Category: Doctor Who
Doctor Who episode 214: The Dominators – Episode 5 (7/9/1968)
It’s a bit muddled, but the moral of the story seems to be that appeasement is always an inadequate response to tyranny, and that pacifism is a worthy but impractical principle faced with the reality of the strong seeking to dominate the weak. It’s the same argument the first Doctor and Ian had with the Thals way back in The Daleks. And that’s not the only thing that’s reminiscent of a Terry Nation story: the Dominators’ plan to drop a bomb into the planet’s crust is straight out of The Dalek Invasion of Earth – as is the resolution (the motive – to explode the planet and use the remains as fuel – is novel, but resurfaces in Aliens of London)
Doctor Who episode 213: The Dominators – Episode 4 (31/8/1968)
This week Rago gives Toba a poor performance review, and a final verbal warning. It’s a tough job being a people manager. But rather than learning lessons from this feedback, Toba doubles down, accusing his boss of being too soft and, later, ignoring his direct instructions to start killing off the captive Dulcians (Balan makes a proper meal of dying, staggering round like someone in an am-dram Shakespeare).
Doctor Who episode 212: The Dominators – Episode 3 (24/8/1968)
It’s a pleasure to see Troughton and Hines sharing so many scenes in this serial: it’s probably the best story for their double act since The Abominable Snowmen. Here we get their interview with the Council of Dulkis, where the Doctor seems charmed despite himself by the Dulcians’ passivity in the face of alien invasion, and quite enjoys the debate (‘Oh dear, you’ve got me there!’) while Jamie is just bored and irritated. Then on the flight back to the island of death, as the Doctor snacks on sweets, Jamie reminds him of the Quark waiting for them at their destination which results in some great physical comedy as the Doctor rewires and pilots the travel capsule.
Doctor Who episode 211: The Dominators – Episode 2 (17/8/1968)
About half the episode revolves around the Doctor and Jamie being tested for intelligence and physical strength aboard the Dominator ship, which basically means Troughton and Hines get to muck about together playing dumb and having fun, and being immensely charming – as a result, this is probably the most straightforwardly entertaining episode there’s been since The Web of Fear.
Doctor Who episode 210: The Dominators – Episode 1 (10/8/1968)
Although it was held back to open the sixth season of Doctor Who, this and the next serial, The Mind Robber, were made as part of the fifth production block. Which means by this point Troughton and Hines have done pretty much 36 weeks of work, with only a couple of weeks off. So maybe it’s reality seeping into fiction when the Doctor declares he needs a ‘nice peaceful holiday’ (much to Zoe’s disgust) as soon as the TARDIS lands on Dulkis – nine minutes into the episode.
Doctor Who episode 209: The Wheel in Space – Episode 6 (1/6/1968)
The story concludes with the Doctor using a bit of the TARDIS to convert the Wheel’s laser into a massive death ray to blow the Cybermen into oblivion. Then he leaves. It’s a brutally effective solution that suggests the moral of the story is brute force works where complicated planning fails. The Cyber Planner’s comprehensive, multi-phase operation to conquer the Earth is useless as soon as the Cybermen come up against someone who, as they repeatedly complain, knows their ways.
Doctor Who episode 208: The Wheel in Space – Episode 5 (25/5/1968)
The most impactful scene in this episode is the death of Gemma Corwyn. It repays the effort writer David Whitaker has put into making her a more rounded character than the normal base-under-siege fodder. Her calm bravery as she insists on delivering her final message to save the Wheel, fully aware of the approaching Cybermen, and the Doctor’s desperate reaction to seeing her gunned down, is a powerful moment. Season Five has seen several stories placing women in key roles: Miss Garrett, Astrid, Anne Travers, Megan Jones, but they’re usually the ones left to pick up the pieces at the end of the story. Gemma seems to be set up to play this part, especially given Bennett’s nervous breakdown, which makes her heroic sacrifice even more shocking.
Doctor Who episode 207: The Wheel in Space – Episode 4 (18/5/1968)
Based on the evidence of this episode, The Wheel in Space is a prequel to both The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen, with the Wheel’s crew apparently completely ignorant of the existence of the Cybermen – and even of their invasion of Earth in 1986. This prompts the Doctor to give a fairly effective potted history:
They were once men, human beings like yourself, from the planet Mondas, but now they’re more robot than man… Their entire bodies are mechanical and their brains have been treated neuro-surgically to remove all human emotions, all sense of pain. They’re ruthless, inhuman killers.
Doctor Who episode 206: The Wheel in Space – Episode 3 (11/5/1968)
The episode relies on people behaving very stupidly. For a start, Jamie doesn’t attempt to explain why the Silver Carrier shouldn’t be blown up, he just goes off and wrecks the Wheel’s single means of defence. For all his protestations, he absolutely is a saboteur who’s placed everyone’s lives in danger. Then Duggan, the highly skilled engineer, finds a Cybermat, gives it a cutesy nickname like he’s Vicki (maybe the presence of Bennett reminded Whitaker of her and Sandy), hides it with the critical technical elements of the x-ray laser, and then acts surprised when it all goes Pete Tong.
Doctor Who episode 205: The Wheel in Space – Episode 2 (4/5/1968)
It’s all quite efficient: the control room abuzz with activity; the international crew of highly-trained personnel; the base commander on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The trouble is, we have seen all this at least four times before, and writers Whitaker and Pedler don’t compensate for the repetition with anything new.
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