I had to cut my workout about ten minutes short today, because I was cramped for time. But at least I was able to finish watching the rest of Galaxy 4, which I enjoyed quite a bit even if it wasn't particularly surprising. I was especially impressed with how the designers managed to get away with portraying a truly alien race on a miniscule budget. The strategy served to make the storytelling more interesting, even as it spared expenses.

Let's talk about that.

Air Lock

The Rill are hiding on the other side of their air lock and can't be seen. Also, Steven gets trapped in the air lock of the Drahvin ship. How's that for a double-whammy of a title? Most of this episode involves Maaga being continuously threatening and self-serving, and the Rill being selfless and forgiving. It turns out that (of course) the Drahvin opened fire first, which caused the battle that led to both ships crashing. Since then, the Rill have been trying to mine for energy to get their ship off-planet before it explodes, and they have consistently offered to bring the Drahvin with them. On the other side, Maaga has continued to mistrust the Rill based solely on the fact that they look like a sabre-toothed Hutt.

"Mmmmmm. Uga. Spasteelia a bunkadunka. Race a spuce adoobla."

When Steven tries to escape from the Drahvin, he finds himself trapped in the airlock with Maaga on the inside, draining the oxygen from the chamber, and armed chumbleys on the outside. Since he doesn't know yet that the Rill are friendly, he has no way to turn and eventually passes out rather than surrender to either. He is surely dead!

The Exploding Planet

The planet explodes. Roll credits.

Well, ok, there's a bit that happens before then. The Doctor and Vicki arrive, along with a couple of Chumbleys, to rescue Steven. They offer again to rescue the Drahvin, and Maaga offers again to shoot them with a laser canon. Ultimately the Doctor helps recharge the Rill spaceship by running a power cable from the TARDIS, the Rill leave the planet safely, the Doctor and crew leaves in the TARDIS, and Maaga keeps right on hating alien slugs up until the moment entire planet explodes. Turns out that hating nice people just because they don't look like you is a bad thing.

Like I said, one thing i really appreciated was that the designers created this alien race, and then kept them mostly hidden to build suspense. Even when they were finally shown, they were all on the other side of a translucent partition which served both to keep them somewhat mysterious and to also obscure the fact that all four of them were nothing more than sculptures. They communicate wirelessly through speakers on the chumbleys, so they didn't even need to move their mouths. It was very well done. 

Tomorrow, I watch the one and only story in the entire 50+ year history of the show to feature neither the Doctor nor any of his companions. It also happens to be completely missing, so I'll be watching the Loose Canon recon. Should be fun.

STATS:

Doctor(s): First
Companion(s): Vicki, Steven Taylor
Episode(s): Air Lock, The Exploding Planet
Steps Walked: 5,799 today, 291,681 total
Distance Walked: 2.75 miles today, 133.71 miles total
Weight: 294.22 lbs (five day moving average), net change -13.08 lbs