Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

BBC Studios have announced the new Doctor Who: Galaxy 4 animation starring William Hartnell as the Doctor which will be released on November 15.

Galaxy 4 (alternatively spelled Galaxy Four) is the mostly-missing first serial of the third season of the British series Doctor Who, which originally aired in four weekly episodes from 11th September to 2nd October 1965.

Following the success of the existing animations, Galaxy 4 fills another gap in the missing Doctor Who content lost from the BBC’s archive soon after the programme’s original transmission. However, audio-only recordings of all four episodes have survived and have been used here to create a brand new fully animated presentation of the entirety of this lost classic, alongside the original surviving Episode 3 and over five minutes of original footage from the otherwise lost Episode 1.

The Doctor (William Hartnell) stars alongside his travel companions Vicki (Maureen O’Brien) and Steven (Peter Purves) which sees the TARDIS landing on a planet on the verge of total annihilation as it drifts too close to the three suns which it orbits. Trapped on the planet with them are the Drahvins, a race of warrior women, and the reptilian Rills. The Drahvins want to steal the Rill spaceship to escape the planet’s death throes, and enlist the Doctor’s help, which he is forced to give when Maaga, the cunning Drahvin leader, keeps first Vicki and then later Steven as her hostage.  Even though the Doctor is determined to broker a peace deal between the two sides in this conflict and help everyone escape safely, Maaga doesn’t trust him, or the Rills…

The two disc release gives fans the opportunity to enjoy the four new animated episodes of Galaxy 4, in either colour or black and white. The release will also include:

Remastered Surviving Original Episode 3
Remastered Surviving Clip from Episode 1
Telesnap Reconstructions of Episodes 1,2 and 4.
Audio Commentaries
Making Of Documentary
Finding Galaxy 4 Documentary
Photo Gallery
Production Subtitles

Gary Russell, Executive Producer from Big Finish Creative of the 2021 production said, “After a gap of many years, it is very exciting to bring the era of the First Doctor back into the animation world. Galaxy 4 is one of the most traditional adventures of 1960s Doctor Who and it’s been a real honour to work on this alternative version which hopefully reflects those technicolour thrills that sci-fi moves of the ’60s had but which Doctor Who’s monochrome TV limitations couldn’t yet achieve.”

BFI Southbank will host a special screening of all 4 episodes of the newly animated story Galaxy 4 on 7th November 2021; tickets go on sale on 16th September at 11:30 to BFI Champions and Patrons, at 12:30 to BFI Members and at 16:00 to the general public.

Click here to preorder from Amazon.co.uk