I wouldn't dream of interfering with your monopticons (Doctor Who - Four To Doomsday (DVD))

Member Name: andrewl

Product:	Doctor Who - Four To Doomsday (DVD)
Date:	22/10/09 (32 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Strong supporting cast, big ideas

Disadvantages: Annoying assistants

The TARDIS arrives on board a spaceship, crewed by a bizarre mix of Australian Aborigines, Mayans, Athenians and Futu dynasty Chinese, and lead by three Urbankans, silky-voiced Monarch and his two ministers, Persuasion and Enlightenment. After much talking and dance sequences, it is revealed that Monarch is hoping to travel backwards in time to the dawn of the Universe, where he believes he will meet himself. Monarch believes he is God, and he's got a big barrel of poison that dares anyone to tell him he's wrong.


A little context

Tom Baker, after seven seasons of laughing at aliens and being rude to people in art galleries, had signed off from Doctor Who, lying broken at the wrong end of a lengthy drop from a radio telescope's gantry. Much as Mr Matt Smith is probably thinking right now, Peter Davison was waiting in the wings, almost certainly thinking how the hell am I going to top that?

To help him settle into the role, producer John Nathan-Turner decided to shoot his first season out of order, so although Castrolvalva would be the 'regeneration' story, Four to Doomsday was filmed first. So this is really where we see the Fifth Doctor take shape, not in the traditional amnesia/mood swings/continuity references of Castrolvalva. It's therefore already an interesting story for fans.


Interesting for anyone else?

This is a 'talky one'. Nothing that could be described as action occurs until very near the end of the second episode. The Doctor spends the first three episodes finding out all about Monarch and his evil plans to replace the population of Earth with Urbankan androids (or to strip Earth of its minerals so he can travel faster than light? Or both? Monarch seems to have an abundance of schemes), before it all sort of kicks off in Episode 4 in a climax which feels just a little rushed. Given that it was his very first episode in the most important role in British television, Davison spends the first episode having to react to things in a very low-key fashion, and doesn't really get his chance to shine until the second installment, which seems a strange move, given the millions of children weeping for Tom Baker.

When he does start to take centre-stage though, it's a commanding performance. He still doesn't actually do much until the final installment, but he is intelligent and insightful, with a wisdom far beyond his apparent years. Everything the Doctor should be, with a new slightly weary attitude towards his companions, with which the audience could only have sympathised.


Ah, the assistants.

There were three by this point, as producer John Nathan-Turner seemed to be trying to recapture the dynamics of the show's origins in 1963. Missing the point that a large regular cast was essential in 1963 when episodes were taped live with maybe a single recording break and you needed to be able to cut between scenes without stopping the cameras. By 1982, Doctor Who episodes were being filmed in comparative luxury, and all the increased complement really did was clog things up. We get an early example of TARDIS soap opera antics, as Adric, Tegan and Nyssa snipe at each other about maths for several minutes. Nyssa spends most of the second half unconscious, as she has literally nothing to add to the story.

Adric

A mathematical genius from Alzarius, and probably the most reviled companion in the history of the show, second only to Bonnie Langford's Mel, Matthew Waterhouse had the misfortune to play the most annoying character ever written. Not that Waterhouse was a great actor at all (in scenes where he switches allegiance to Monarch, it's hard to tell whether he's faking it or really believes the Urbankan. This is not a result of subtle performance, it's just that everything he says sounds insincere), but his character was sulky, sexist and downright annoying. How I cheered when Tegan knocked him out cold (albeit somewhat unconvincingly...).

"Ignore him, he's just showing off," says the Doctor in the opening scene, and that's not a bad way to treat him.

Tegan

Tegan is an Australian air hostess who met the Doctor on her way to start a new job at London Heathrow. Just in case you're tempted to forget this, she wears an air hostess uniform and constantly bleats about how she's going to lose her job [at Heathrow] unless the Doctor returns her [to Heathrow]. As this adventure takes place in the right time period, on a spacecraft approaching Earth, you could have forgiven the Doctor for kicking her out of the airlock and telling her to walk. At one point, she even takes the TARDIS joy-riding to try and get back [to Heathrow].

Quite apart from anything else, as excuses for lateness go: 'My car broke down and my Aunt was murdered, and then I was abducted by a cricket-fixated weirdo' is pretty much a winner with any reasonable employer.
Tegan is also revealed to randomly speak the same Aboriginal dialect as the Aboriginal leader. From 35,000 years ago.


Nyssa

Nyssa is some sort of scientific prodigy from the planet Traken, but don't worry too much about her, as she does bog all here. This would pretty much be par for the course throughout her time on the show, which is a shame as Sarah Sutton was arguably the best actress of the three and, with her entire planet being wiped out by the Master, certainly had the most interesting backstory.

The supporting cast

Four to Doomsday's slight plot is saved by the winning performances of the supporting cast. Stratford Johns (you may be old enough to remember him from Z Cars and Softly, Softly, I, alas, am not) creates a memorable villain as Monarch, a chatty giant frog with a silky voice and a seriously cool cloak. He stays in his throne room for most of the adventure, only leaving it twice. He takes a slightly unhealthy interest in Adric, but as this season would also see the Master tying the lad up in a bondage web and some mad colonials enlisting him to play Wendy Houses, that's pretty much business as usual.

Cult favourite Burt Kwouk also appears as leader of the [fictional] Futu dynasty. He doesn't actually have a massive part, but I get a kind of 'Hey, kids, it's Burt Kwouk' warm feeling whenever I see him in anything, so I thought I'd mention it.

While Annie Lambert's Enlightenment doesn't get a lot to do, Paul Shelley's Persuasion is another great villain. Completely under Monarch's thumb, but thoroughly suave and dashing, with the greatest jacket that has ever been seen on a human being (or Urbankan). Sorry, I really am that shallow.

The late Philip Locke deserves most of the plaudits as Athenian philosopher Bigon, who gets some great lines. Bigon gets the big cliffhanger moment in Episode 2, where he reveals the secret of his longevity. Although the initial special effects shots are... competent but still risible, his pathos on the line '_This_ is me,' creates a truly devastating cliffhanger. It's also good that he's the one who gets to deliver most of the exposition, as he does it with such applomb, weary little sighs and arched eyebrows as he says things like: 'He thinks he's God.' This stuff could have been real clunkers in the hands of a lesser actor.

And the rest?

Visually, Four to Doomsday is a triumph. The spaceship's sets are varied in both scale and design, giving the impression of a truly huge construction. The lighting is skillful, gradually brightening throughout the first episodes, suggesting the ship is waking up as Monarch approaches Earth. The various lasers and things are adequate, the modelwork for the spaceship and outer space is pretty good, and even the spacewalk sequence is pretty effective. It's a bit of a textbook case in how impressive Doctor Who could be on a very limited budget.

The varied cultures that the Urbankans have used to crew their ship over the millennia also give the serial the pure Doctor Who gloss of surrealism as the Doctor and friends wander through laboratories staffed by ancient Athenians and Mayan tribesmen, and the frequent ethnic dance numbers also provide a dash of colour and energy to a script that is very dialogue heavy. It has to be said, though, the incidental music is incredibly ordinary, which is a shame with all the multi-cultural performances going on in the episodes.

The Urbankans look brilliant, but just in case they didn't, the Doctor has a line referring to them as 'A frog with a funny hairdo'. I do love it when Doctor Who pre-empts possible audience reactions in this way.

There's been a lot of debate over the years about whether 'the bit with the cricket ball' is scientifically correct or not (the consensus has more or less emerged that it probably is).

All in all

Four to Doomsday was never going to be one of the show's big hitters. Set entirely on board a spaceship, with the threat of an invasion of Earth, it's one of those archetypal Doctor Who stories, with a few big ideas raising the stakes. The lyricism of the alien frog who wants to travel so fast he meets himself coming back the other way is quite nice, and the whole concept of transcending the 'fleshtime' is also interesting, if not quite as kinky as it sounds.

This is a Film Only review, because although I did get the DVD version, the special features are frankly unremarkable, with only the Coming Soon trailer for the DVD release of The War Machines holding my attention - making a 1966 black and white adventure about marauding robots in London look exciting can't have been easy but... well, that's a future review!

It's all great fun, basically, and although the RRP is £19.99, you can get it for around £6 from Amazon, which is pretty good value indeed!

Summary: Doctor v. Giant Space Frog...