Doctor Who: The Dominators review (DVD) ★★

It’s 1969. The second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, has a Beatles haircut and two companions in skirts – OK, one of them’s a kilt. They arrive on Dulkis, a planet populated by pacifists which is interrupted by some nasty aggressive aliens. The hippies SORRY pacifists have been so peaceful for so long they’ve forgotten how to fight, so when the alien Dominators release their fierce Quark robots, they need help, at first before they’ll even believe what’s happening.

This is the set-up for five overlong and very dull episodes in which a cracking cast is completely wasted. Patrick Troughton positively glitters as the Doctor, his relationship with his companions is rarely bettered, they’re all terrific. Ronald Allan tries manfully to enliven a leaden script as Dominator Rago but it falls to pieces even before it starts.

The reasons can be found in some of the extras – which on this DVD are utterly absorbing. Script editor Derrick Sherwin hated the script and kept rewriting it. It was written as a reaction to the hippy culture (the writers were blissfully unaware that this theme had been explored to great effect in “The Daleks” six years previously) and with Daleks being unavailable for the moment, the Quarks were cynically manufactured to make money with nobody keeping an eye on who owned the rights.

Sherwin asked for more changes, partly because it was too static – loads of scenes are given over to people sitting around nattering. The writers refused. Sherwin cut an entire episode, the writers took their name off. The hostility is still evident in the interviews today. The story is underwhelming; there’s too much talking and debate and not enough action and the monsters, the Quarks, were (as Sherwin says) never going to match the Daleks in terms of menace. They give them a run for their money in terms of immobility by all means. The costume department does a ludicrous job of kitting out the Dulcians – men in miniskirts isn’t a good look and according to the cast it wasn’t at the time. Costumes are also responsible for the lacklustre and virtually immobile Quarks, but not for their near-incomprehensible voices.

One of the writers in the extras complains bitterly that of all the stories he wrote for the series – which include the two great Yeti stories – it’s this damned thing that exists in its entirety. You can’t help but agree with him. It’s a cynical, slow attempt to bring a new returning monster to the programme (which actually gave TV Comic more mileage than the series itself as the Quarks became regular in that). If you want to see Troughton at his best then check the next story, “The Mind Robber”, also out on DVD, which is the nearest thing to a masterpiece you’ll find from that era, or check “Tomb of the Cybermen”, equally available, or “The Seeds of Death” in which he sparkles opposite the Ice Warriors. Buy this one for the near-forensic extras – they’re unusually frank, and worth Amazon’s discounted price in their own right.

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries with the cast and crew, “Recharge and Equalise”, a making-of feature as discussed above – unusually frank and totally reflective of the real pressures of making a programme at the time. “Tomorrow’s Times – The Second Doctor” looks at media coverage of the second Doctor and is well-intentioned, made in the mould of “Points of View” but can’t avoid the issue of Patrick Troughton avoiding the press like anything at the time; Photo gallery, Coming Soon trailer, Radio Times listings in PDF, programme subtitles and production notes subtitles.