DOCTOR WHO-THE DOMINATORS

 

DOCTOR WHO-THE DOMINATORS ep 1

 

This story gets a lot of criticism (ABOUT TIME tears it apart) and I honestly don’t know why. It’s no less flawed than most other DW stories and if ep1 is anything to go by, it’s a rather traditional story but with some different takes on things. Costumes, spaceships, and mysteries, all come in at a fast pace. I don’t know if the Dominators’ outfits are cast to their bodies but they don’t look very alien. We do find out that they have two hearts later on…hmmmm.

 

Dominators want to use the planet Dulkis and a larger invasion force is on the way. The two Dominators here use Quark robots. The people on Dulkis are peaceful. Cully is running some kind of tour with his own ship and taking tourists to an island of fire or death that was used as an atomic test site a long time ago to show others that war was bad.

 

Yes, Cully looks like a middle aged man who’s…well, aged. The spaceship models are no less than some of the others seen and, in fact, look quite impressive at times. I wonder if the copy I saw was tampered with by the vid team because some of the ray gun deaths looked…almost too good. The girl’s features seemed to melt inside her frame and turn black and …wow. Unless I blinked and missed it, we don’t see the two men killed but their deaths are referred to by the Dominators and later, Cully.

 

We don’t get to see a proper Quark until the last moment of the episode when Toba, the more bloodthirsty Dominator orders two of them to kill the Doctor and Jamie who have ventured to the Dominator spaceship. The Quarks are short and well-designed IMO. The voices are kind of…cute. Which makes it a bit more disturbing.

 

An atomic testing site on an alien planet that the Doctor once visited in his past (unseen adventure) where he deemed them totally peaceful… Cully taking people to tour the Island of Death…his ship destroyed (a wonderful effect). Three young (ish) people who might be our guest characters for the whole story…end up being roasted by the unseen Quarks.

 

The Dulcians--- seem to be different enough an alien culture to be interesting and most of them do not react like humans would.

 

The Dominators are just an advance scout for a larger army. This might be the first time this is used in DW. The TARDIS looks a bit strange here, with none of the usual markings showing up on the door AND the first appearance looking like…a photograph!? It also makes a VERY different sound when materializing, unlike anything heard before.

 

The Doc seems to want to sunbathe in his clothes again. Jamie and the girl are skeptical that this will be a relaxing place. There’s a conversation that seems a slight continuation from the EVIL OF THE DALEKS repeat where the Doc showed Zoey that adventure.

 

All in all, ep1 is not bad at all.

THE DOMINATORS episodes 2-4

Lots of fun but as ABOUT TIME will expound there’s a lot of flaws in logic in this story. It doesn’t stop it from being fun and dangerous at the same time. The Dominator Toba continues to be bloodthirsty, having Quarks destroy a building that Zoe and Cully are in, looking for the Doctor and Jamie; later, a bomb shelter building that Cully and Jamie are in, and later still toward the very end of ep4, to have them kill the old man Balan. When Teel, Kandor and Balan go to look for the spaceship and find the Quarks and Dominators, I, for one, felt terror for them because all three are actually nice people. And the lead Dominator Raga kills a counselor in ep 4 to prove he wants absolute obedience from the peaceful people.

 

Of course, we know the Doctor and Jamie won’t be killed, thus, the humor double act of Hines and Troughton moves these episodes along. They are taken prisoner by the Dominators, who test their intelligence. There are many great lines of dialog here to be squeezed out of this and it all works brilliantly.

 

DOCTOR: Just act stupid. Do you think you can manage that?

JAMIE: Oh aye, it's easy. (Jamie does a double take).

 

Jamie also asks what the Doctor sees ahead WHILE taking his telescope (which he removed from his jacket’s large pocket!). And in Ep2 or 3, there’s a lot of fun to be had as the Doctor is told by Jamie that the travel craft they are on (it’s VERY FLASH GORDON and the one from the 30s and 40s!) is headed to stop at Quarks. SO, the Doc sabotages the wiring to get control of it…by diving into the wiring head first, feet up in the air. Jamie grabs him up and pulls him by his belt. The landing is equally funny. I also like Troughton’s playing a dullard to the Dominators, acting like that to fool them into thinking he’s no menace.

 

Of note, the Doctor once more has a bag of sweets as he did in THE WHEEL IN SPACE (ABOUT TIME calls them lemon sherbets and we have no doubt about their research but it would be nice to think they were jelly babies!). He also has a lot of other things on his person (see the list in ABOUT TIME).

 

The sets are adequate, sometimes even beyond that and this story continues to be under rated and enjoyable. Troughton’s a joy to behold and I so wish all of his stories were found (and Hartnell’s as well). When he’s on screen, one can’t help but watch him.

 

I’m not sure about the whole anti peace thing this story gives off but it’s been done before on the series, right back to THE DALEKS where pacifists are viewed as cowards who must fight back with force. Of course, Jamie and Cully use huge rocks to knock out Quarks and a museum piece laser gun.

 THE DOMINATORS episode 5 might just be my single favorite Troughton episode. It is just so entertaining and it’s difficult to take your eyes off Troughton whenever he’s on screen and he’s on screen quite a bit this story, unlike the last few. He does everything here: tell Jamie that the plan Jamie himself came up with was so simple that only Jamie could come up with it; hugs the two girls after he was facing death by moving them away from him just after the Dominators killed the old man; running; putting a bomb inside the Dominators’ ship and then getting so filled with pride in himself that he almost forgets to exit the airlock of the same ship!

 

He comes up with plans but then realizes, at times, in part, that they won’t work so comes up with another. He’s funny, scary in a way, and warm and kind. He has to be told that the TARDIS is in danger in the cliffhanger into the next story. By Jamie. He uses the sonic screwdriver to burn through concrete. So, there are flaws (every story has them) such as…how can a Quark not realize there is a human in the area just behind him (this seems to be part of a problem with every robot in the series as well as the Daleks and Cybermen).

 

This episode is just a lot of fun. Jamie and Cully run out of luck…sort of and in the end, Cully is wounded but it turns out to be minor. If the capsule back to the mainland can only hold two people, how did the two students (including Teel, who I am glad lived) and Cully get back? Did they take a seat out? Did they sit on top of each other?

 

It doesn’t matter really. The whole episode is just entertaining from start to finish. Those nasty Dominators.

 

NOTE: that in one of the scripts of the recent stories, a removed part had the Doctor talk about an alarm system on TARDIS which he disconnected because he’d never go anywhere or leave the ship if it were connected!

 

It also seems as if the Dominators AND the Dulcians might be prototype Time Lords. They may both even have two hearts.