Four to Doomsday Part Three

The one where we learn about Monarch's true plans...

I don't care what anybody says, Monarch's scientific achievements are very impressive, even if they are lacking in humanity somewhat. He's managed to throw off the shackles of flesh and blood and condense a person's entire being into a tiny silicon chip. The people of Urbanka are not the green froggy creatures we see in Monarch. They have actually become "fully-integrated personalities with a racial memory". Monarch's science records a person's entire lifetime, thoughts and feelings and transfers it into one microchip, which can then travel around in a synthetic body, enabling immortality. Brilliant! It's also reminiscent of what Davros achieved with his travel machines...

The fact the bodies are disposed of as fertiliser for the floral chamber is a grim side-effect, on a par with Harrison Chase's psychotic gardening tips in The Seeds of Doom.

There's a lot of exposition in part 3 of Four to Doomsday. In fact, the vast majority of screen time is dedicated to Bigon filling the Doctor in on Monarch's true plans, wandering around various chambers lifting the lid on the Urbankan despot's machinations. Other than disabling the odd monopticon, the Doctor does very little else but listen.

Monarch's true plan is to invade Earth and reap its spoils. He will land peacefully, offering advanced technology to the humans (echoes of The Claws of Axos) but actually he's planning to release a deadly Urbankan poison which destroys living matter. Monarch will then replace the three billion Earthlings with the three billion Urbankans. As well as all this, he plans to mine Earth for its silicon and carbon in order to mass produce silicon microchips to house his people. Oh, and he's also planning to travel faster than the speed of light so that he can go back in time to the dawn of the universe, where he expects to meet himself. Because Monarch, as well as having a rather egotistical name, also believes that he is God, the creator of everything.

What a froggy nut job.

The Doctor finds all this out from Bigon throughout the episode, at the same time that Monarch is finding out an awful lot about the Doctor. This is thanks to Adric, Blabbermouth Supreme, who gives Monarch the complete lowdown on Time Lords, Gallifrey and the TARDIS like he's reciting an introduction to a book by Peter Haining. Adric's crash course in Doctor Who takes in Rassilon, dimensional transcendentalism, Time Lord anatomy and Gallifreyan science, so no wonder Nyssa explodes with a timely: "Why don't you shut up?!" It's the first time I've been pleased with something Nyssa's had to say.

It feels like Adric has fallen hook, line and sinker for Monarch's vision, although I suspect he's only going along with it in order to get the full story out of him. We've been here before, thinking the young Alzarian was betraying the Doctor to the Three Who Rule in State of Decay, and although all that still remains debatable, he did claim he was bluffing the vampires so that he could help rescue Romana. Here, it feels too sudden that Adric should agree with Monarch's inhumane science, so I'm content to assume he's bluffing again. I hope so anyway, because if writer Terence Dudley's intention really is that Adric's up for microchipping the whole of humanity, it's not being handled convincingly at all.

Again, it's a very talky episode, but that talk is often nicely written, such as Enlightenment's definition of love as "the exchange of two fantasies", or Monarch's justifiable disbelief that the people of Earth make more weapons than food, despite two-thirds of the population starving. Nyssa comes across very well here too, questioning the removal of a person's heart and soul through the silicon chipping process, and considering that the second-class "assistors" are actually just slaves. It's nice to see Nyssa given some personality.

But her choice to speak out does her no favours, and she's marched off to the mobiliary to be turned into a microchip. Lin Futu puts her into a cabinet and places what looks like a Cyberman's hairdressing hood on her head, saying that five minutes should do it. It feels like Nyssa should emerge from the contraption with a newly sculpted perm!

As well as all the talk, there are moments of tension, notably when the Doctor and Tegan clash over the way forward. Tegan wants to go back to the TARDIS to warn Earth about Monarch's plans, whereas the Doctor prefers a softly-softly approach. Tegan has been pretty highly strung throughout this story, but in this episode completely loses it, and the argument she has with the Doctor is heartfelt. In the end, the Doctor instructs her to stay put, wagging a finger of admonishment in her face and ordering her: "You stay here!" He is phenomenally patronising towards her, and it's not the sort of behaviour I like seeing in this Doctor. I feel sorry for Tegan, especially when she's basically told to shut up, stay still and do nothing, leaving everything to the Doctor. That's not fair, it's not empowering at all, it's oppressive.

Of course, Tegan being Tegan, she doesn't let the Doctor's instructions stop her doing what she feels is right, and after having a good old ding-dong with Adric (knocking him to the ground, where he hits his head and falls unconscious) she returns to the TARDIS (she has a key, remember?) and tries to fly it back to Earth. Now, this is Very Silly. In no way is it believable that Tegan would be able to fly the TARDIS safely to Earth, and succeed in warning humanity about Monarch. It's barely conceivable that she'd be able to dematerialise.

But, she believes she can crack it, and there ensues several scenes of her desperately flicking switches and turning dials to try and get the TARDIS in flight. It's not Janet Fielding's greatest hour to be honest, as she reduces Tegan to a gibbering wreck just because she can't find the right buttons. Tegan becomes a sobbing loon, and it feels like she's having some sort of mental breakdown. It's way over the top.

Some other observations:

• Stratford Johns is so good under all that make-up and fabric. He does not play Monarch as a raging lunatic, which it would be all too easy to do, but instead gives him a reasoning presence, a natural air. I love the bit where Enlightenment is singing Monarch's praises, and Johns gives a slightly embarrassed little cough. A lesser actor would have played Monarch as a bombastic shouty tyrant (imagine the part in the hands of Brian Blessed or Bruce Purchase).
• Sometimes you can really tell the dialogue is written by an old-school veteran in his early 60s, and it's particularly noticeable when spoken by the younger characters. We've already had a very strange discussion about people wearing safety pins (Dudley didn't approve of the punk movement, evidently) but here, he puts words into Adric's mouth which make him sound like a Tory politician on the hustings: "Just think of it, Nyssa. A whole new technology. No more hunger, no more wars. Fine schools, fine hospitals..." And it's even funnier when Nyssa interjects: "Fine tyranny!"
• Lin Futu is not a great role for poor Burt Kwouk, who deserved so much better. For decades Kwouk had been the "go-to guy" whenever there was a part for a Chinaman, or indeed anybody from East Asia. It was either Burt Kwouk, or else a white guy would don yellowface make-up and have his eyes slanted artificially. But Kwouk was an actor, not just an ethnicity. He is employed here simply because of the way he looks, and not because of what he can bring to the story. The role of Lin Futu should have been greater to reflect Kwouk's standing. Lin Futu could actually be played by anybody, so it's a shame Kwouk isn't given more to do than stand about looking officious.
• Another example of Dudley's rather old-fashioned style comes when Nyssa is rescued from the conversion machine and says: "They were going to kill me!", to which the Doctor replies: "Yes, the devils!" You could just about get away with the First Doctor saying that, otherwise it sounds truly out of place.
• That reminds me, Nyssa spends at least five minutes in that conversion machine, which is as long as Lin Futu says is needed, so why is she virtually unharmed by the process? Perhaps it's because Nyssa is such a blank canvas to start with that the machine couldn't find much of a personality to replicate?

The episode ends with Persuasion arriving with a bunch of blade-wielding assistors, who drag the treacherous Bigon off to be "dechipped", and kick the Doctor to his knees ready to be beheaded, right there and then. Adric launches into a valiant and violent protest to try and stop his friend getting callously murdered. Nyssa looks on impassively.

First broadcast: January 25th, 1982

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Stratford Johns gives a pleasingly measured, thoughtful performance.
The Bad: Far too much exposition.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Part Four...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Four

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.

Four to Doomsday is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Four-Doomsday-DVD/dp/B001ARYYUE/