Friday, May 3, 2013

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: Four to Doomsday





Doctor Who: 
Four To Doomsday 
By Terrance Dudley

“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.

The newly regenerated Doctor fresh and renewed after his run in with The Master at Castrovalva appears to have materialized on a spaceship.  Well things aren’t all that it seems as there are representatives from different cultures from Earth’s history.  Humans that, most logically, be long dead and definitely shouldn’t be on a spaceship headed to present day Earth.    

Then there is Monarch. Ruler of the Urbankans and a creature who thinks he is god. Together with his cohorts Enlightment and Persuasion plans on taking over the Earth.  He plans on doing this with a poison that he has that will kill all life on Earth allowing Monarch to populate the Earth with his androids and strip it of its minerals for his ship so he can go back in time to see himself as god . So it’s up to The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan to save Earth from invasion and to also prevent a gullible and naive Adric from making another idiotic decision.


Four to Doomsday is not one of the better stories in the Fifth Doctor’s era as it could have been better as the overall plot isn’t bad.   I liked the story about Monarch coming to earth every so many thousands of years to study Earth and to take it over to strip it of its minerals.  That part of the story isn’t bad and having Bigon as an android with a conscience and able to think for himself about right and wrong was a pretty decent idea.  The overall plot wasn’t really a problem what was the problem was the execution of it and what happened later.


First off Adric and Tegan just weren’t as we would know them to be.  Tegan is so much more afraid and nervous and this is coming after an encounter with The Master.  I do not hink she would have really panicked like that and attempt to fly the TARDIS like she did. She really flies off the handle and isn’t what she truly is and I feel that just didn’t work or endear he to fans.



Adric is also way out of character as he was easily taken in by Monarch.  You would have thought he would be smarter than that.  After his time with the Fourth Doctor you would have thought he would not believe every alien he meets as being friendly and true to his word.   Plus he is very short tempered and confrontational with the two girls.  I bet Tegan felt pretty good knocking him out when he tried to get the TARDIS key from him.


Four to Doomsday also has a really dumb moment with The Doctor using the cricket ball in space to give him momentum to get to the TARDIS. I found this really farfetched even for Doctor Who and didn’t really believe it could happen.  Plus it looks pretty stupid also and the effect hasn’t aged well either. 


Four to Doomsday is not a bad story to watch per say but it does have some weird moments in it and characters not really what they should be.  Maybe the fact that it was the first story in the production order might have something to do with it as the other stories this season were a lot better in the characterization of the main characters.
Grade C

No comments:

Post a Comment