Inspirations - Four to Doomsday

Not a lot to say about this one, actually.
Way back in 1963, Terence Dudley was approached about writing for the BBC's new Saturday teatime science fiction programme, which was just starting production. He turned it down. There are some who wished he'd keep on turning it down, but that was not to be, for he finally became associated with Doctor Who when he agreed to direct Meglos for Season 18. As with many people brought onto the show by producer John Nathan-Turner, Dudley had worked with him before on other series.
Dudley had a bit of a reputation for joining successful programmes, then running them into the ground. He took over as producer on Doomwatch, causing Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis to quit when he took it in directions they didn't want to go, then he took over Survivors, causing Terry Nation to walk away from his creation for much the same reasons. Neither series survived the loss of their creators.
Last time, we mentioned how Castrovalva was actually the fourth story which new Doctor Peter Davison recorded, by which time Eric Saward had been given the role of script editor. During the planning of Season 19, Dudley agreed to write a story, and his contribution was entitled "Day of Wrath". Chris Bidmead would have been involved in its development, but temporary replacement Anthony Root was the one who saw it through to completion under its new title of Four to Doomsday. This new title either refers to the fact that the Urbankan spaceship is four days away from Earth, or that there are four people travelling in the TARDIS now who are on route to a potential doomsday when Monarch reaches Earth. Or both.

The opening shot is of the spaceship flying over the top of the camera, so the inspiration is clearly the opening shots from Star Wars. This had been done once before - for the opening of Invasion of Time. Then, the models had been recorded on film, but here it is the less satisfying CSO / video technique, so it's not terribly impressive.
The story itself is an odd one, as I mentioned when I reviewed it many moons ago.
It basically plays like a William Hartnell story. The Doctor has three companions with him in the TARDIS and he's trying to get someone back to Earth. Instead the ship materialises in a strange environment, and the travellers set out to explore it - discovering what it is, who lives here, and what their plans are as they go along - and we accompany them on the journey of discovery as we only get to know what's happening at the same time they do. The story even ends on a cliffhanger, leading into the next story, which was a common occurrence for much of the Hartnell stories.
One is reminded of the early episodes of The Sensorites, or of The Ark.
We also get a strong educational element as with the early years of the series, with the various ethnic groupings on the spaceship and their cultural Recreations.
As Dudley was invited to contribute to the Hartnell era of the programme, it is probable that he did actually watch some of those earlier episodes, but the evidence here seems to indicate that he never stuck with the show, so was unaware of how it had evolved over the previous two decades.

If he did watch any later episodes, then my guess is that he caught at least some of The Android Invasion. Four to Doomsday and it share the androids - looking very similar in design - but with a flesh and blood villain whose look is based on an animal (rhinos then, frogs now). Poison plays a significant role in the plans of both villains, and both meet their match because of that poison, which they were going to use to destroy the population of Earth, leaving the planet otherwise undamaged for invasion and plunder.
Human-looking androids removing their faces to reveal printed circuits had been a feature of a couple of science fiction movies of the 1970's - such as The Stepford Wives (1975), based on the book by Ira Levin, and Westworld (1973), based on the book by Michael Crichton, and directed by him.
As well as The Android Invasion, Doctor Who had featured androids prominently in The Androids of Tara, but they go all the way back to when the Daleks made a rather lame copy of the First Doctor in The Chase. These days they have gone rather out of fashion in science fiction, being replaced by clones and other synthetic humanoids who are organic in nature. Note the humanoid Cylons in the Battlestar Galactica reboot, who didn't even know they were Cylons.
Next time: from a very conventional story, to a very experimental one. Tegan is lurking up a tree in the Garden of Eden, Nyssa takes a nap, whilst Adric can't keep his eyes off a big pink snake...