210 The Dominators: Episode One

EPISODE: The Dominators: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 210
STORY NUMBER: 044
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 10 August 1968
WRITER: "Norman Ashby" (aka Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln)
DIRECTOR: Morris Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Derrick Sherwin
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 6.1 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Dominators

"The Island of Death! Uninhabited for one hundred and seventy years. Nothing can live on this poisonous plot of soil!"

The Dominator ship controlled by Navigator Rago and Probationer Toba lands on an island on the planet Dulkis, in search of radiation to absorb as fuel. Dulkis native Cully is taking some friends to island when their transport crashes and his friends killed by the Dominator's robots, the Quarks. The Tardis lands with the Doctor tired from his retelling to Zoe of their last adventure with the Daleks. They hear the destruction of Cully's craft and explore, finding a museum with a research centre underneath run by Educator Balan. His pupil Kendo explains that the island was used as atomic test site. Cully meets his friend Teel, also part of Balan's team and is taken to the research station. The Doctor & Jamie, worried about the Dominators, leave to check on the Tardis. They find tracks, then the Dominator spacecraft where they are found by Toba and the Quarks.

Welcome to season 6 of Doctor Who!

Since the show was last on air, with Wheel in Space episode 6, viewers have been treated to a repeat of Evil of the Daleks. This repeat was introduced at the end of Wheel in Space, and had a voice over the start of the first episode. It's referenced again here as the Doctor emerges from the Tardis:

JAMIE: Are you still feeling tired, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes, just a little bit weary, Jamie. It's a very exhausting business projecting all those mental images, you know.
ZOE: You need a good rest, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Yes, we all do. A nice holiday.

This first episode didn't start off too bad, defying the reputation The Dominators has (and it's got one that's for sure) for being a bit of a stinker. The effect where Tolata is killed is top notch, and the shots of the ships at the start aren't bad, but the Dulcians in general are a pretty useless bunch.

But the main thrust of this episode for me is what the Quarks look like. We get little teasers all the way through as Cully describes the aliens as having robots with them, the view through their eye, mimicking a similar often used effect with the Daleks, and their footprints:

Unfortunately the final reveal isn't that great, showing them to be not one of the series more inspiring monsters, and once you know what they look like the episode looses any real dramatic tension on subsequent re-watches.

Season 6 has more episodes existing than any other Troughton season. Episodes 1, 2, 4 & 5 were in the Film & Video library when Ian Levine arrived. Episode 3 however has some question marks on quite where it was when as we'll see.

Season 6 also has a bit of a torturous story behind the scenes which leads to script chaos and a game of musical chairs in the production office. We start the season with the same team in charge as were for the end of season 5, Producer Peter Bryant, Script Editor Derrick Sherwin and his assistant Terrance Dicks. In fact these first two stories, The Dominators & The Mind Robber, were formed as part of the fifth recording block which started with Abominable Snowmen. The season has started in August this year, rather than September as had become the custom, because they were facing a break to accommodate the 1968 Summer Olympics.

Director Morris Barry had previously helmed The Moonbase and it's sequel, The Tomb of The Cybermen, which had in turn launched the fifth season of Doctor Who. Writers Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln had contributed two six part stories, The Abominable Snowmen & The Web of Fear, to the fifth season with great success and were now writing their third six part story in eight broadcast stories. However things would not go to plan for this tale as we shall see.....

We mention that Morris Barry helmed Tomb of the Cybermen. That story used Gerrards Cross Quarry as the surface of Telos and Barry uses it again here as one of the locations for the surface of Dulkis. It will later be Jaconda in The Twin Dilemma and Telos again in Attack of the Cybermen. The other location used is Wrotham Quarry in Kent for several scenes, including the Tardis landing site.

Of the Dulcians in this episode Cully is played by Arthur Cox (not Laura Howard!) His other credits over a long career include Fahrenheit 451 as a Male Nurse, UFO as Louis Graham in Exposed, the second, and better, Sweeney film as a Detective followed by an appearance in The Sweeney television series as DCI Roan in Bait. He had a recurring role in Yes Minister as Jim Hacker's Driver George appearing in Big Brother, Jobs for the Boys, The Compassionate Society, Doing the Honours & The Devil You Know. He appears in the Inspector Morse story The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn as the syndicate caretaker Noakes and makes two appearances in Agatha Christie's Poirot as Dr. Hawker in Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan and The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman. In 2010 he who set a record for the longest time between two Doctor Who appearances when he plays Mr. Henderson in The Eleventh Hour.

Already having left the story are Cully's group of friends. Wahed, played by Philip Voss who was Acomat in Marco Polo. Voss had been in Out of the Unknown as a Police Officer in Time in Advance. That's a first season episode that still exists and you can see that in Out of the Unknown DVD Set. He too has been in Inspector Morse as The Coroner in the first two stories The Dead of Jericho, which guest starred Patrick Troughton in one of his final roles, and The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn, which features Arthur Cox who plays Cully here. On the big screen he can be seen in the James Bond film Octopussy as the Auctioneer and in Four Weddings and a Funeral as the father of the bride at the first wedding. You can hear him interviewed by Toby Hadoke in Who's Round 46.

Etnin is played by Malcolm Terris who'll be back as the Co-Pilot in The Horns of Nimon. He's got a Poirot to his name too playing Roger Ackroyd in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Nicolette Pendrell, who played Tolata, doesn't have a terribly long CV but I spot an episode of Z-Cars on it, I Don't Want Evidence: Part 1, where she was directed by Douglas Camfield.

The test dummys are actually played by actors! Colin West doesn't seem to bother the scorer any further but we saw Blair Stewart in The Enemy of the World as a Guard.