Directed by Morris Barry
Main Cast-
The Doctor - Patrick Troughton
Jamie - Frazer Hines
Zoe - Wendy Padbury
Main Guest Cast-
Rago - Ronald Allen
Toba - Kenneth Ives
Cully - Arthur Cox
Balan - Johnson Bayly
Teel - Giles Block
Kando - Felicity Gibson
Director Senex - Walter Fitzgerald
Tensa - Brian Cant
Synopsis -
The story begins with four Dulcians traveling to the forbidden island of Death, so called due to the island being contaminated with radiation caused by nuclear tests. The four are led by Cully, who is the director Senex's son.
At the same time, two Dominators arrive in their spacecraft on the island. The Dominator ship sucks the radiation from the island, as the Dominators use the radiation as fuel for their ships. The two Dominators on board, Rago and Toba, send out the Quarks to mark and set up several drilling sites on the island.
The four youths run into Toba and a group of Quarks. Toba callously orders the Quarks to kill the youths and destroy their craft. Only Cully is able to escape, and he begins to make his way to a survey team that he knows is on the island.
Rago, the senior Dominator, reprimands Toba for his callousness and reminds Toba that they need to conserve the Quarks energy.
The Tardis has also arrived on the island. After hearing the explosion that destroyed the youth's craft, they take shelter in what appears to be a war museum. There, they are found by members of the survey team, the educator Balan and students Kando and Teel. The Doctor and his companions are taken to their base. Cully also arrives at the base, where he tells everyone of the Dominators and the Quarks. The Doctor and Jamie go out to investigate Cully's claims, while Cully and Zoe are sent to the Dulcian capital to meet with Cully's father, director Senex.
The Doctor and Jamie are caught by the Dominators and given a series of tests to see if they are fit for manual labor. The Doctor and Jamie are considered to be worthless as slave labor and are released after being warned to stay away. Meanwhile, Cully tries to convince Senex of the presence of the Dominators, but his reputation as a troublemaker makes this difficult.
Zoe and Cully return to the island to get proof of their story, and are caputured along with the rest of the survey team by the Dominators. The Dominators use the survey team to clear one of the drilling sites of rock debris. This is also being uses as a test to see if the inhabitants of Dulkis are fit for slave labor.
The Doctor and Jamie venture to the capital city, where they try to convince Senex of the threat. Getting nowhere and incredulous that Cully and Zoe have been allowed to return to the island, The Doctor and Jamie make their way back to the island to rescue Zoe and Cully.
The Doctor is quickly captured again by the Dominators. Jamie, however, avoids being captured and is soon joined by Cully who has made good his escape from the Dominators.
Rago forces The Doctor to repair the travel pod that he and Jamie used to return to the island. Rago then uses this travel pod to make his way to the capital city, where debate on the Dominator menace has continued. Tensa, who has experience in dealing with natural disasters, has told Senex and the Dulcian council that they have three options: fight, flee or submit. The arrival of Rago and his killing of Tensa means that the council will have to make a decision.
On the island, Jamie and Cully are able to destroy one of the Quarks, which incenses Toba. Toba takes the work force to the Dominator ship and has Balan killed in anger for the destruction of the Quark. Rago returns and is angered by Toba wasting Quark energy, and orders that drilling must recommence.
The work party is returned to the drilling site. Jamie and Cully are able to destroy yet another Quark, which allows the work party to escape. The group hides in an abandoned bomb shelter. The Doctor has figured out the Dominators plans: they plan on drilling through the crust of the planet and planting a seed device that will cause a radioactive chain reaction, which will cause the destruction of Dulkis and proved the Dominator fleet with much-needed radioactive fuel.
Rago orders that drilling be made top priority, as Rago has received a message that the Dulcians are considered unsuitable as slaves. Once the drilling is complete, the seed device will be planted and later activated from the Dominator ship.
The Doctor and his companions start digging a tunnel to intersect with the drill hole. Jaime and Cully attempt to destroy more Quarks as a diversionary tactic. The Doctor's plan proves successful, as he's able to catch the seed device during its deployment. The Doctor then is able to sneak the device aboard the Dominator ship, which destroys the Dominator ship. While the radioactive chain reaction has failed, the consequence of the drilling has caused a volcanic eruption on the island. The Dulcians use the travel pod to escape, while The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe return to the Tardis in order to make their escape.
Review-
An interesting fact about this story. Arthur Cox, who plays Cully in this particular episode also appears as Mr. Henderson in the Eleventh Hour, the first Eleventh Doctor episode making him one the few, but growing, amount of actors who have appeared in both Classic as well as New Series Doctor Who.
Normally I don't watch the making-of specials that are on the DVDs, but for some reason I decided to do so with the Dominators. By doing so, I learned quite a few things about this particular episode and it confirmed some of my suspicions about the story.
A lot of screen time is spent on the Dominators evaluating the inhabitants of Dulkis to see if they are fit for slave labor. After all that, the idea of using the Dulcians is quickly dismissed in the fifth episode. Watching the making-of special, I learned that the writers initially intended the story to be six episodes, and it was quickly rewritten (and not by the the original authors Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, hence the use of the pseudonym as they refused to put their names to the finished product).
The other story thread that's left hanging is what the Dulcian council decides to do after the death of Tensa and Rago's ultimatum. Did the Dulcian council decide to fight the Dominators, despite their pacifist ways? Or did they decide to flee or submit? Considering that the Dulcians were pacifists, one does have to wonder what their decision would have been as we never find out.
Sadly, this story makes pacifists and those who object to aggression look like weaklings. The Dulcian council simply looks on as Tensa is killed and does nothing. Granted, the Dulcians are pacifists, but one would think that at the very least they would at least try to defend themselves when threatened with their very lives?
Also, who came up with idea for the costumes for this story? They are absolutely atrocious, particularly the Dulcian costumes, which make the characters look like they're wearing curtains or sheets. The Dominators costumes are only slightly better, with shoulder pads that would make any 1980's outfit (when shoulder pads were all the rage) jealous.
Despite all this, I enjoyed The Dominators more than I probably should have. In hindsight, it isn't great Doctor Who but simply a decent adventure story with more than a few plot holes and some really bad fashion choices. But after getting burned out on the "base under siege/monster of the week" stories from the previous series/season, the Dominators proved to be a refreshing change of pace.
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