Air Lock (Galaxy 4 Episode 3)

The one where we finally get to see the hideous Rills...

Galaxy 4 is known to be Peter Purves's least favourite Doctor Who story, and it's easy to see why. Steven has very little to do, stranded alone with the Drahvins for the entirety of Air Lock, either asleep or getting himself into ridiculously stupid situations. He manages to knock out his drowsy Drahvin guard and steal her gun (and by the way, what is that odd ripping noise when Steven stands up? Is it his trousers splitting?), but he then gets trapped in the ship's air lock (hence the episode's title, everyone!) with no way out. Maaga gives him her callous ultimatum - either stay in the air lock and die of oxygen starvation, go outside the ship to be killed by the Chumbley, or lay down his gun and return inside, to be prisoner of the Drahvins once more. Through all of this, Peter Purves, with his messed-up coiffure, probably looks the most handsome/ vulnerable that he ever did.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but Steven Taylor is supposed to be an ace space pilot from the future. He's supposed to be a man of action, a hero figure who has the brains and brawn to get himself out of sticky situations like this. He's Dan Dare, he's Flash Gordon, he's Buck Rogers! But all Steven can do is resign himself to his pathetic end, his pride being the only thing stopping him from falling back into the Drahvins' hands. I'm pretty sure he could have shot at that Chumbley with his gun and made an effective escape before it recovered, but he doesn't even try. Instead, he slips gently to the ground as the oxygen is pumped out of the air lock. What an ignominious end for such a supposedly dynamic character.

Of course we know he won't die really because this is Doctor Who, he's a series regular and we also know the Doctor's on his way to the rescue. But it proves that writer William Emms didn't have a clue what to do with Steven, which is a shame, because the whole "men are inferior" subplot could have really been played on during his incarceration. It's also interesting to note that Steven's supposed fate in the air lock here is mirrored 10 weeks later when new companion Katarina meets her death in an air lock, with Steven helplessly shouting her name as she dies.

The most interesting parts of Air Lock take place in the Rill ship, which boasts a very different design by Richard Hunt, made of see-through corridors and aluminium steel climbing frames. The Chumbleys are bigger than I imagined from listening to the first two episodes, so much so that they bump into the furniture as they bumble around the set. Derek Martinus directs with bursts of invention, however, by using tracking shots and high shots as characters move their way around.

The Rill is a truly monstrous creature. What we see of it through the window of its gas chamber seems distinctly ugly, so no wonder the Drahvins took against them. The Rill freely admits they are a hideous species (to human eyes) and refuses to allow itself to be seen fully by Vicki or the Doctor. That's a shame because the one thing everybody watching at home wants is to see the Rill in full! Luckily we have a couple of grainy photographs of what the Rill costume looked like, but seeing it peering through the window gives it a mystery which the imagination can work wonders with!

The way the Rill assimilates Vicki's voice to learn the English language is really eerie. The Rills do not have vocal cords and so their thoughts are translated into the urbane tones of actor Robert Cartland in order to communicate with Vicki. The Rills may look terrifying, but they sound like librarians! We learn that the Rills are actually the good guys who were set upon first by the bloodthirsty Drahvins as their ships hung in space. When both craft crash-landed, the Rills lost eight of their number, leaving four alive, and it was not the Rills who killed the Drahvin, it was Maaga herself, who then blamed the death on them. We see this in a flashback, which is all very exciting and unexpected.

Eventually the Doctor and Vicki team up with the Rills to try and get them enough energy from the TARDIS to launch their ship back into space before the planet explodes, but they are sidetracked by the danger Steven has got himself into, and they race off to the Drahvin ship to save him. However, along the way they bump onto a gun-toting Drahvin, but rather wonderfully, the Doctor and Vicki overwhelm this warrior space vixen and turn the gun back on her. The sight of Hartnell smashing his walking stick down on the Drahvin as Vicki gestures the way forward with the gun barrel is marvellous. The coy orphan we first met in The Powerful Enemy has really come on during her time in the TARDIS, proving herself to be a masterful war tactician in The Space Museum, and now a capable saboteur! And we thought Leela was Doctor Who's first warrior companion!

I can't review Air Lock without mentioning Stephanie Bidmead's now iconic monologue to camera, which really does knock your socks off. She's captivating to watch as she stares right down the camera lens, into every sitting room at home, and mesmerises the viewer with her vengeful thoughts: "It may be that we shall kill neither the Rills nor these Earth creatures. Not with our own hands, that is. It may be better for us to escape in the Rills' spaceship and leave them here. And then, when we are out in space, we can look back. We will see a vast white exploding planet and know that they have died with it." She is interrupted by a drone Drahvin, who says they will not see them die. Maaga replies softly: "You will not. But I, at least, have enough intelligence to imagine it. The fear. The horror. The shuddering of a planet in its last moments life. And then they die!"

Bidmead is bewitching in this scene, directed with flair and courage by Martinus, and it's by far the greatest benefit of having Air Lock returned to the archives. We already had photos of the Rills, but if it weren't for ITV engineer Terry Burnett, we'd never be able to witness this truly mesmerising performance from Bidmead. Tempering the exhilaration is the tragic fact that, nine years to the week of the broadcast of this episode, the actress died of a debilitating disease of the spinal cord, aged just 45. She could still have been alive today...

First broadcast: September 25th, 1965

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Stephanie Bidmead's piece to camera is a rediscovered gem of early Doctor Who.
The Bad: William Emms hasn't exactly got a lot of characters to play with, but still manages to completely underuse Steven Taylor, the one man in the story other than the Doctor. Such a wasted opportunity to play with the "battle of the sexes" theme.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: The Exploding Planet...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Four Hundred Dawns (episode 1); Trap of Steel (episode 2); The Exploding Planet (episode 4)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/galaxy-4.html

The soundtrack to Galaxy 4 is available on CD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Doctor-Who-Galaxy-4-Peter-Purves/0563477008. The extant episode 3 (Air Lock) and almost six minutes of surviving footage from episode 1 (Four Hundred Dawns) can be found on The Aztecs Special Edition DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Aztecs-Special-DVD/dp/B00AREPA1I