Doctor Who - The Dominators [VHS]

Doctor Who - The Dominators [VHS]

Doctor Who - The Dominators [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, Peter Davison, Tom Baker, William Hartnell
Producer: Peter Bryant
Writer: Sydney Newman
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, NTSC, Original recording reissued
Running Time: 121 minutes
Release Date: 2000-07-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: BBC Warner
Studio: BBC Warner

VHS Movie Reviews of Doctor Who - The Dominators [VHS]

Movie Review: We can learn a lot from this story
Summary: 5 Stars

The thing I enjoy about The Dominators is that it doesn't hold back being politically true, proving flower power to be oxymoronic. You won't find the John Lennon weed-smoking, "imagine" crowd glorified in this tale. The Dulcians, with emphasis on the first syllable (dull) are portrayed as a bunch of beatniks who wouldn't lift a finger, let alone a weapon, to save their hide. They abolished all weapons long ago, and set up a museum on an island which was once used as a nuclear test site as a reminder of the "evils" of aggression. When faced with a potential threat, they waste time in hours of pointless debate and end up doing nothing, allowing their planet to be overrun by the aggressive Dominators. The Dulcians are a great representation of the left in this country, who think negotiating with those that don't understand negotiation should be our only course of action against fundamental extremists who'd like nothing better than to destroy our way of life. In this respect, the story provides us with a glimpse of consequence if the left get their way.

It is only the Doctor's party who steps up to run the bullies off the planet. Most of the Dulcians are the Kumbaya type, satisfied to accept anything presented to them as fact, without questioning inconsistencies. As the pevious review states, somehow if the Dominators did destroy the planet as was their intention, you'd have a hard time sympathizing. The only Dulcian with any self-pride and courage to fight back, Cully, is considered an outcast and ridiculed by Dulcian society. Yet it is this attitude possesed by Cully that prevents Dulkis from total destruction.

Writers Haisman and Lincoln (unbilled in the credits as they had a squabble with production over having their story, originally a six-parter, sliced down to five) explode a nuclear bomb on pacifism, a refreshing change from most purely fantasy moral messages in Doctor Who. Pacifism works if and only if everyone around you accepts that principle. If not, pacifists will be dominated.

Movie Review: Trouble on the Planet of Love & Peace. (With Quark, Strangeness & Charm.)
Summary: 4 Stars

Season 6.
On the planet of Dulkis lies the "Island of Death", upon this island lands a ship from the Dominator spacefleet.
(The Island had until recently been a nuclear test site, before the Dulcians had embraced the doctrine of pacifism, and gave up all weapons.
Only a Dulcian survey team resides their now, checking the remaining levels of radioactivity.)
Soon after this arrives Cully and his latest batch of paying thrill-seekers, but unfortunately for them, it turns out to be a very bad trip, man.
The Tardis crew, Cully and the survey team, have a fight on their hands to stop the Dominator's and their robot servants the Quarks, from turning Dulkis into an intergalactic petrol-station!
~~~~
If ever a Who story were a product of it's time it was this one. Troughton has a Beatle haircut, and the, "Summer of Love" was but a fading memory in the minds of Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln when they wrote this. But the Hippy Ideal of Love, peace and pacifism had struck a chord, they summized, how would a society that had accepted those ideals as a way of life react if confronted by a militarilistic loving one.
Would they give up their lives to save their beliefs or give up their beliefs to save their lives? luckily for the Dulcians the Doctor and his party decide to resolve the problem for them.
It's also not surprising the young of Dulkis go in for adventure holidays as never have I seen a more stilted, stifled and claustrophobic society ever portrayed on Who, when confronted by a problem all they do is form a council and have a mass debate! At some points I was even rooting for the callous Dominators.
The Dominators robot servants, the Quarks, are certainly unusally portrayed. Innocuous looking boxes of obedience regulary saying, "Command accepted". Then dealing out death when ordered.
But with their cute squeaky voices, I always feel a "aww" coming on ever time one is destroyed.
I liked the way they equalise power units amongst themselves, an interesting form of broadcast power.
(No need for them to go back to their ship and get plugged in!)
~~~~
Troughton as usual, is excellent. The way he tries to redirect the travel rocket, that he and Jamie are travelling in whilst eating Jelly Babies, then falling head first into the circuitry always emits a chuckle from me.
Jamie is less of a comic character and a bit of a hero for once.
The gorgeous Wendy Padbury playing pixie featured Zoe, in some ways the Doctors intellectual equal, continues with her air of aloof intellectual detachment.
(I won't deny she has always being my number one Tardis hottie. I can hardly wait to see her in The Krotons again, all PVC miniskirt and boots, huba huba. But thats another story.)
A criticism I've heard about this story is, it's slow,well all I can say to that is if you don't like this era of the show, leave it for those of us that do.
Although I liked the Hartnell era very much it was the Troughton era that grabbed me and made me a life long Whovian.
The reason for the writer name change was Haisman and Lincoln had a fight with the production crew and insisted their names be taken off the credits. (Norman Ashby was the first names of their fathers-in-Law.)
~~~~
Trivia:~The Quark costume was so small the production team hired schoolboys to operate them.
This is one of only three, five episode stories in the shows history.The others being The Mind Robber and The Daemons.
Airdate:~ 10/8/68-7/9/68.

Movie Review: Powerful and imaginative...
Summary: 5 Stars

I judge a Doctor Who episode on whether I will watch it again it in the near future or not. This one, I definitely will! Even though it was in b&w, I found that the lack of color lended to the overall atmosphere of this episode. The acting was great. I never quite knew what to expect next. A truly enjoyable Doctor Who addition to my library.

Movie Review: Dominating the Doctor
Summary: 4 Stars

Great little story with Troughton displaying his inimmitable style.

Troughton is the best Dr and this is an entertaining 5 parter that shows Troughton off as a mixed bag of fun and fear.

The story sees dastardly dominators who aim to destroy a planet with a nuclear bomb in order to fuel their star fleet.

The Doctor, with Jamie and new recruit Zoe manage to thwart their plans but not without a great deal of team work and action. With Jamie out and about exploding Quarks the Dominators is an entertaining tale to the end.

Movie Review: Just a simple tale of peace vs. war?
Summary: 4 Stars

First transmitted August 10 through September 7 1968 in England, this is a traditional Doctor Who quarry story. Actually they spend more time in this particular quarry than in practically every other Doctor Who story.

The tale is a relatively simple one, a spacecraft lands accidentally on a planet thought to be uninhabited. The lifeforms, Dominators, are in need of an unknown fuel source with the aid of the robot QUARKS and that would be that except for the fact that the planet is not uninhabited, there are humanoids who are a peace loving race in the aftermath of an atomic debacle and then there is the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe.

To all intents and purposes it is a standard story of peace versus war with the Doctor forced tom act to free the Dulcians from evil and oppression. Nothing is quite so simple. The Dominators are cast as evil but in fact there is a trainee, a cold blooded, rash killer of everything he sees. His mentor, although a believer of the mental and physical superiority of the Dominators, is a different creature with a more 'noble' purpose. His consideration for life is more of a calculation than an emotional atttachment and the quest for domination of the universe is to bring order to all things. The destruction of the Dominators is more of a tragedy to be mourned rather than a triumph of good over evil.

The Dulcians are foppish and cowardly unlike the Thals of the Dead Planet and do not have the stomach to fight even for themselves. Science has resulted in an indifference to real new knowledge and has been replaced with a Disneyesque view of the world.

Patrick Troughton is admirable throughout and Zoe, despite the high intellect for which she is renowned as a Doctor companion, is again more of a visual aspect rather than a contributor. The story could have done with some tougher editing too.

Write your own review

Summary of Doctor Who - The Dominators [VHS]

Another "peaceful holiday" goes awry when the Doctor and friends encounter the Dominators and their deadly robots on a planet paradise.

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