5W. Four To Doomsday

  • 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);

Programme Description

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 Kwuok;
  • Kurkutji: Illarrio Bisi Pedro (1-2,4);
  • Princess Villiagra: Nadia Hammam;

  • UNCREDITED CAST:
  • Greek Philosophers and Swordsmen: Steve Durante, Simon Ramirez, Victor Reynolds, Peter Whitaker;
  • Chinese Surgeon: Eiji Kusuhara;

Transmissions

ChannelEpisodeTitleDateViewersPosition
BBC 1 558 Part One Mon 18 Jan 1982 1818:55 - 19:20 8.6M 66th
BBC 1 559 Part Two Tue 19 Jan 1982 1919:05 - 19:30 8.8M 61st
BBC 1 560 Part Three Mon 25 Jan 1982 2518:55 - 19:20 9.1M 63rd
BBC 1 561 Part Four Sun 26 Jan 1986 2619:05 - 19:30 9.6M 53rd

Repeat Transmissions

This programme has not been repeated.

Locations

This programme has not been filmed on location or the locations are not known

Studios

  • Television Centre Studio 6;

Bloopers and Mistakes

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.

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.

Notes and Trivia

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

Working Titles

This programme has not working titles
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