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Summary: "Conformity is the only Freedom" says the Frog-man.
Comment: First let me qualify that I loved the Peter Davison years (1981-84). The potentially disastrous transition from Tom Baker's longest running a 4th incarnation to Davison's Fifth. From the Doctor Who writer Terence Dudley who brought us such 80's plot train wrecks as the Black Orchid and the original Xmas special K9 & Co., we now welcome "Four to Doomsday" to DVD. Dudley's writing is the least of this episode's problems, as it happens this was the first story arc that the "new" Doctor would film, although it would follow the excellent season premiere of Castrovalva, it was truly the story Davison would explore how he was intending to portray the character. For this reason, "Four to Doomsday" is weaker, but for the very same reason it is worth owning to watch this awkward transition period. For his charter season, Davison's Doctor is very much like William Hartnell's 1st Doctor, not to mention the entourage of companions that both Doctor's were afflicted. The show's design and effects are quite neat, like the Doctor's spacewalk, the retro-pseudo-science helmets and the Monopitcon camera-critters.
The plot, if you can follow it between the Rave/World Music dance-offs, is something about a frogman Monarch, who has visited Earth 4 times, collecting people to make android replicas to distract him on his millennia-road trips. The Urbankans' leader, Monarch, is aided by his ministers Persuasion and Enlightenment. They are engaged in a overly-complex plan to loot raw materials needed to enable him to travel back in time confirming his belief in his own status as "creator of the universe." He intends to poison humanity, allowing him to use his androids as replacements on Earth. The Doctor ultimately uses this poison against the Monarch himself. Ultimately, the baddies plan never becomes clear, in spite of all the exposition.
The episode endings are weaker than the usual fare, the first part wraps with the appearance of android embodiments of companion Tegan's highly proficient "new wave" Earthling renderings, surprising, but hardly the point to wrap the show until next week! Counter to "Who" cliffhanger tradition, the Doctor actually doesn't any immediate threat until little over an hour in (crazy long by Who standards), and then it gets very BOND as the villain invites them to dine. But as if the apologize for this weakness, the closing moments of the story have Nyssa collapsing upon returning to the TARDIS, a cliffhanger leading to Nyssa being largely absent from the next story arc KINDA.
"Four to Doomsday" Drinking game...drink each time .....
...the Doctor loses his Companions, Sonic ScrewDriver...his way.
...the dialogue unleashes some amazing double entendres ...like Adric's gem, "He (The Doctor) knows I'm no good with my hands!" and several from the Urbankans, like "How can Earthlings have penetrated us?" or "Nyssa, relieve him" and "Is this one of your dropping times, Doctor?"
..the dialogue turns to heavy self-referencing exposition like Adric's non-stop rambling about the Timelords, TARDIS and anything else the Urbankans "Wanted to Know, but Were Afraid to Ask."
...the cameras cut back to a musical number.
...the action breaks for some Greco-Roman wrestling.
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