Doctor Who (TV Series) The Exploding Planet (1965) User Reviews

All that glitters isn't Gold.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 5/10 · 2 March 2021]

Rescuing Stephen is The Doctor's priority, for The Drahvin however it's escaping, leaving The Rill on the doomed planet.

It's almost light in tone, despite the evil machination of Maaga, her villainy is outdone by the goodness of The Rill.

So there's a pretty strong message in this episode. Basically it's a message that not everything beautiful on the outside is good on the inside, and that something which may be ugly in appearance, can be beautiful deep down. It's a nice message.

Overall, the storyline was good, two alien forces trying to escape a dying planet, The Doctor and co caught up in the middle of evebts. Perhaps it had a degree of simplicity, it didn't feel at all challenging, The Doctor and co never felt in peril. The Full always seemed several steps ahead of The Drahvin.

Being back The Drahvin!

It's a decent story, 5/10.

Galaxy 4: Part 4 - Solid story with good regular cast performances.

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 7/10 · 19 August 2014]

Review for all 4 parts:

Galaxy 4 is a four part story beginning with Four Hundred Dawns.

This is a sort of run-of-the-mill adventure where the TARDIS crew are caught up in a dispute between 2 alien races. It is well acted by the regular cast and quite neatly scripted. Overall the story is presented pretty well and has some interesting ideas such as appearances proving to be deceptive. Most aspects are done effectively enough including the representation of the leader of the Rill. Maaga, the leader of the Drahvins is reasonably good but the rest of the Drahvins are rather weak. Although the Chumblies are unimpressive creations they are quite cute robots which seem now like precursors of Star Wars cute 'droids' R2D2 and BB8 and I quite like them.

The development of the Doctor's new companions continues to create interest. Steven is one of my favourite companions and Purves' performance in the part is establishing the character really well by this stage. The way the Doctor, Steven and Vicki interact and deal with situations provides quality.

The story is no classic by any means but is a pretty well executed adventure in many respects so I am not sure why it is so disliked by many fans. It is a reasonable effort I think.

All 4 Episodes - 7/10.