Beauty and the Beast - but where is the true enemy? What are the Chumblies? And what happened to Galaxies 1, 2 and 3?
Season 3 begins and TV Club is on a planet in danger of imminent destruction which, if you actually listen to the dialogue, isn’t actually in Galaxy 4…
Watch the existing episode Air Lock on BBC iPlayer
Or the entire serial as a colour animation:
Or buy it on DVD or BluRay:
Rate and review below:
As I mentioned, I quite enjoyed Maaga when watching this recently. Her performance was fun, even if I couldn’t see half of it.
“Oh, we have a small number of men, as many as we need. The rest we kill. They consume valuable food and fulfill no particular function.”
I also quite liked the Rills.
OK, so it’s rather wonky, but I do find plenty to enjoy anput this serial. Is it good? No, I wouldn’t go that far, and yet…
…typical of the Hartnell era, it is bold and inventive in its portrayal of aliens and alien worlds. The Rills are different to anything else we’ve seen. They are an ambitious concept and what little we see of them really triggers the imagination. They even breathe a different atmosphere.
It’ll never be a favourite of mine, but I get a lot from it. I applaud the general concept and the ambition of the thing.
It’d be nice to revisit them sometime in Modern Who, maybe visit their home planet.
I agree, especially now they could be realised more fully. Genuinely interesting, different and truly alien!
Yayyy the Chumblies!!! I actually don’t remember this serial too well but I am fond of those daft things
This is one where the animation really helps. The story itself is fine, put could probably been presented as two episodes rather than four. There is quite a bit of wheel spinning in this story, which does not translate well in a recon.
I miss Babs and Ian…
3/5 
3,5/5 for the animation
I really enjoy this serial. While it’s not the most original story, it is told rather well.
The animated version is great, and the little peak at live action shows that it was a well-made serial.
4/5 from me.
It may be a little problematic but its fun and charming and quaint.
Also, is it controversial to say I really don’t like the animation for this episode? I think, for the most part, a lot of the recent animations have dropped in quality and the one surviving episode of Galaxy 4 we have is leagues above the others.
Yeah, I found the animation a little lacking. I think it might be to do with the choice to make these enormous vistas which are then populated by a cast of no more than 10. It makes everything look very empty. I also wasn’t taken by the design of the Rill ship - although the original TV version is decidedly odd in itself.
As for the story itself, it’s a very middling affair for me but I do like the fact that there were some attempts to try different things such as the flashbacks to when the Drahvins originally arrived and the deception Maaga has been perpetuating about the Rills to her own soldiers.
Not a fan of this one. I get what they’re going for of not judging by appearances, but there are far better stories that do similar ideas. Everyone likes the Chumblies, but I find that when they’re supposed to be portrayed as a threat early on, I don’t buy it. See also the Quarks. Maaga was a decent villain, even if it was pretty obvious that she was the villain even when they’re supposedly trying to show them as the good and beautiful ones and the Rills as the evil and ugly ones. It’s a rather uneventful story aside from Steven in the airlock, and one that I think doesn’t quite achieve its goals in execution. The animation did very few of the characters justice, especially Vicki. 4/10, or 2 Stars out of 5 by TG rating.
This is one of the weaker Hartnell-era stories.
I don’t fancy watching the LC reconstruction again, because it’s dull.
I watched the animation earlier this year, which improved the story slightly for me.
I also read the Target novelisation earlier, and it’s a word-for-word adaptation.
So I decided to listen to the Tarwht audiobook release for the club. I listened to the first two chapters (representing the first two episodes) today. Maureen O’Brien makes it nice to listen.
I uploaded my review for the LC reconstruction, originally written in 2022, on the site and will share it here for you.
Galaxy Four (LC) = 3/10
Galaxy Four (animated) = 5/10
In short, it’s four episodes of a small cast walking back and forth between two locations while waiting for the world to blow up. It’s slow, dull, and uninspired, despite its important theme of not judging a book by its cover. Steven isn’t given anything to do, Vicki is pointless, and the Chumblies are unbearable (especially during the many scenes with bad dialogue where we have to listen to their endless beeping). Most scenes are lengthy and don’t achieve a lot, and the twists are pretty predictable. There’s a lack of urgency and tension despite the situation. Maaga is a pretty effective character, though, and I’m impressed to see an (almost) all-female supporting cast in the 60s Who.
It’s a perfectly average story - nothing particularly bad about but nothing outstandingly good either. The animation does do a lot to enhance the story for me. Previously I’d listened to the soundtrack CDs and it is a very difficult listen with those tedious Chumbly scenes. The returned episode 3 does help but being able to watch the whole thing definitely elevates the story.
This one is a tricky one for me to rate. I don’t hate it nor do I like it.
It’s quite a simple one and one I’d argue with some great elements but also a lot of “whatever” aspect to it. I like the Chumblies, but the sounds here get on your nerves really quickly. I like Maaga here, she has a great performance in the only surviving Episode and overall for most of the Serial. I think we have some lovely Vicki Doctor Moments (in particular the one with the rock). But overall it doesn’t do much for me.
The Animation is okay and does its job well, it doesn’t really give the story a new life (like the macra one did for its story) nor does it make the story any more interesting, but ehh it has some very nice aspect to it. I like the sets in the Animation, despite the scale maybe being a bit too much at the end.
Overall this is just meh story, not particular amazing nor bad, some standout moments here and there but definitely one of the weaker Hartnell Tales
Galaxy Four (Target audiobook) = 5/10
I finished the audiobook today. It’s pretty much a word-for-word adaptation of the four scripts, written by William Emms himself. Nothing added, nothing removed (well, we get some inner dialogue for Maaga, fleshing her out a bit, but that’s it). Maureen O’Brien makes it a fine listen though, and her Maaga voice is nice. I think I prefer this version to the telesnap reconstruction at least, but it’s still far from being my favourite story.
I remember not particularly enjoying this one as an animation, I thought it was kind of boring. I think it lacked a bit of life, which is very hard to do with animation. I enjoyed the surviving episode a lot more. In total, there’s just not much to this story, it’s not bad but it’s not particularly good either.