The risk of a story like this is that, like a Terry Nation script, it can be prolonged almost indefinitely by bunging in another confrontation with a creature from literature or legend. So it’s to the story’s credit that not only do the episodes run shorter than usual – this clocks in at 19 minutes – but that there’s some thematic coherence and structure that prevents this from feeling like a piece of derivative whimsy.
After an episode of minimalism, this suddenly floods the screen with a string of bizarre and unsettling images: Jamie transformed into a cardboard stand-up and then a swapped head (the Master of the Land of Fiction clearly has one eye on the merch opportunities). Zoe is trapped behind a door painted on a wall that becomes a jar. There are clockwork soldiers, redcoats, a forest of letters, creepy children and a unicorn.
Proving that necessity is the mother of invention, this astonishing episode was thrown together on a shoestring budget when The Dominators was cut down from six episodes to five. The cast consists of four speaking parts, the only set is the TARDIS, and the monsters are a repaint of robots from Out of the Unknown. There’s the potential for this to go wrong: the last time the show tried to do a small, self-contained episode, The Wheel in Space 1, which in many ways this superficially resembles (the limited cast, the TARDIS fluid links blowing and its temporary destruction, the tempting images on the scanner, the threatening robot and the incapacitated Doctor), David Whitaker made a bit of a hash of it. This looks even more impressive in comparison.
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)
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Next Time... 