Four to Doomsday Is Peter Davison's Most Unintentionally Hilarious Story
Why does Adric want to be a robot?
Plot Summary
A mercurial ruler determined to meet God by traveling faster than light encounters the Doctor instead.
Notable for:
First story of Season 19, and Peter Davison’s run, to be filmed
Pete commentary:
Wait, Adric wants to be a robot?
Boy oh boy, does everyone look fresh off the plane.
Janet Fielding overdoes it from minute one. Her hysterics aren’t appropriate for someone who has just lived through Logopolis and Castrovalva.
Opening ship thing is kinda cool. Reminded me of Red Dwarf.
Sets are OK and elaborate, relatively, but still pretty dull
Artron energy! First mention, I think
“Bowl a chinaman” - some unfortunate jokes at Burt Kwouk’s expense that are borderline
Great guest cast, though: Kwouk, Phillip Locke, Stratford Johns
Davison is pretty good in his first outing, perhaps a bit self-consciously emotive here and there. But you get good moments of what would become his trademark indignation at evil in his presence: “I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your manopticons” — you can taste his contempt for Monarch
Mention of the tardis bathroom!
100 nm! Chip tech today better than Monarchs
Tegan flies the tardis
What did Pete’s family think?
Grace remarked how this was one of her fav TARDIS teams
Four Two Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Where's the Clara splinter? Dancing the Dragon
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? Hate these people (except Davison). Ogron.
Chris commentary:
Easily the most hilarious Who I've seen in a long time. I needed that laugh
The technobabble deathmatch between Adric and Nyssa! Resonant stroboscope! Graviton crystal detector!
Poor Matthew Waterhouse, Adric really looks like a sexist incel ass in this. Then again he did piss off Peter Davison …
Enlightenment and Persuasion? Why? "Friendly I hope …" ok, they're ministers …
Safety pins! First DW punk reference?
TEGAN IS A GENIUS ARTIST "You're a v good draughtswoman" YEAH NO KIDDING
The jokes are so not funny (astral plane/Heathrow) but somehow that makes the whole thing even funnier
WHY DID NO ONE MAKE THE BI-GON JOKE
Really love the vegan meal
Nice attempt at diversity, early 80s who!
The Aborigone dialect was almost nonsense, good job Janet Fielding. Even if there are 3k different dialects …
LITERALLY CATO (from Pink Panther)
Enlightenment and Persuasion's new outfits AS THE CLIFFHANGER is so 80s …
THE "RECREATIONAL" ENTERTAINMENT OH GOD … "little soirees"
Three billion earthlings plus three billion Urbankans … WHY, THAT WOULD MAKE FEWER EARTHLINGS THAN NOW …
"The aborigine, the Chinaman and the Mayan" walk into a bar …
Enlightenment quotes Renoir: "the exchange of two fantasies"
WHY THE PENCIL
Why do we need the "back to the Big Bang" subplot too?
Adric gets to TARDIS-splain the name
"A power room, a bathroom, even got cloisters!" WTF?
Four One Question to Doomsday - Chris
What if the evil plot had succeeded? LOTS OF TINY PEOPLE … and Nvidia becomes a trillion-dollar company early?