So, again, we have a story with a pretty piss poor reputation. I have of course seen this before (it was one of the few Troughton stories released on VHS and I gobbled them all up in my teens) but my own personal recollections are slim (Between then and no came the discovery of alcohol in my world) so I’m going into it with an open mind.
Okay, from the start, the acting is pretty bloody awful. The first couple of episodes build up a picture of an entirely pacifistic society seemingly full of exactly the sort of self-righteous dullards you’d expect to see in one of those. But if you look past the atrocious acting on the part of, well, almost all of the secondary cast there is an interesting picture built up.
The story obviously goes out of its way to challenge the idea of complete pacifism. We have a society that believes not only that violence is bad but that all other life-forms would obviously share that lovely fluffy view. A planet that has never been contacted by aliens and the leaders are quite open to the idea of visitors from another world, just not the idea that they may mean them harm.
I suppose it would have been filmed at a time of a very strong anti-war movement worldwide and at a time when people were seeking to see the end to nuclear weapons (aren’t they always?). But it does ask the very pertinent question of what happens where a society is so peaceful it leaves itself unable, or unwilling, to defend itself.
It also explores how one or two pains in the backside can make a fairly effective guerilla warfare unit – Jamie and Cully are able to cause untold damage. Another lesson, perhaps, about the difficulties that will always be faced by an attempted occupying force.
The Dominators themselves are interesting characters. The junior Dominator is a bit of a dick, seeking to destroy anything he can but his senior tries to explain the concept that they will destroy what gets in their way but ignore what doesn’t. He makes the very valid point that if something isn’t a threat, why waste bullets on it? This makes them interesting in that he, at least, is utterly amoral (He wishes to destroy the planet to create a fuel source) but he’s not out and out brutal taking pleasure from killing anything in his path… Well, until they start to piss him off that it is.
The Doctor and Jamie are a great double act. There are so many little snide moments between the two of them. It’s likely we miss out on a lot of that with the reconstructed missing episodes but it comes through beautifully here.
The Quarks… Well, they’re clearly this week’s attempt to sell more toys. Just the Waddling-robot-that-could-fall-over-at-any-moment of the week. But pretty inoffensive and no worse than a lot that have gone before them since the BBC tried cashing in on finding a new Dalek to use…
Good ideas, very badly executed. Probably the best way to sum this story up. The script isn’t great but I do love the ideas behind the story and as I try to keep banging on about, this blog s more focused on the quality of the ideas and the story than of the execution.
I suspect this may be the highest a fan has ever rated The Dominators but I’m giving it 7/10 because, frankly, I enjoyed it.