Up to and including The Time Meddler most episodes still exist in the archives. From this story onward, until we get to Season 6, the vast majority of episodes are missing, presumed wiped.
This means that from this point on we will have to concentrate on dialogue and plot inconsistencies, as we no longer have the visuals.
Peter Purves is on record as saying that he wasn't terribly happy with this story, as he felt that it had been written for the old TARDIS team. He believed that much of what he had to do was originally intended for Barbara. This might well be true, as he spends a lot of time being held captive by a small group of four soldiers, three of whom are not the brightest, despite being a trained space-pilot.
Fans have tended to assume that he was a military pilot, but at no time ever is his background ever clarified.
The first problem we have to address is the title which has been allocated to it - Galaxy Four. The Drahvins claim to come from Galaxy Four, but this doesn't mean that this planet is also there. But it would be very odd indeed to name a story after the place where the villains came from. It would be like calling The Dalek Invasion of Earth "Skaro", or The Invasion "Telos". The story must surely be set in Galaxy Four, yet we are never told so - only that this is where the Drahvins come from.
There are three suns. Everyone talks about days, or "dawns". How do you define "a day" or "a dawn" on a planet with three suns?
The Doctor discovers that the planet is due to be destroyed in two days, whereas the Drahvins believe that it will last for fourteen. We've already heard that the Drahvin ship is of a very inferior construction, suggesting that their technology isn't all that great. How do they know that the planet is doomed in fourteen days in the first place? If they do have the technology to predict the life span of the planet, why get it wrong by twelve days?
The Doctor then lies to Drahvin leader Maaga, telling her that her estimate was correct. Why?
There's nothing to suggest that he believes them to be villains, because the next thing we know he's off trying to kill the Rills. Would he really just believe the word of some soldiers who have threatened him with guns and kept his companions hostage? Either he believes the Drahvins to be the injured party, in which case why lie about the time they have left, or he doesn't trust them at all, in which case why attack their supposed enemies who are potential allies?
What makes the Doctor think that sabotaging the Rills' ammonia producing equipment will only inconvenience them, when he hasn't even met them yet, and discovered anything about them?
The Doctor and Steven hear a Chumbley prowling around the TARDIS when it plants explosives. This is a scene I would dearly love to see what it looked like, as the Chumbley only needs to go a few feet to go round each side of the Police Box exterior - but the console room is much much larger. How could you hear something go right round it?
A scripting issue - if one of the robots is a Chumbley, shouldn't the plural be Chumbleys rather than Chumblies? The Rills seem to accept Vicki's name for them rather quickly. They never correct her and say "Well actually we call them --- ".
Maaga finds the concept of self-sacrifice unusual, despite expecting it all the time from her troops.
Why lie to them about a Rill killing their wounded comrade, when the Rills have already shot down their spaceship? She doesn't need to get the troops worked up against them, and letting it be known that she kills the weak links amongst her soldiers would surely add to her authority over them.
Maaga thinks that a good way to get someone to come back inside her spaceship is to threaten to kill them as soon as they do.
The Rills rely on something called "sun power" to energise their ship but can't get this on a planet with three suns. Instead, they are drilling into the ground for a gas. They then get the energy they need from the TARDIS - basically just electricity.
A couple of Hartnell fluffs:
" I wust... I must have that cable".
"We should get some long-deserved, undeserved peace...".
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