A brutal regime known as the Dominators has landed on the planet Dulkis and with their robot servants, the Quarks, they have started a drilling operation on a remote island. A sightseeing tour of local youth happen upon them and are brutally massacred. The TARDIS arrives on Dulkis shortly afterward, binging the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe into the action. The Doctor sees the Dominators for what they are but also knows that Dulkis is a peaceful pacifist world and the natives will not act in aggression even in their own defence. The Dominator plan will have deadly consequences for the entire planet, and if the Dulcians themselves will not do anything about it, it’s up to the Doctor and company to once more risk their lives to stop an evil regime.
Yes, these are the same Dominators from Lethbridge Stewart – Mutually Assured Domination but in their actual debut (and only) story. They are cold merciless killers determined to, well, dominate the galaxy, and they see every other life form as inferior to them. Their command structure is based on absolute obedience, and in this case Dominator Rago has his hands full not only with local resistance to his plans but also his subordinate, Toba, allowing himself to be distracted from their mission and go trigger happy and murder people and blow up everything in sight. It’s hard to find good help, and it seems it’s not exactly rare though; the leading Dominator in Mutually Assured Domination had similar staffing issues with his underlings, even if he had better versions of the Quarks.
Ohyes the blocky child-voiced Quarks. Not exactly the stuff of nightmares but then again, there was some sort of effort made to make them a “cuter” breed of robot and having a nasty streak to them might give them an edge. They were never going to be the next Daleks, though, no matter what people thought. Boxes on legs. So yes one might suppose they were in the running for awkwardly designed nasties, but they had even less mobility than the Daleks; I don't see either species managing to win a race up the stairs. This issue was, however, addressed in Mutually by having those Quarks extend their legs for better mobility and better vantage points for shooting at targets. The fold-out arms on the front became a lot more versatile like a Swiss army knife in print. There’s an easy comparison to R2D2 there although this came first. They would make a particularly awesome action figure. Just sayin'.
And it’s not hard to see why Dulkis was so easily targeted for attack. I mean did you see how those people dress? Zoe adopts their local fashion to attract less attention and the result… an ungainly 1960s swimsuit and a tutu. It is her first full turn as a companion now, though, and despite the terrible clothes she does well; she shows off her smarts and all and still is a bit on the snooty side but all in all is showing great promise for her time in the TARDIS. Fashion wise, the men of Dulkis do not fare much better. If you ask me people who dress like that deserve what they get. At least it's one place where Jamie's kilt doesn't raise many eyebrows.
The Doctor does a particularly comic turn in this one when he realizes that the Dominators view intelligence as a threat and plays stupid as much as he can. The childlike grin that Troughton used so often came in quite handy here, as did his bumbling and flailing about when in a panic.
It's a bit disheartening to watch the extras on the DVD and hear so many people involved in the production piss all over it, though. It's one thing to mock it as a fan but to hear the professionals go at it as well... one sums up his thoughts by saying that of all the episodes that were lost he's annoyed that they have to have the entire five episodes of The Dominators in the archive as in his eyes it is hardly representative of the Troughton years. I remember reading the novelization of the story a long time ago in the 80s before I saw the episode on TV and maybe author Ian Marter was just that good at writing because I actually thought it was quite entertaining. Even when I first saw the serial on a Saturday afternoon on Channel 17 I was pleased, probably because it was the first complete Troughton story available at the time and to see it at all was magic. Still, yeah, once Tomb was found, and then Enemy and Web...
Still, onwards.
NEXT EPISODE : THE MIND ROBBER
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