5W. Four To Doomsday

Season Nineteen - 1982

Script Editor: Anthony Root
Produced by: John Nathan-Turner
Writer: Terence Dudley
Director: John Black
Incidental Music: Roger Limb
Fight Arranger: Bill Barry (2, 4)
Choreographer: Sue Lefton (2, 4)

Synopsis

The TARDIS materialises aboard a giant Urbankan spacecraft on course for Earth. The Doctor and his companions are met by the frog-like Monarch and two of his ministers.

Also on board are four groups of androids designed to look like Greeks, Chinese, Mayans and Aboriginal Australians. The androids perform many dances known as recreationals.

The Monarch plans to poison Earth and re-populate it with millions of his androids. The Doctor locks many of the androids into their ritual dancing before destroying the Monarch with his own poison.

Regular Cast

  • Adric: Matthew Waterhouse
  • Nyssa: Sarah Sutton
  • Tegan Jovanka: Janet Fielding

Guest Cast

  • Monarch: Statford Johns
  • Persuassion: Paul Shelley
  • Enlightenment: Annie Lambert
  • Bigon: Philip Locke
  • Lin Futu: Burt Kwouk
  • Kurkutji: Illarrio Bisi Pedro (1-2,4)
  • Princess Villiagra: Nadia Hammam
Uncredited:
  • Greek Philosophers and Swordsmen: Steve Durante, Simon Ramirez, Victor Reynolds, Peter Whitaker
  • Chinese Surgeon: Eiji Kusuhara

Original broadcast on the BBC

Channel Title Date Viewers Rating
BBC 1 558. Part One Monday, 18 January 1982 18:55 - 19:20 8.6M
BBC 1 559. Part Two Tuesday, 19 January 1982 19:05 - 19:30 8.8M
BBC 1 560. Part Three Monday, 25 January 1982 18:55 - 19:20 9.1M
BBC 1 561. Part Four Sunday, 26 January 1986 19:05 - 19:30 9.6M

Studios

  • Television Centre Studio 6

Bloopers

Part 2: Tegan's sketch of "Earth fashions" is very quick. If she was that good then becoming an air hostess was a waste of her talent.

Look closely at the Chinese Dragon to spot the dancers underneath, dressed in their authentic Ming Dynasty jeans and T-shirts

In the room where the TARDIS is when something visits it, not the crew or the Doctor, a member of the studio staff is seen hiding behind a crate in the foreground.

The scene with the Doctor space-walking and using a rebounded cricket ball to propel himself back to the TARDIS would have Isaac Newton spinning in his grave! The Doctor couldn't have been propelled backwards that fast by such a relatively small object as a cricket ball. If the Doctor were to actually try it, after releasing the ball in the first place, he would have started moving backwards by the action of throwing the ball. [Newton's Third Law] And not just moving in a straight line, he would have spun backwards in a slow cartwheel as a result of pitching the ball cricket-style, as he did. Assuming he was lucky enough to get a perfectly perpendicular bounce from that spacecraft, the ball would have caught up with him, impacting with whatever part of his body was facing that way at the time, increasing the rate of his spinning motion.

Notes

Although it was the second to be shown this was the first Doctor Who programme filmed by Peter Davison.