40 Stupid Things about "Four to Doomsday"
(and 10 Cool Ones)
(But we're not telling you which is which) 
(We're expecting you to work that out for yourselves)

By Fiona Moore and Alan Stevens

Originally published in Celestial Toyroom Issue 530

1. A panning shot across an unimpressive vac-formed model of a spaceship is not the world's most inspired opening.

2. This had been producer John Nathan-Turner's idea, the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope having influenced him, but unfortunately the invited comparison makes it even worse.

3. Though the Monopticons, later, are pretty good by any standards.

4. Gazing on a panorama of alien technology, Tegan is certain this isn't Heathrow Airport, but does agree it might be the Piccadilly Line.

5. "Their instrumentation is very advanced. That looks like a resonant stroboscope." "Look, a graviton crystal detector", "Look, an electron microscope", "Looks like an induction furnace." Nyssa likes to look.

6. "Spaceship or laboratory?" Or it could be a laboratory on a spaceship. Why make us choose?

7. Tegan is worried about the Doctor getting into trouble because he won't be able to take her to Heathrow. Priorities, priorities.

8.Indeed, this is another of these stories where Tegan's references to Heathrow are positively metronomic in their repetition.

9. What exactly is the point of Adric, Tegan, and Nyssa's argument in the Tardis during Part One, other than to make us hate them all for different reasons?

10. Also, when did Adric go from being a cheeky, slightly petulant youngster into an out-and-out misogynist?

11. Nyssa might be on to something, attempting to interest Adric by holding a copy of the Principia Mathematica flirtatiously across her bosom.

12. Adric, for his part, shows affection by bossily shouting "NYSSA!?" whenever she's not right there at his elbow.

13. "Look, a door!" Tegan says. Realising its cue, it opens.

14. To be fair, the lighting and sets for this production are very good.

15.Enlightenment says Nyssa's costume "obviously reflects a different culture." But since it's not really out of line with Eighties New Romantic fashions…. How?

16. Meanwhile the Doctor gets in a swipe at punk styles, for no good reason.

17. It's a lucky thing Tegan's an excellent artist, or the Urbankans might have ended up as two stick figures.

18. Tegan has many talents, from superlative fashion draughtsmanship to speaking 35,000-year-old Australian aboriginal dialects. Nonetheless, when Tegan dematerialises the Tardis in Part Three, Monarch says, "So any fool can operate it!"

19. Her display of abilities is also slightly undermined by manifesting in this one story, never to be seen again.

20. Also, how the hell can she have so many interesting and useful skills, and yet her dream job is being a glorified waitress on a pressurised tube? And why can't she get her head around the fact the Tardis is a time machine?

21. Philip Locke is playing someone from a Bigon age. Oh, please yourselves.

22. "I am Lin Futu". "I'd never have guessed it, you look in the best of health to me." Stay classy, Doctor.

23. Later he'll refer to Lin as a "Chinaman", as a setup for a very unfunny cricketing joke in Part Four.

24. He also calls Persuasion "a frog with a funny head", which also doesn't seem terribly sensitive.

25. Equally, we can't really give the programme props for its diverse cast of historic humans, since this is entirely for plot reasons, and the only one to get any characterisation is the White Man.

26. The adventure is a clear homage to the William Hartnell Era: it starts off as "The Sensorites" and then switches to "The Ark" for Part Two.

27. There is, furthermore, a nod to both "The Edge of Destruction" and "Castrovalva" with the idea of going back to a point of creation, whether that be a solar system, a galaxy, or the universe itself.

28. Whereas the early Hartnell-era companions' mix of skills allowed them to explore different, complementary aspects of the future society (history teacher/science teacher/impetuous teenager) there's not much you can do with two alien nerds and an air stewardess.

29. How did the Doctor get his hat to stick on the Monopticon?

30. It's early enough in the 1980s to have Nyssa explain the word "cybernetics" for the benefit of the audience, although this can also be seen as a foreshadowing for "Earthshock".

31. Watch the doorway the Doctor and Tegan go through in Part Two after losing Nyssa and Adric: it appears to be shored up with baling wire at the top.

32. Four thousand years of Mayan dance displays; it's a wonder they're not all bored silly.

33. Monarch is wrong when he says if it weren't for him, Bigon would still believe the Earth was flat: the ancient Greeks were a sailing culture and so had figured out the Earth was round from a quite early period.

34. The origins of the Chinese dragon dance can be traced back to the Han Dynasty, 206 BC— 220 AD; so about 2,000 years later than the era Lin Futu is supposedly from.

35. The Aborigines are tending the hydroponic garden while the Greeks and Chinese are working the computers. The ethnic stereotypes in this serial are not exactly subtle.

36. Also, the only female humans are Mayans, and the Mayans are all female. Since the Urbankans are quite capable of making robots with different body shapes, one has to ask why?

37. Burt Kwok is shamefully wasted in this serial. Despite his well-known talent and extensive CV, Kwok is given a total of 19 lines over four episodes, most of them very short.

38. Nice to know Urbankan technology runs on printed circuits.

39. Philip Locke does give the line "this is me" a lot of wistful meaning.

40. It's never really explained why Adric seems to think cybernetic immortality under a total autocrat is a good idea. It doesn't emerge organically, as it were, from his previous characterisation, so what's driving it here?

41. The Urbankans secrete a deadly poison that shrinks organic matter. And yet we later discover Monarch is not immune to his own toxin.

42. It's interesting Nyssa and Adric refer to the Master in the present tense, despite his apparent demise in "Castrovalva".

43. Not sure which of the two are being more stupid: Adric for telling Monarch all about the Doctor and the Tardis, or Nyssa for standing there passively and not trying to stop him until he's gone through half an episode's worth of backstory.

44. Adric mentions the "power room", that hasn't been seen since "The Mind Robber".

45. Kurkutji and Lin Futu are corrupted by power, having been "promised… dominion over their ethnic groups on Earth." While Chinese society is hierarchical, Aboriginal social organisation, although exhibiting both hierarchical and egalitarian tendencies, does not recognise a single leader.

46. Also, how are they defining "ethnic groups?" The script seems to be implying there are only four "ethnic groups" on Earth, which leads to uncomfortable questions like who's going to govern the Indian subcontinent?

47. During the dragon dance sequences, you can quite clearly see that the performers are wearing very modern jeans, belts, and T-shirts.

48. The Doctor 'swims' through space as if it had an atmosphere to push against.

49. And again, this entire sequence appears to be a complicated setup for another 'amusing' incident involving a cricket ball. It's as if the writer's notes for Tegan read 'Heathrow', for Nyssa, 'techno-babble', for Adric, 'gauche' and for the Doctor, 'cricketing.'

50. What does "Four to Doomsday" refer to? There are four regular characters, four ancient Earth cultures, four round trips between Urbanka and Earth, four days before Monarch's ship arrives on Earth, and four twenty-five-minute episodes, but what's the connection? Did the author just think up a cool title and try to justify it?