADRIC: You're being very silly, and anyway, you can't even work it.
TEGAN: Well, I'm going to try.
ADRIC: But I don't see what you're in such a state about. Look, can't you understand? These Urbankans are benefactors.
TEGAN: Ha!
ADRIC: And Monarch is charming. He's just asked me very politely if he could have a look round the Tardis.
TEGAN: Adric, you can come with me or get out of my way. What's it going to be?
ADRIC: But everything is all right, I tell you! And anyway, you can't get into the Tardis.
TEGAN: Oh, can't I? You forget, I was given this when we left it.
ADRIC: Well, I'll take that.
TEGAN: You will not! Adric, I'm warning you. Get out of my way!
ADRIC: No! Now look, I'm not going to let you do anything silly.

We had out first real Adric/Tegan argument in the Tardis in the first episode, and here's another. Here they're both wrong, Adric wanting to go along with Monarch and Tegan wanting to run away. And unfortunately Adric's now inadvertently let Tegan out of the room she was trapped in allowing her to escape to the Tardis which somehow she has dematerialised!

What I remember most about this episode from when I was younger: I was ill and missed it. It basically fills in the story a bit and pushes Tegan over the edge.

Last time I watched this story, I started to wonder if Terence Dudley, the writer of this script, had seen Disney's The Black Hole (released 1980 in the UK) as certain bits are looking eerily familiar: exploring a seemingly deserted ship, then watching the slightly odd crew at work, seeing a garden that seemingly feeds the crew before finding out what's wrong with the crew. In the Black Hole they were cybernetically reanimated dead crew members, here they are android copies.

More similarities follow in this episode:

Crewmember of visiting ship sent for conversion and saved: Kate McCrae/Nyssa
Crewmember of visiting ship attempting escape in their vessel: Harry Booth/Tegan
Crewmember of visiting ship siding with the being in charge of large ship: Alex Durrant/Adric
Crewmember of large ship siding with visitors: Old Bob/Bigon
Commanding officer of large ship wanting to do something insane: Reinhardt believing he can travel through black hole/Monarch wanting to go faster than light believing he'll go back in time and meet himself as God.

565 Four to Doomsday: Part Two

EPISODE: Four to Doomsday: Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 565
STORY NUMBER: 118
TRANSMITTED: Tuesday 19 January 1982
WRITER: Terence Dudley
DIRECTOR: John Black
SCRIPT EDITOR: Antony Root
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 8.8 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Four to Doomsday

"The only organic life aboard is in the Flora chamber. This compound is not me. This is me!"

Tegan is amazed that Persuasion & Enlightenment now wear bodies & clothes that are exact copies of the sketches she made. Monarch, worried that Bigon may be revealing too many of their secrets orders a recreational to entertain his guests but en route separates Nyssa & Adric from the Doctor. The Doctor & Tegan witness Aztec, Aboriginal & Chinese Dragon dancing, but while they watch Bigon asks to speak with them in private. Nyssa and Adric wander the ship witnessing many things they find strange. Tegan is appalled when one of the competitors in a Greek gladiatorial bout is killed and flees the recreational pursued by the Doctor. Adric & Nyssa see the gladiator walk into the chamber they are in and been instantly restored to full health by a machine at which point he & his opponent take Nyssa & Adric captive. Bigon tells the Doctor that Monarch has been journeying back & forth between Earth & Urbanka, first visiting over 35,000 years ago when Kurkutji was taken. The Doctor wonders how organic life can have survived that long but Bigon reveals that the only organic life aboard is in the floral chamber: all the humans on the ship and android replicas!

The whole episode is built to lead up to that final revelation with little clues scattered throughout:

DOCTOR: May one ask the purpose of your journey to planet Earth?
PERSUASION: Resettlement.
ENLIGHTENMENT: Our planet, Urbanka, no longer exists. Inokshi, our sun, was an irregular variable. It collapsed a thousand years ago.
PERSUASION: We left before the end.
ENLIGHTENMENT: In time to escape the black hole.
DOCTOR: Many of you?
ENLIGHTENMENT: Three billion.
ADRIC: Three billion? How many ships?
ENLIGHTENMENT: One.
ADRIC: One!
ENLIGHTENMENT: This one.

Our first problem: how are there three billion people on that ship, which we've seen, and which we've seen so few people on?

ENLIGHTENMENT: Now that you are refreshed, you must see your quarters. Bigon will show you. He was the last to use them.

Why has nobody used them since?

ADRIC: Where are the others?
BIGON: My boy?
ADRIC: The rest of the three billion.
BIGON: I'm sure that Monarch or one of his ministers will wish to satisfy your curiosity.
DOCTOR: I hope we're not putting you out.
BIGON: No, I have no need of this accommodation now.
DOCTOR: You're with your family?
BIGON: I have no family. Not since I was rescued from Earth a hundred generations ago.

And why does Bigon no longer use them?

MONARCH: This Doctor interests me more and more. On no account is he to leave. And now he's blocked out the sound. Here we have a lively intelligence. He could make a valuable ally.
PERSUASION: Or a dangerous enemy, your Majesty.
ENLIGHTENMENT: He is too jocular, irresponsible. Such a being prefers mental anarchy. They call it freedom.
MONARCH: What nonsense, the pair of you. I have eliminated the concept of opposition.
PERSUASION: I was thinking of Bigon, your Majesty.
MONARCH: Bigon cannot oppose.
PERSUASION: But he does not conform.
MONARCH: Well, of course. He's a philosopher, a doubter. We need doubt. It's the greatest intellectual galvaniser.
ENLIGHTENMENT: With respect, your Majesty, there is a sensitivity in his persona which suggests what in the flesh time was called soul.
MONARCH: It's the first time, Enlightenment, I've heard you blaspheme.
ENLIGHTENMENT: I beg your Majesty's pardon.
MONARCH: I should think so. Flesh time indeed. You approach lese majeste when you put the soul into the past tense.

The first mention of the concept of "The Flesh Time" which will become more significant and important as we progress.

TEGAN: Must you make that awful noise?
DOCTOR: If our conversation is to remain private, yes.
ADRIC: They must be lying or mad. Three billion people on one ship? It'll never get off the ground.
TEGAN: Of course they're mad. A hundred generations on this thing, they've got to be mad.
DOCTOR: She didn't talk of people, she talked of population.
ADRIC: Comes to the same thing.
DOCTOR: Sloppy thinking, Adric. Do you know there are at least three billion bacteria in this chamber alone? And if a frog with a funny head can turn itself into a semblance of a human being in a matter of minutes, there isn't much of a limit to what it can't do. To say nothing of the dress-making.
NYSSA: All that's not so difficult.
ADRIC: Not difficult?
NYSSA: These Urbankans are terribly advanced.
TEGAN: Terribly is too right.
NYSSA: I understand bioengineering, but I'm also an expert in cybernetics.
TEGAN: What's cybernetics?
NYSSA: A science concerned with the control mechanisms of machines.
TEGAN: What machines? I've seen three large frogs and four very peculiar human beings.
NYSSA: No, you've seen more than that. You saw two sketches you made come to life.
TEGAN: Don't remind me.
NYSSA: I'm sure machines did that.
TEGAN: But we're talking of flesh and blood.
DOCTOR: I am beginning to wonder.

Has the Doctor has got there way ahead of everyone else?

DOCTOR: I mean, here we are, four days from Earth on a spaceship with three billion and three frogs. And four Earthlings. Why? Wait a minute, wait a minute. How long is one hundred generations?
ADRIC: What's generation in years?
DOCTOR: Call it twenty five.
ADRIC: Two thousand five hundred years.
DOCTOR: Right. Right. So it's at least two thousand five hundred years since our hosts last visited Earth when they rescued Bigon. Now, if the return journey to Urbanka takes the same time as the journey to Earth. How's your ancient history, Tegan?
TEGAN: Like I feel, awful.
DOCTOR: Well, not to worry, mine's pretty good. Now, the Futu dynasty in China I would put at four thousand years ago, the Mayans in South American flourished eight thousand years ago, and Kurkutji the aborigine says it's so long since he was taken he can't remember. How about twelve thousand years?
TEGAN: But that's mad.
DOCTOR: Yes, so you keep saying, Tegan. Is anyone saying you're wrong?
ADRIC: I am. I think it's brilliant.
NYSSA: So do I. Pure logic.
DOCTOR: Or maybe Tegan's right. Why do it?
TEGAN: Are you saying that this aborigine was taken twelve thousand years ago?
DOCTOR: No, but his ancestor was. Wouldn't be the first time that whole generations have known of no other life than a spaceship.
TEGAN: Then what are you saying?
DOCTOR: I'm saying that the Urbankans have visited Earth four times and taken at least one cultural representative, and this time they're coming for good. Well, I say good. Three billion Earthlings plus three billion Urbankans, I really don't think so. I really don't think so at all.
ADRIC: Then what are we going to do?
DOCTOR: Explore.

Meanwhile Monarch reprimand Bigon and lets something slip to us the audience:

MONARCH: You must resist the temptation to tell this Doctor about my mission.
BIGON: I have been telling the truth for over two and a half thousand years.
MONARCH: Then keep silent. You weren't made immortal to engage in endless gossip. I want to know more about this Doctor before I tell him of the ultimate.
BIGON: When you do this, his hand will be against you.
MONARCH: Then I will cut it off.
BIGON: We cannot find the ultimate. There is no ultimate to find.
MONARCH: I have heard enough blasphemy for one day. If it weren't for me, you'd still believe your Earth is flat. Now hold your tongue! This Doctor will know about us when I know more about him. Now leave us!

Bigon is immortal?

The Adric discovered a group of Greeks in a room without an Atmosphere:

ADRIC: Not enough oxygen.They don't need oxygen. Excuse me. Excuse me? He's ice cold.

If you recall the room th Tardis landed in had no atmosphere and neither did Monarch's Throne Room till he ordered it for his guests.

In the end it's Bigon, as Monarch suspected, that spills the beans to the Doctor:

TEGAN: So you were right.
DOCTOR: Four visits, every four thousand years or so.
BIGON: No, the first visit was over thirty five thousand years ago, when Kurkutji was taken. It took twenty thousand years for the Urbankans to reach Earth. Monarch has doubled the speed of the ship on every subsequent visit.
TEGAN: So you last left Urbanka twelve hundred and fifty years ago?
DOCTOR: How can organic life endure that long?
BIGON: The only organic life aboard is in the Flora chamber. This compound is not me. This is me.

None of the guest cast have previous Doctor Who form but several are quite well known.

Philip Locke playing Bigon, as well as voicing the control computer, was the assassin Vargas in the James Bond film Thunderball. He has quite a busy decade or so after this: he appears with Second Doctor Patrick Troughton in The Box of Delights: Beware of Yesterday as Arnold of Todi, The Comic Strip Presents...Agatha Christie's Poirot: Four and Twenty Blackbirds as Cutter, Inspector Morse Who Killed Harry Field? as Freddie Mortimer and Jeeves and Wooster: Honoria Glossop Turns Up (or, Bridegroom Wanted!) as Glossop.

Burt Kwouk, playing Lin Futu, should need no introduction at all. On the big screen he's most famous as Cato in the Pink Panther He also appeared in James Bond films, in his case the original Casino Royale as the Chinese General, Goldfinger as Mr Ling and You Only Live Twice as Spectre 3. Contemporary BBC viewers would have seen him in Tenko with former Doctor Who companion Louise Jameson. In the original The Tomorrow People he is Matsu Tan in "The Lost Gods", he's the narrator of both The Water Margin & Monkey and appears in Space Precinct as Slik Ostrasky in Protect and Survive. In recent years he was the narrator of the spoof Japanese betting show Banzai and regularly appeared in Last of the Summer Wine as Entwistle.

Australian Aborigine Kurkutji is played by Ilario Bisi-Pedro.

Princess Villagra in played by Nadia Hamman.

The recreationals and work tasks show a group of people associated with each of these characters. They're all similarly dressed but it's not clear if they're meant to be individuals in their own right.

The Mayan Dancers are the only group we don't see attending to a work task in this episode. They are made up of Susan Fazzaro, Beyhan Fowkes, Cathy Lewis and Adisa Sanie.

The Grecian Men we see working in an airless environment.

Peter Whitaker had been Inspector Gascoigne in The Faceless Ones, a Weather Station Worker in The Seeds of Death, a Solonian in The Mutants, a Thal Politician in Genesis of the Daleks, a Mentiad Pirate Planet, a Noble in Androids of Tara and a Logopolitan in Logopolis. He returns as an Onlooker in Remembrance of the Daleks. In Doomwatch he was a Ministry Inspector in Train and De-Train and a man in Flood while in Blake's 7 he is a Scientist in Project Avalon. John Doyle had been a Cowboy in the Gunfighters & a UNIT Soldier in The Silurians. Victor Reynolds had been a Time Lord in Invasion of Time. He returns in Snakedance as a member of the Marketplace crowd. The group is completed by Les Fuller

While the working Greeks are older, the recreational Greeks are younger and divided into two groups. The Grecian Swordsmen are made up of Steve Durante, who can't find any form for, and Simón Ramírez, who'd been a Citizen in Full Circle and Security Guard in Logopolis.

Of the Grecian Wrestlers John Sarbutt had been one of Lugo's Warriors in The Face of Evil. He appears as an HMS Ranger Crewman in the Roger Moore James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me and in The Professionals as a Thug in Look After Annie. His opposite number Terry Paris was also in The Professionals as Lucho in The Untouchables.

Aboriginal Men seem to be serving as Botanists on the ship. Bruce Callender had previously been a Movellan/Slave in Destiny of the Daleks, a Louvre Guard in City of Death and a Gaztak in Meglos. He'd been in Blake's 7 as an Adapted Helot in Traitor. He's joined by Abi Gouhard, Carlton Morris and Leonard Hay, who was an Ardentian Man in Flash Gordon

Purportedly the crew of the story had difficulty finding a Chinese Dragon Dancing team and ended up locating the dragon dancers at a local Chinese restaurant! However when you look at the actors listed as Chinese Surgeons (Chinese Dragon Dancers) in the DWAS Production file, most of them have had decent careers so I'd question how accurate the claim is .... unless the Dragon Dancers aren't the same personnel as the surgeons.

Chief among the Chinese actors is Eiji Kusuhara who will appear in Star Wars Return of the Jedi as Lieutenant Telsij of Grey Squadron. He's in Tenko as Lt., later Captain, Sato and appears in A Very Peculiar Practice as a Japanese in Contact Tracer and The Hit List. He's also in Drop the Dead Donkey as Takuguru and the remake of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) as Goto in O Happy Isle.

Chua Kahjoo returns as a Stuntman/Chinese Guest 2 in Enlightenment and can be seen in The Professionals as Choy in Need to Know.

Kay Tong Lim was in Tenko as a Soldier, then a Chinese Policeman and finally as the Bandit Leader in the reunion movie.

Philip Tan appears in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as the Chief Henchman, Batman as a Goon, and SeaQuest 2032 as a Commando in Nothing But the Truth leaving Yat Wong as the only one of the Chinamen I've not seen in anything else.

564 Four to Doomsday: Part One

EPISODE: Four to Doomsday: Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 564
STORY NUMBER: 118
TRANSMITTED: Monday 18 January 1982
WRITER: Terence Dudley
DIRECTOR: John Black
SCRIPT EDITOR: Antony Root
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 8.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Four to Doomsday

"His Majesty commands me to tell you that we arrive on planet Earth in four days."

The Tardis arrives in a seemingly empty spaceship where they are observed by the sphere like Monoptican cameras. Exploring the ship, the Doctor and his friends meet Monarch, the frog like ruler of Urbanka, who is journeying to Earth, and his assistants Enlightenment & Persuasion. They take an interest in Tegan who draws for them the latest human fashion. They are taken to a room for rest & refreshment where they meet Bigon, an ancient Athenian, Kurkutji, an Australian Aborigine, the Chinese Lin Futu and the Mayan Villagra. Monarch attempts to gain access to the Tardis. The time travellers are met by two more figures who tell them that there is four days to go before they reach Earth and invite the Doctor & his friends to complete their journey with them. They introduce themselves as Enlightenment & Persuasion.....

What I remember most about seeing this episode on first transmission was the floating Monopticons that Monarch is using to observe the intruders on his ship with.

As a child my local department store, Bentalls in Kingston Upon Thames, had one of these big black spheres, with camera lenses sticking out of it, hanging in their toy department which I was ever so scared of. The Monopticons reminded me of this and thus the fear was transmitted to them.

The title of the story, Four to Doomsday, seems a bit tangential to what's going on and is probably inspired by the remaining length of the ship's journey to Earth announced at the end of the episode. The story's title insinuates it might not be good news for Earth when they get there!

ENLIGHTENMENT: His Majesty commands me to tell you that we arrive on planet Earth in four days. He invites you to complete your journey as his guests.
DOCTOR: Well, that's very civil of His Majesty. Who are you?
PERSUASION: We've already met. This is Enlightenment, and I am Persuasion.

This is Doctor Who, we're used to the Doctor and other Time Lords changing appearance, very used to it with a regeneration being fresh in the mind. Even so it's still quite a shock when two of the aliens show up at the end of the episode wearing clothes and bodies that are exact copies of a sketch Tegan made!

Much fuss is made in publications elsewhere of how Tegan is suddenly able to speak an obscure Aboriginal dialect.

What should be more worrying is why the others *can't*: doesn't the Tardis provide a translation gift for those who travel in it, as established in Masque of Mandragora? They all understand the Athenian Bigon & Chinese Lin Futu OK, not to mention the three alien Urbankans!

Playing Monarch is Stratford Johns, an actor well known for role as Inspector Barlow in Z-Cars which he reprised in Softly, Softly and several spin offs from that. He'd been in I, Claudius as Piso in Some Justice an had recently appeared in Blake's 7 season 4 as Belkov in Games. He can be seen in Neverwhere as Mr. Stockton in Earl's Court to Islington.

Paul Shelley, playing Persuasion, has a long television career to his name including an appearance in Blake's 7: Countdown as Major Provine. In Inspector Morse: The Sins of the Fathers he plays Stephen Radford. He's the brother of Francis Matthews, the voice of Captain Scarlet. You can hear Paul Shelly interviewed in Toby Hadoke Who's Round 38.

Annie Lambert, here playing Enlightenment, has also had a long career in television which includes a recurring role in Space 1999: the Space 1999 Catacobs website believe her character is called Julie and that she can be seen in Collision Course, Death's Other Dominion & Full Circle during Season One plus Rules Of Luton, Mark Of Archanon, Brian The Brain and New Adam New Eve in Season Two. You can also see her in The Sweeney as the Air Hostess in Selected Target, the first televised Inspector Morse story, The Dead of Jericho, as Adele Richards and Agatha Christie's Poirot: Triangle at Rhodes as Valentine Chantry.

Four to Doomsday is the first story of this season, and thus the first story of the fifth Doctor to be filmed. A story called Project Zeta Sigma had been commissioned from the writers of Meglos, John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch, but had fallen through. Peter Davison's opening story was then shifted to be filmed later, once previous script editor Christopher H. Bidmead had been pressed into service to write a script, while stories that had been written were filmed first.

This, then, is the timeline for the making of the nineteenth season:

April 1981	5W	Four to Doomsday	Antony Root
May 1981	5X	The Visitation	Antony Root
July 1981	5Y	Kinda	Eric Saward
September 1981	5Z	Castrovalva	Eric Saward
October 1981	6A	Black Orchid	Eric Saward
November 1981	-	K-9 & Company	Eric Saward & Antony Root
November 1981	6B	Earthshock	Antony Root*
January 1982	6C	Time Flight	Eric Saward

* Actually Eric Saward but credited as Antony Root due to Saward writing the story! The broadcast order is however:

December 1981	-	K-9 & Company	Eric Saward & Antony Root
January 1982	5Z	Castrovalva	Eric Saward
January 1982	5W	Four to Doomsday	Antony Root
February 1982	5Y	Kinda	Eric Saward
February 1982	5X	The Visitation	Antony Root
March 1982	6A	Black Orchid	Eric Saward
March 1982	6B	Earthshock	Antony Root*
March 1982	6C	Time Flight	Eric Saward

The difference in shooting and broadcast order helps to explain why the Script Editor credit changes so frequently this season!

Four to Doomsday was the first script for the series by Terence Dudley, a former BBC producer on both Doomwatch, created by Gerry Davis & Kit Pedler of Cybermen fame and Survivors, created by Terry Nation's (and I think we know by now what he came up with!) He directed Meglos the previous season and shortly after this story was finished would write K-9 & Company, which was screened 3 weeks prior to the first episode of this story being aired.

Four to Doomsday is the first story script edited by Antony Root. He'd previously worked as an Assistant Floor Manager on Destiny of the Daleks. Officially the program credits him as script editing 3 stories, plus a part share in K-9 and Company. Unofficially it would appear as if his credit on the third story is a dodge to get round it being written by his successor as script editor Eric Saward .... who gets credited as script editor on screen before Root does due to the odd order this season is made in. Root has since gone on to be a highly successful television producer.