When the TARDIS lands on an arid planet, it seems as though the whole place is desolate and lifeless.  But then the Doctor, Steven and Vicki discover two crashed spaceships: one contains the Drahvins, a race of stunning beauty, the other contains the hideous Rills.  However, as the team soon find out, appearances can be deceptive.  It emerges that behind the beauty of the Drahvins hides a colony hides a colony of mindless clones who are controlled by the cruel, powerful matriarch Maaga, whereas the ugly Rills are friendly and intelligent explorers.

The Rills tell the Doctor that the dried-up planet is about to die.  Back in the the control room of the TARDIS, he discovers they are right, but things are worse than they thought.  There is only one day of life left - one day to escape.

With the Drahvins' ship damaged beyond repair, can the Rills get off the planet before the evil Maaga hijacks their craft in her own effort to escape?

• Galaxy 4 was the first story of the third season of Doctor Who.

• Beyond this audio recording the only surviving footage of this story is an 8 - 10 minute clip from episode one.  It was released on "The Missing Years" tape included with the "Edge of Destruction" release in the U.S.
   
• More recently, this footage was included on DVD in the boxset Lost in Time.

•  Listen for one of the all-time classic Hartnell fluffed lines when early on in episode one he exclaims that he and his companions will get "some long deserved . . . undeserved . . . peace for once."

• The audio recording of this story was done separately by David Holman and Allen Wilson using home audio equipment. 

• Mark Ayres, of the Doctor Who Restoration Team, did extensive work on this audio release by digitally remastering these recordings.