Day 107 — April 17th 2021
The Dominators Episodes One and Two
The Dominators — Episode One
Ooh, The Dominators. I’ve been watching this story approach with some trepidation. I can’t remember exactly what I thought of it last time around, but I’m fairly sure I wasn’t a fan. In my head I’ve got it tied with The Highlanders as one of my lest-liked stories of the 1960s. But then, this marathon has been a wonderful thing. I found lots to enjoy in The Highlanders this time around — to the point that the first two episodes of that story both scored eights.
So there’s every chance that this story is going to turn around in my estimations, too. After all, I’ve enjoyed Haisman and Lincoln’s previous two scripts for the series — The Abominable Snowmen came in with a 6.67/10 and The Web of Fear went exactly one point better with 7.67/10. I’ve been living in hope that I’ll find a new appreciation for this one in the light of those.
But then there was Fury From the Deep. I didn’t like it last time around, and I wasn’t a fan this time either. And then The Wheel in Space tanked with me — it’s my lowest-rated Troughton story, and it’s in my bottom five for the marathon so far. I don’t remember disliking it before, so there’s everything to play for. And this first episode…
Has pleasantly surprised me! There’s loads in here that I’ve really enjoyed. Let’s get a couple of negatives out of the way first, and then I can just get to singing the praises. So, yes, it’s still a bit slow. It feels like it takes a little while to get going — the TARDIS doesn’t even show up until about eight minutes into the episode (Is that a record? I’m sure there’s a Hartnell story where they don’t rock up until a little way in, but can’t remember which one now). All that said, after The Wheel in Space this is going at a breakneck speed. I think more happens in this one episode than in the full six parts of Wheel.
Then there’s the costumes. This is Martin Baugh’s penultimate story as Costume Designer, and… ooft, it’s not his finest hour. I’m not a fan of the big collars worn by the Dominators themselves, or the weird curtain dresses the other Dulcians are sporting. Neither costume is flattering, and it feels like a shame after all his other futuristic costumes have worked really well in an ‘out there’ 1960s way. I can only describe this as looking more like an Out of the Unknown than a Doctor Who.
Aside from those niggles, though, I’ve really liked a lot of what we’ve got here. There’s some great model work on display, and some really inventive use of scale models and forced perspective, both for the Dominators looking down at the boat and for Doctor Who and Jamie looking up at the space ship. When we get to see one of the models blown up it’s pretty impressive too, and a great special effect. The show has always been quite good at explosions, and this is an especially nice example.
On the subject of nice effects, I really like the effect of the Quarks’ guns. Cutting out the flesh of the victim and replacing it with a kind of psychedelic overlay is one of those things that you could probably only get away with in the 1960s, but it looks so good. It makes a nice change from flipping the screen to negative or simply whiting out as was the case with the Cybermen guns in the last story. You really get the sense that they’ve tried to do something different here.
The final big surprise for me today was the Quarks themselves. I’m not going to say too much here, because I’ll wait and talk more about them in the next episode when we’ll presumably get to see a bit more of them. But I’d forgotten totally that they spoke! I thought they were mute, or at the very least only made a few bleeps and bloops. So you can imagine my surprise when they turn out to both speak and have incredibly sinister child-like voices!
There’s something genuinely quite scary about the question they ask — ‘shall we destroy?’ — and it’s really excited me to see them in action more as the story progresses. It’s another one of those moments that came out of the blue and took me totally by surprise, and that automatically bumps up the score.
Most of this episode was on track for a seven, but with those final moments I’ve revised it up to an 8/10.
The Dominators — Episode Two
I don’t think I appreciated last time around just how funny this story is — and how that’s totally intentional. I think it’s telling that my favourite character is the Dominator who’s obsessed with destroying everything, because he reminds me of the Ice Warrior with the same bloodlust a few stories ago. I particularly like the exchange he has with his exasperated superior when three Dulcians break into the space ship;
Quark: ‘Unknown creatures approaching.’
Toba: ‘Destroy?’
Rago: ‘No, investigate.’
It’s not only the slightly frosty relationship between these two that I’ve been enjoying. There’s humour laced throughout the episode. Troughton and Hines continue to be good value (‘Just act stupid. Do you think you can manage that?’ / ‘Oh aye, it’s easy…’), and I laughed proper hard at Cully’s reaction to Zoe, too;
Zoe: ‘How do they work?’
Cully: ‘Don’t know. Can’t stand the things myself… Hey, you asked a question!’
Zoe: ‘Yes.’
Cully: ‘There you go, Balan, that proves it. This girl’s got an enquiring mind. She can’t possibly come from Dulkis!’
I’m a big fan of a bit of humour in Doctor Who, and this one is hitting the mark just right. It helps that the humour never goes too far, and it’s actually used to make the dramatic bits seem all the more impactful. Toba has spent two episodes dying to destroy anything in sight, and when he turns the Quarks’ firepower on the research centre at the end it’s all the more sinister because it’s this comedic character at the controls.
I was trying to work out last episode what this story reminded me of, and it’s finally clicked for me today; it’s a Season Two story. This feels as though it would be perfectly at home among the likes of The Space Museum and The Chase. The slightly cosy, almost smug, feeling of the TARDIS crew, the vibe of 1950s B-Movies… it’s all there. The painted backdrop to the Dulcian city reminds me a lot of the backdrop from The Sensorites, too, which only helps add to that ‘early’ feel. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, just something notable.
There’s a theme that’s been running through Season Five that I kept meaning to point out but never got round to. We’re into Season Six now, but it’s still relevant today. I don’t think I’d ever noticed how much maps were part of the Base Under Siege format. They pop up in all sorts of places, from The Moonbase (which I only noticed thanks to the brilliant set recreations in a recent Doctor Who Magazine), to the London Underground of course. Sometimes we get more abstract ones, like the glacier tracking map in The Ice Warriors or the map of the Himalayas used to control the Yeti in The Abominable Snowmen.
The one we get today, helpfully displayed on multiple screens in the Dominators’ space ship, is just a simple map of the island, but I suspect it might be a last hurrah for something that I’ve noticed cropping up time and time again in the last few stories. And it looks like quite a nice map, too. I’m sure someone must have tried to recreate it and plot the locations of all the key scenes from the story?
I’ve continued to be surprised by this one, and I’m very pleased to be handing out a 7/10.
