History Recap / DoctorWhoS19E2FourToDoomsday

'''Production code:''' 5W

Written by Terence Dudley. This four-episode serial first aired January 18--26, 1982.

* AncientGrome: Seriously, ''Greek'' gladiators? Somebody clearly did not do their research.

* BadassInANiceSuit: Persuasion. Also has a wry sense of humour: On finding Nyssa using the Sonic Screwdriver together with pencil graphite to create a short circuit, confiscates the Sonic Screwdriver but adds:

-->-- '''The Doctor''' owns Adric

The one where Adric becomes an idiot.

* AncientGrome: Seriously, ''Greek'' gladiators? Somebody clearly did not do their research.

* [[EternalEnglish Eternal Indigenous Australian]] / SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: Good thing Tegan fluently speaks a 40,000-year-old dialect of a random [[UsefulNotes/AustralianAborigines Indigenous Australian]] language! (There are thousands of such languages, most of which wouldn't have existed by Tegan's time -- and meanwhile, linguists in the rest of the world are having a tough enough time reconstructing Proto-Indo-European, which is a mere 10,000 years old.) Then again, the doctor specifically phrases the question as dialect than her knowing the language itself.
** And more importantly - [[FridgeLogic why didn't the translation circuits on the TARDIS translate the speech for the Doctor?]][[invoked]]

* DoomyDoomsOfDoom

* {{Mayincatec}}

* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove

** When discussing Heathrow, the Doctor refers to "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E8TheFacelessOnes The Faceless Ones]]" (the writer apparantly forgot that it was set at Gatwick, not Heathrow):

* EverybodyLives: This one of the few stories with no deaths.

Written by Terence Dudley. This serial first aired January 18-26, 1982.

** And more importantly - [[FridgeLogic why didn't the translation circuits on the TARDIS translate the speech for the Doctor?]]

* ArtisticLicencePhysics: In the spacewalk scene, conservation of momentum doesn't actually seem to exist. The Doctor runs into Space Friction on the way to the TARDIS and has to pull himself back to the airlock by the rope, and when the rope is untied he just sort of stops dead where he is. Throwing a cricket ball at the ship has no effect on him, but ''catching'' it on the rebound propels him backwards (as it should).

* CaptainObvious: A rather dark example as when Nyssa and Aldric go into an area without oxygen, and Enlightenment (who is watching the event on the monopticon alongside Monarch) notes that they have lungs. Monarch coldly replies that they should remember that.

* [[EternalEnglish Eternal Indigenous Australian]] / SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: Good thing Tegan fluently speaks a 40,000-year-old dialect of a random [[UsefulNotes/AustralianAborigines Indigenous Australian]] language! (There are thousands of such languages, most of which wouldn't have existed by Tegan's time -- and meanwhile, linguists in the rest of the world are having a tough enough time reconstructing Proto-Indo-European, which is a mere 10,000 years old.) Then again, the doctor specifically phrase the question as dialect than her knowing the language itself.

* TranslationConvention: An ancient Australian Aboriginal language isn't translated, allowing Tegan to expand her character by being the only one able to understand and speak it. This is regardless of the fact that there are dozens of loosely related and unrelated Aboriginal languages, and the one they were speaking was unlikely to still exist by the time Tegan was even born. Then again, as mention above, it was less the language the doctor was surprise but the dialect.

* WhatTheHellHero: Adric sides with Monarch for part of the story, for which the Doctor rightly calls him out. "Now listen to me, you young idiot--you’re not so much gullible as idealistic. I suppose it comes from your deprived, delinquent background." It's especially epic coming from Five, who is less bombastic than most Doctors (although, as said earlier, this was his first filmed story and there's a good bit of Four left over before his characterization fully gels.)

* WhamLine: When the Doctor wonders how organic life survived for 35000 years on a spaceship.

** When iscussing Heathrow, the Doctor refers to "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E8TheFacelessOnes The Faceless Ones]]":

Meanwhile, Tegan, who was entrusted with the TARDIS key, ends up losing her cool and desperately attempts to hijack the TARDIS for a ride back to Earth. Completely breaking down emotionally, she actually persuades the ship to dematerialise, only for it to materialise floating in space outside Monarch's spaceship instead. Meanwhile, the Doctor is forced to watch a whole lot of tribal dancing, and sword-fighting, and half-naked men wrestling each other, and spends much of the episode rolling his eyes at everything.

Everyone leaves, and Nyssa conveniently collapses at literally the last second because she originally wasn't written in the next episode. (In fact, if it wasn't for Davison's intervention, Nyssa would've been dropped as a companion altogether.) Her sudden collapse gets explained much later, in the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio story "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho026Primeval Primeval]]".

** Because this was Creator/PeterDavison's first filmed episode, and as such his characterization wasn't established, there are moments where he comes across as more short-tempered and snarky than usual.

Creator/PeterDavison's first filmed story as the Doctor (the episodes are often filmed out of order).[[note]]The explanation given by producer Creator/JohnNathanTurner, which is often repeated by fans, is that they wanted to give Davison a chance to acclimatize to the role before filming his debut story. The truth, however, is that this was the only script which was ready to film at the start of production.[[/note]]

* ContinuityNod: The Fourth Doctor previously displayed an ability to survive exposure to a vacuum in space in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E4NightmareOfEden Nightmare of Eden]]". The Eleventh Doctor would again demonstrate this ability in "[[Recap/DoctorWho2011CSTheDoctorTheWidowAndTheWardrobe The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe]]"...and then the Twelfth would decidedly ''[[DependingOnTheWriter not]]'' demonstrate it in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E5Oxygen Oxygen]]", just to muddy the waters.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: In the spacewalk scene, conservation of momentum doesn't actually seem to exist. The Doctor runs into Space Friction on the way to the TARDIS and has to pull himself back to the airlock by the rope, and when the rope is untied he just sort of stops dead where he is. Throwing a cricket ball at the ship has no effect on him, but ''catching'' it on the rebound propels him backwards (as it should).

[[caption-width-right:350:...[[CompletelyMissingThePoint but there's only three]]...]]