Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 221: The Dominators, Episode Five

Dear diary,

You know that a story hasn't been all that successful when the thing that excites you the most about it is seeing the Doctor burn through a wall with his Sonic Screwdriver. He's clearly been tinkering away at the device a little bit since the last time we saw it, giving it a few extra functions. It's nice to see it starting to be more in keeping with the version of the tool we all know, and it really does help to give a feeling of evolution to the series. Enjoy me liking the device in these early days - there'll come a time, I'm sure, when I regret its invention!

…

Oh dear, it didn't take as long to praise the Sonic Screwdriver as I'd hoped it would. I've really not got all that much left to say about The Dominators, and I've not said much to begin with! I fear that I'm going to end up falling back onto old favourites, like praising the Quarks (I'm a total covert now. I'm a Quarkvert. I might get that made into a badge), or discussing how much I love the main cast of the programme.

Something that I do have to be thankful for is that this story was cut down from a planned six-episode length. I've discussed in the past how much I'm not a fan of six-part stories, and I fear that this one may well have finished me off for once and for all. I just can't see how they were planning to stretch things out over another whole episode before things came to a head - it feels like they're pushing their luck already.

I'm sorry to see Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln leave the series with this story, though. While I wasn't all that fond of The Abominable Snowmen (still lined up for a relisten after the marathon, though), I thought that The Web of Fear was one of the best examples of Doctor Who you could hope to find. If it existed in the archives, it's sure to be the 1960s story that you'd show to get people interested in the idea of 1960s Who.

Between them, they've been responsible for some pretty major additions to the Who mythos - the biggest of course being the Brigadier. Yeah, yeah, he'll evolve over the years (starting in just a couple of stories time) into a character basically unrecognisable from the one who turns up as a not-particularly-likeable chap on the London Underground but he still started with them.

Then, of course, we've got the Great Intelligence. Although the character has recently had his number of appearances considerably increased during the latest series, the character has always been among those hailed as a great Doctor Who villain. Barely a year has gone by since the programme returned in 2005 without someone asking for a return for the Yeti. The kind of reputation they have as monsters, you'd expect them to be in far more than two stories, both from the same season in the late 1960s.

I'm sorry that the behind the scenes fallings out meant that they never got to write the third Yeti story, in which the Great Intelligence would launch another attack on Earth, this time via Jamie's ancestral home (mind you, it would have played chaos with my Great Intelligence timeline), as I'm sure I'd have enjoyed it. The idea of the castle being surrounded by shaggy highland cows which stand up and turn out to be Yeti would surely be one of the best remembered cliff-hangers of all time. Bizzare yet brilliant - Doctor Who at its best.

It was partly the loss of that story which means that Jamie sticks around until the end of the Second Doctor's tenure, too. Regular readers will know it's no secret that I love Jamie as a companion, and I love Frazer Hines being on screen with his Doctor, but part of me would love to see him bow out early in Season Six, giving the Doctor a bit of time without him before he heads off to his exile. It makes the Second Doctor's tenure seem incredibly small to have this same human with him for all but one adventure…

a 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 220: The Dominators, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Will Brooks has ventured out today down to his local newsagents, where he's surprised to find Dr. Who running into those fearsome robots, THE QUARKS…!

Such was the BBC's belief that the Quarks would be the next big thing in Doctor Who, they actually make their first appearance in the TV Comic stories on the same day that Episode Four of The Dominators was broadcast. It's a pretty staggering turnaround (even today, for example, Doctor Who magazine has to play catch-up with the comic, companions not turning up until sometime after they first appear on TV), and serves to really show how much faith the BBC had in these little robots.

Invasion of the Quarks is a pretty significant story, as it sees the departure of the Doctor's grandchildren, John and Gillian, from the comic - the Doctor dumps them at Zebedee university in this instalment, once he's told by a fortune teller that he'll soon have a 'rendezvous with deadly robots'. It's a pretty unceremonious departure for the pair, considering that they'd been the regular companions in the comic for almost five years. They're dispensed with in the fifth panel, and the Doctor heads off to his fate.

The TARDIS arrives in a Scottish castle at night, when the Doctor is surprised by the arrival of a flying saucer, from which come a group of the Quarks. The Doctor claims to have never encountered the creatures before (placing this somewhere before Season Six for him, apparently) but adds that 'their reputation for destruction is unparalleled throughout the galaxies!'

I'm not sure, then, if these are quite the same Quarks that we're watching in The Dominators, since they're slaves in that story, as opposed to the great galactic conquerers that they're made out to be here. Still they look absolutely brilliant in comic form - even better than they do on TV (no, I still don't know why I love them so much. Yes, I know they're really rubbish).

As the story goes on, the Doctor finds himself chased through the castle by his new-found enemies, and ends up tumbling down a flight of stairs in the darkness. As a Quark looms at the top of the steps ('THE INTRUDER IS UNCONSCIOUS.. A RAY WILL FINISH HIM!'), a suit of armour swings its axe down and cuts off the Quark's gun. Somewhat improbably, the suit of armour is the hiding place for Jamie McCrimmon, who the Doctor is 'pleased to see again'. Don't ask me what this would do to their timelines - the Jamie of this story has been living in an apparently contemporary Scotland, and got caught up in the events of this story while visiting his friend at the local tracking station.

Together, the Doctor and Jamie steal one of the Quark's spaceships and fly right into the centre of their invasion fleet before firing ray guns at the other ships. After this, the Doctor claims that there's only one remaining task… and he blows up the castle to dispose of the remaining Quarks. Hm.

As you can tell, it's all a bit silly, and it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense… but it's brilliant! Hah! It's quaint and fun, and perfectly in-keeping with the version of the Doctor that'd been traveling through TV comic since I last dipped into them during The Highlanders. My plan today had been to take a look at this one comic story, and then move on, but it ends on a cliffhanger - as the Doctor invites Jamie back aboard the TARDIS, and are tracked by the Quarks, who declare revenge against their enemies.

I ended up reading through several of the following stories. Most do contain the Quarks in some form (occasionally with their genetically engineered giant wasps in tow. Obviously), and they're great fun. I've been enjoying them on TV, but they really do suit the comic strips. I'll admit that the thought of the Quarks as some kind of galactic powerhouse isn't one that comes naturally, but it's great fun.

I'm not going to rate all the Quark comics, but I'll be giving their first appearance a solid 8/10.

(As for The Dominators Episode Four… I watched it with the commentary on. There were some brilliant discussions of the way that Doctor Who was made in this period, and Arthur Cox sadly admits that he's only ever done the one Doctor Who story, before discussion turns to the recent casting of Matt Smith. Hang in there, Arthur, you'll be turning up in The Eleventh Hour before you know it.

I did go back and flick through the episode afterwards for some edited highlights, but to be honest - it's really not for me…)

a 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 219: The Dominators, Episode Three

Dear diary,

As The Dominators goes on, I'm finding myself more and more detached from it. Things started fairly well a few days ago, but I'm just bored now. After a while of staring at Episode Three, not really taking anything in, I actually returned to the menu screen of the DVD and switched on the Production Subtitles. I don't normally bother with this particular special feature, because - fascinating as they can be - I find it near impossible to keep up with them while also watching the episode. Thankfully, there's so little of interest happening in the episode today that I didn't mind missing long stretches of it.

Truth be told, I was hoping that the subtitles might give me something that I could talk about in today's entry, but even that seems to have fallen a little flat. It seems like a real shame that we've finally returned to a long stretch of the series being held in the BBC Archives, and this is the first example that we get! At least on audio, there's a chance that I could imagine the story being better than it really is. Can we give this one back and swap it for a few episodes from Season Five, instead?

On the plus side, the more the story goes by, the more I realise how much I love the Quarks. No, believe me, I didn't expect to be saying that, either. Even when this story started, I thought that they were silly and a bit naff as a Doctor Who monster (and try as I might, I can't look at one without picturing the skiing fridge from a Wallace and Gromit film), but I'm finding them more and more fun as time goes by.

There's a lovely shot in this episode where one of the Quarks is blown up (in another great explosion - the story is getting those right, at least), and its remains are scattered around the landscape. As the camera comes to rest on the remaining pieces of the creature, the head starts to wiggle slightly in the sand, independent of the body. It's actually quite effective! The one thing I did take from the Production Subtitles was a detailed description of the budgets allocated to Doctor Who, and specifically to the Quarks themselves: BBC Enterprises (the corporation's merchandising arm) was so sure that the Quarks would be the next big Dalek-like success that they actually contributed to the costs of the outfits.

While I love these little creatures, I can't say I'm all that sure about them being the 'next big thing'. They're plenty fine for here and now, but I can't imagine them coming back every few seasons to menace the TARDIS crew and posing any real kind of threat. They're the one thing that's keeping me interested in this story at the moment, though, so I'll thank them for that!

a 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 218: The Dominators, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I know that I'm not really supposed to like the Quarks - they're an odd design, even by Doctor Who's standards. They're a bit clunky, they've got a silly (and difficult to understand) voice, and I have to stop a smirk every time the arms swing out… but there's something about them that really works for me! Hah! Maybe I've been at this marathon for too long? I think the thing that works in the biggest favour for them is their size. When they're in shots with the Dominators (especially aboard the space ship) they look really effective waddling around so much smaller than anyone else around.

Coupled with the child-like voices (always unnerving - Russell T Davies used a similar trick with the voices of the Toclafane in the modern series), they come across as far more sinister than they have any right to be. As I understand it, the original intention was that they're heads should spin around to suggest them operating like a radar, and I can see this being really effective had it gone ahead - their heads are probably the best bit of the design (the body just looks like a fridge). I'm surprised to find myself being won around to the creatures, but I'm going to have to add them to my list of 'monsters that need an action figure release!

I think it also helps that they seem to be under the command of Strax the Sontaran. Seriously, I can't be the only one who sees it? Having decided that the Doctor and Jamie are total idiots (more on which in just a minute), Toba's first reaction is to ask 'should I destroy them?'. His lust for destruction was evident in yesterday's episode, too, but I didn't notice how similar he is to my favourite Sontaran until now. There's one moment when - again - he asks if he can destroy something, and Rango replies that things are to be investigated, not destroyed. He seems quite hurt. Maybe he's been at the Sherbert Fancies?

Certainly someone has been, when designing the interior of the Dominator's space ship. Bloody hell - it's mad! You'd never get anything done working in a place like that, since there's distractions on every wall. That's not to say that it's a bad design (I rather like the Tomb of the Cybermen-style display screens, though they'd give me a headache after too long), and it definitely gives you something to look at while the characters are pottering about deciding what to do.

The stand-out moment from today's episode, though, really has to be the Doctor and Jamie pretending to be completely stupid, in an attempt to fail the Dominator's intelligence tests. It's pretty clear that when you give Troughton and Hines something comical to be getting on with, they'll give it all that they've got and it's very true of these scenes. The highlight is the pair trying to pretend they don't understand how a gun works ('I think you put something in here…' the Doctor ad-libs), but the whole section is great fun. That said, it manages to be fairly sinister at the same time. The Doctor's looks of pain as he tries to fail the puzzle put him in a state we rarely see him (it has a similar effect to the final episode of The Abominable Snowmen - also by these two writers - in that it ups the stakes for us when he's in such a weakened state), and the effect of the electrified floor works pretty well, too.

And yet, despite all these little things that I'm able to pick out for praise, The Dominators seems to be less than the sum of its parts. Frankly, I'm just bored. Yesterday I mentioned that even if I wasn't all that captivated by things, it was at least holing my attention. That's not as true today, and I can feel myself starting to get distracted while the episode is playing out. I don't know what I need to reinvigorate the story for me, but it's going to need something and fast!

a 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 217: The Dominators, Episode One

Dear diary,

Well this is odd. I’ve gotten so used to the format of the programme involving bases under siege either on or near the Earth that this episode has felt like a real shock to the system. For some reason, when we watch a spaceship descend on the planet and two people walk out, it put me in mind of The Space Museum (No, I don’t know why, either). As the episode went by, I realised that it was more a general feeling of a Hartnell story that I was associating things with. Aside from Telos – where we spent most of the time inside the Tomb – we’ve not had a proper alien world in ages. (Incidentally, this is the first time since The Tomb of the Cybermen that I've been able to put a DVD for an individual story in the player too - that felt like a novelty!)

Here, we’ve got a vast landscape, and it really works. There’s a shot early on when the passengers of the 'ship' run across the terrain, with the sky stretched out overhead and it looks simply fab. There’s a joke to be made about this episode seemingly being filmed in a quarry, but it’s pretty effective all the same. It helps that we get lots of chance to see the landscape in question, and it’s often shot from some pretty creative angles, really making the most of the area. The cliffhanger, for example, in which Toba appears on a ledge flanked by two Quarks actually manages to look pretty good, whereas they’re not the easiest of aliens to take seriously. It’s also doesn’t hurt that the studio sets match up pretty well with the actual location. There’s some shots where I wasn’t entirely sure which was which.

What’s strange is that the TARDIS doesn’t arrive today for a full 8 minutes. We spend the majority of that time with guest cast, setting up the situation on this world. There came a moment, about halfway through all of this, that I realised I was thoroughly bored by the whole thing. That said, I was invested in it. There’s been several episodes over the course of this marathon that have let my mind wander and which I’ve struggled to pay attention to… but this isn’t one. It's not good, but it survives!

That’s true for the rest of the episode, too, even after the Doctor and his companions arrive on the scene. It feels like the kind of Doctor Who that gets parodied on countless spoofs throughout the years – the TARDIS arrives on a planet the Doctor has been to before (even his description of it, 'It was so splendid, I didn't want to leave', sounds like someone mocking the way the Doctor speaks), and sinister men in silly outfits stalk around in an attempt to be threatening.

It’s a low-key start to the new season, and not exactly a bold way to kick off the Doctor’s new set of adventures. For the last of the black-and-white seasons, I was hoping that things would start with a real jolt of energy: the programme reinvigorated by the introduction of a new companion! It could yet happen before the story is out, but I’m not on the edge-of-my-seat.

Still, I am excited to be at Season Six. Right from the beginning of the marathon, I’ve thought of Seasons Three – Five as being ‘the difficult ones’. They’re the years where not a great deal survives (since Troughton took over, I’ve only been able to actually watch 21 episodes, and that’s including today’s). I knew they were going to be a challenge, but actually, they turned out to be a great deal of fun. Many of the lost stories benefit from not being in the archives, and there’s several others that are so good it doesn’t matter what format they exist in.

It was only at the end of today’s episode, knowing that I’m going into another surviving instalment tomorrow (and the next day, and the next day, and the next etc etc) that it really hit me. We’re out of the ‘missing’ period, and now I can really settle in to enjoy watching the show again…

a