Four to Doomsday (TV story)

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We've got to get out of this ship!Tegan Jovanka


Synopsis

The TARDIS arrives on board a huge spaceship where the Doctor and his companions encounter the frog-like Urbankans and a population of human androids. The androids are drawn from four different ethnic groups - Greek (led by Bigon), Chinese (led by Lin Futu), Mayan (led by Villagra) and Aboriginal Australian (led by Kurkutji) - and perform regular displays of dance and other rituals termed 'recreationals'.

The Urbankans' leader, Monarch, aided by his ministers Persuasion and Enlightenment, is engaged in a complex scheme to plunder from Earth the raw materials needed to enable him to travel back in time and thereby confirm his belief in his own status as the universe's divine creator.

Monarch has a poison that he intends to use to conquer humanity so that Earth can be repopulated with his androids. The Doctor, however, throws a canister of the poison at Monarch, causing him to shrink away to virtually nothing.

Plot

Part One

The Doctor tries to return Tegan to Heathrow Airport but the TARDIS lands on a technologically advanced ship. The Doctor goes out to investigate and discovers a Monoptican surveying them. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and emerges along with Adric, Nyssa and Tegan. All four have to wear helmets in order to breathe. The Doctor addresses the Monoptican hoping whoever is using it for suveillance will know they are friendly. The Doctor questions the Monoptican on their location. A door opens shortly afterwords and, recognising this as a friendly gesture, the Doctor goes through it followed by Tegan. Nyssa and Adric stay in the room to operate some machinery there. Tegan and the Doctor eventually find themselves on the bridge of the ship and come face to face with the Monarch and his two associates Enlightenment and Persuasion. The Monarch is interested in The Doctor and Tegan's knowledge of current and past Earth culture. The Monarch then reveals their ship is bound for Earth. Tegan draws a picture of male and female uniforms at Heathrow for Enlightenment. Tegan and The Doctor then leave the bridge and meet up with Nyssa and Adric. Nyssa claims she saw a humanoid man. The Doctor doubts this until the man emerges and asks them to follow; he is dressed in a Greek toga. They are led to a dining chamber at are seated at a rectangular table. They are then joined by an Aborigine (Kurkutji) a Mayan (Villagra) and a Chinese mandarin (Lin Futu). They are all representatives of there respective cultures with the Greek man (Bigon) representing ancient Greece. The last guests to join them are Enlightenment and Persuasion who have seemingly transformed into the humans Tegan sketched.

Part Two

The TARDIS crew are reunited as guests aboard the ship and it soon becomes apparent that there are four distinct human cultures represented on the vessel by a small group of humans – Ancient Greeks, the leader of whom is the philosopher Bigon; Chinese Mandarins and their leader Lin Futu; Princess Villagra and representatives of the Mayan people; and Kurkutji and his tribesmen, of the very ancient Australian Aboriginal culture. The Urbankans have made periodic visits to Earth, each time getting speedier in their journeys.

This time they have left their homeworld after erratic solar activity, storing three billion of their species on slides aboard their craft, and it seems the current journey is their last and they now wish to settle on Earth, which they are due to reach in four days time. Bigon demonstrates to an astonished Doctor that within his chest and beneath his face there is just a mass of electronics. Holding up a printed circuit connected to his chest, he states: "This is me..."

Cast

Crew

References

Story Notes

  • This was the first Fifth Doctor story to be filmed.
  • Working title for this story was Days of Wrath.
  • Nyssa's sudden fainting spell at the end of the story was a throwback to the style of serial transition often employed during the First Doctor era (for example, when the Doctor suddenly cries out in pain at the end of The Celestial Toymaker, which leads into The Gunfighters in which it is revealed a toothache as the culprit). In this case, the reason for Nyssa's sudden collapse is revealed at the start of Kinda.

Ratings

  • Part 1 - 8.4 million viewers
  • Part 2 - 8.8 million viewers
  • Part 3 - 8.9 million viewers
  • Part 4 - 9.4 million viewers

Myths

to be added

Filming Locations

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • In part 1 the doors of the TARDIS are pushed shut from behind as Peter Davison didn't shut them all the way. The TARDIS probably automatically closes the doors if they're not shut by the person exiting. This kind of technology has existed on Earth for decades, so it makes sense the techonologically advanced Time Lords would've come up with it by now.
  • Tegan is able to draw very quickly and incredibly detailed sketches in less than a minute.
  • The Doctor describes the Maya civilization as having reached its peak "8000 years ago"; the very earliest Maya settlements began 4000 years ago.
  • The Doctor claims the population of the Earth to be 3 Billion, where as it was around 4.5 Billion by 1980, being about 3 Billion in around 1960. [1] Of course, he had recently regenerated, and what's 20 years to a Time Lord?
  • Few non-indigenous Australians speak an Aboriginal language (of which around 200 exist) as fluently as Tegan demonstrated with her conversation with Kurkutji. It is almost certain that the language that Kurkutji spoke 40,000 years ago would have since evolved into a totally different language that his people would be using today. Knowing Tegan, she probably took a course in college, just for a lark.
  • The Doctor is able to survive in the vacuum of space without a space suit. He is still inside the energy field of the ship where there is a partial atmosphere. Alternately, the Doctor still has enough residual post-regenerative energy (See The Christmas Invasion) to generate a protective barrier around himself.
  • Why did Monarch choose to stay in the 'Flesh Time', given his beliefs? He was a hypocrite, and was afraid to abandon his real body.

Continuity

  • DW: Human Nature mimics the Doctor's amazing abilities with a cricket ball.
  • The Doctor previous displayed an ability to survive exposure to a vacuum in space in DW: Nightmare of Eden.

DVD and Video Releases

Region 2 cover
PAL -
  • Region 4 TBA
PAL -
  • Region 1 TBA
NTSC -

Notes:

Novelisation

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Main article: Four to Doomsday (novelisation)


External Links

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