You really don’t have to
look hard to see why Four to Doomsday
was voted into the bottom twenty-five Doctor Who stories. It’s a story home to a myriad of
problems. These problems range from
small to story crushingly large and it isn’t at all a surprise as there wasn’t
a script editor for this story. Oh the
credits credit Antony Root as script editor for this story but he script edited
two other stories, The Visitation and
Earthshock, which he did nothing on
as they were written by series regular script editor Eric Saward and his name
was used. There is evidence to point to
the fact that he didn’t work on the scripts for this story either.
The first problem with
the story is its most serious. It is (to
quote Tom Baker) Paralyzingly dull boring and tedious! If there ever was a story that was in
desperate need of going down to a one part story it’s this one. Each episode is padded out with ethnic
dancing which is alright the first time but it keeps happening so that there is
really no point to keep the story going except they need an episode count. Part Three and Part Four are the worst
contenders as they consist of dancing, an info dump of unnecessary information,
and a sequence where the Doctor is thrown out into space and he gets out of it
using a cricket ball and Tegan magically being able to pilot the TARDIS even
though this is her third television story.
I had to watch Part Four twice because I fell asleep during the thing
yet I really didn’t miss much when I took my little snooze. The same thing happened with Part Two so half
the story can easily be cut out with Parts One and Three cut down to a story
about 30-minutes long at a maximum.
Before I get to the other
bad portions of the story, there are a few positives I can give it. First off the set design in this story was
done really well with some futuristic sets.
Yes some of them wobble and they take you out of the story easily most
of them look pretty good. John Black excels
in showing the sets in a good light to make it feel like a real alien spaceship
in the story. Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton
are the only two actors in this thing that are giving it their all and they
both excel. It would be even better if
they could share the screen more in the story, but no they are paired off with
the other companions during the story.
That is all the positivity I can give this story so on to the negatives.
The acting in this story
is atrocious. Matthew Waterhouse really
shows how bad of an actor he was during his time on the show here as in Season
18 he had Tom Baker and Lalla Ward to guide him through the acting and in Castrovalva he barely appeared and when
he did it was Anthony Ainley who got him through the acting bits. He is tasked here to act almost like he is
betraying the Doctor but actually has the plan to get the problem solved on his
own. The script doesn’t help this as it
genuinely looks like Adric has gone traitor in this story and unlike when it
happened in State of Decay the people
he follows aren’t as charismatic as The Three Who Rule or are written by
Terrance Dicks. Terrance Dudley really
doesn’t know what he is doing in the script and the way he characterizes Adric
and Tegan really show how bad this happens in the story. Yes Tegan gets another short stick in this
story. Janet Fielding is a good actress
in most of her Doctor Who work even if on television Tegan was a mouth on legs,
but here the nickname is earned. She
spends the story complains that she wants to go home and has freak outs at
every little thing even if she is making sense for most of them.
This is down to John
Black not knowing how to direct his actors as the freak outs seem so forced and
he has her staring right into the camera for most of them as if this was done
on a stage. With the supporting cast he
isn’t much better as they all overact to the nth degree creating an extremely
odd group to watch try to interact to create quote on quote drama. The script also doesn’t make any sense story
wise as the villain’s plan is to kill everyone on Earth and travel to the
center of the universe because he is God, but also because everyone needs to
become androids (or as I know them Cybermen with emotions). See it doesn’t really make sense and doesn’t
fit together and as the first Peter Davison story ever shot I’m surprised it
didn’t cause Davison to quit the show immediately.
To summarize, Four to Doomsday is a long, slow and
boring mess that doesn’t ever get going.
It is plagued by bad direction, a really bad script and some really bad
acting that hides any semblance of a good idea under a lot of bad
elements. It could have easily been cut
down into one episode and deserves to be shoved down near the bottom of the
list as the only good things are the acting from Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton
and most of the sets look nice. 25/100
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