Doctor Who, season 3 begins …

Galaxy Four is one of the many early Doctor Who adventures that no longer exist in the BBC archives.  Other than audio-only, some enterprising fans have made it possible to “watch” the adventure.  The version I’m watching uses a version of CGI created by Who Recons.

From the first episode, the plot seems fairly simple.  The Doctor, Steven, and Vicki arrive on an alien world and encounter a strange mechanical robot that Vicki names “Chumblies” – a fairly harmless looking creature that can hear, but not see.

They follow the robot until they are “rescued” by the Drahvins, a matriarchal people of strange ways (they only have a few men, killing the rest, and apparently are served by a lesser female class).  The Drahvins are fighting against the Rills, with both of their spaceships having crash-landed on the planet.  The Rills have repaired their ship and are preparing to leave, the Drahvins haven’t and so they want to steal the Rills’ ship – a task made all the more urgent because the planet will be destroyed in “four dawns”.

Leaving Vicki behind, who overhears the leader of the Drahvins as she castigates her subordinates, the Doctor and Steven return to the TARDIS where the Doctor discovers that the planet doesn’t have four dawns left, it has just two.

Even with the animation, it’s very difficult to tell what’s going on a lot of the time.  When characters are speaking, it’s well advised to shut your eyes and picture the actors saying the words because the CGI recreations don’t look a lot like the actors, nor do they behave much like the characters.  When they’re not talking, some effort has been made to explain what’s going on, but not a lot of it seems to make sense.  Nevertheless, it’s better than total guesswork.

A fairly simple plot so far, that doesn’t have me gripped but it may pick up.

Next time … Trap of Steel