Home
Finished Galaxy 4 on my rewatch of the Hartnell era yesterday (PS Hartnell era has held up brilliantly, apart from one or two duds, like The Web Planet.)
Galaxy 4 obviously isn't top 10 material, but its a very enjoyable and quite surreal little story. Its often bashed as one of the worst stories ever made and I don't understand why?
The Rills and the Chumblies were very well realised. I know people say the Chumblies weren't scary like in the Adventure with the Wife and Space blog, but they weren't meant to be scary! They were meant to be friendly robots.
The Drahvins were also quite interesting villains. I normally despise gender politics being brought into sci fi. Take a look at Power an episode of Blake's 7 for instance. IMO that isn't just the worst episode of B7, but one of the worst ever episodes of any tv show (almost on a par with Death in Heaven. It really is that bad. It is to female B7 fans what Jodie's casting is to male DW fans. Petty agenda driven spitting in their faces.)
However with the Drahvins thankfully they didn't really focus on gender politics. That story wasn't about men vs women in the slightest, or making any nasty, snide little comments about either sex. The only reason they were beautiful women was for the appearances don't matter angle of the story, not a gender war one.
The Drahvins were really just female Sontarans but about 10 years earlier when you think about it. Both war mongering clone races, who have eliminated the concept of two genders, because they see it as inefficient. They have another way to reproduce which can create more foot soldiers, and they consider one gender to be better equipped for war, so they only clone them.
Its quite an interesting thought. Sadly however not to sound sexist, but it was one that was always going to be better equipped for a race of all male villains.
It is hard to have female villains against male heroes, not because you won't buy that a woman can't outfight, or outwit a male character, but because a male hero can't beat the shit out of a female villain in quite the same way as he can a male villain. Imagine if Hal the Archer had impaled a Drahvin with an Arrow for instance, or Jamie had knifed a Drahvin in the leg!
I don't think that's right of course. I want to see more female villains. IMO you'll only achieve equal representation when female characters go through the same kind of punishment as male characters do on screen. That's the one hurdle left. People keep thinking "I'm going to strike a blow by having a female hero who can outfight any man". YAWN, no one cares. None of us have a problem with the idea of a female character being stronger or smarter than all of the men around her. That hurdle was overcome decades ago.
Its having a female hero get tortured the way Wolverine does, or a female villain like The Joker get the shit kicked out of her that's the brave thing to do now IMO, if you do want women to have all the same kinds of roles as men.
At least Galaxy 4 tried by casting women in a role that was always occupied by men, the race of war mongering, alien invaders. Sontarans, Daleks, Cybermen etc, all male races, or at least more masculine.
How successful you think it was well sadly it seems most people would say it wasn't, but overall I'd say that Galaxy 4 is a great story. I also found out that it inspired this track from the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.
Beautiful Zelda's a Drahvin!
Galaxy 4 obviously isn't top 10 material, but its a very enjoyable and quite surreal little story. Its often bashed as one of the worst stories ever made and I don't understand why?
The Rills and the Chumblies were very well realised. I know people say the Chumblies weren't scary like in the Adventure with the Wife and Space blog, but they weren't meant to be scary! They were meant to be friendly robots.
The Drahvins were also quite interesting villains. I normally despise gender politics being brought into sci fi. Take a look at Power an episode of Blake's 7 for instance. IMO that isn't just the worst episode of B7, but one of the worst ever episodes of any tv show (almost on a par with Death in Heaven. It really is that bad. It is to female B7 fans what Jodie's casting is to male DW fans. Petty agenda driven spitting in their faces.)
However with the Drahvins thankfully they didn't really focus on gender politics. That story wasn't about men vs women in the slightest, or making any nasty, snide little comments about either sex. The only reason they were beautiful women was for the appearances don't matter angle of the story, not a gender war one.
The Drahvins were really just female Sontarans but about 10 years earlier when you think about it. Both war mongering clone races, who have eliminated the concept of two genders, because they see it as inefficient. They have another way to reproduce which can create more foot soldiers, and they consider one gender to be better equipped for war, so they only clone them.
Its quite an interesting thought. Sadly however not to sound sexist, but it was one that was always going to be better equipped for a race of all male villains.
It is hard to have female villains against male heroes, not because you won't buy that a woman can't outfight, or outwit a male character, but because a male hero can't beat the shit out of a female villain in quite the same way as he can a male villain. Imagine if Hal the Archer had impaled a Drahvin with an Arrow for instance, or Jamie had knifed a Drahvin in the leg!
I don't think that's right of course. I want to see more female villains. IMO you'll only achieve equal representation when female characters go through the same kind of punishment as male characters do on screen. That's the one hurdle left. People keep thinking "I'm going to strike a blow by having a female hero who can outfight any man". YAWN, no one cares. None of us have a problem with the idea of a female character being stronger or smarter than all of the men around her. That hurdle was overcome decades ago.
Its having a female hero get tortured the way Wolverine does, or a female villain like The Joker get the shit kicked out of her that's the brave thing to do now IMO, if you do want women to have all the same kinds of roles as men.
At least Galaxy 4 tried by casting women in a role that was always occupied by men, the race of war mongering, alien invaders. Sontarans, Daleks, Cybermen etc, all male races, or at least more masculine.
How successful you think it was well sadly it seems most people would say it wasn't, but overall I'd say that Galaxy 4 is a great story. I also found out that it inspired this track from the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.
Beautiful Zelda's a Drahvin!
