Doctor Who/Recap/S6/E01 The Dominators
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An unintelligent enemy is far less dangerous than an intelligent one, Jamie. Just act stupid. Do you think you can manage that?
—The Doctor
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Season six kicks off "The Dominators", which see the TARDIS arrive on the peaceful planet Dulkis, a planet the Doctor has visited before. A small group of the pacifist Dulcians are being forced into slave labor by two Dominators who have arrived in a spaceship along with their robotic servants, the Quarks.
The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe make friends with Cully, the son of one of the Dulcian councillors and they convince him to fight back despite his people's pacifism. The Dominators' ultimate plan is to drop an "Atomic Seed" into a volcano, converting the planet into a lump of radioactive fuel for the Dominator fleet.
The Doctor intercepts the atomic seed and plants it aboard the Dominators' ship as it leaves, destroying it, while the volcano erupts harmlessly. Or nearly harmlessly, for the TARDIS is right in the path of the lava flow...
Tropes included
- Blood Knight
- Chekhov's Volcano
- Crystal Spires and Togas: The Dulcians have both.
- Easily-Conquered World
- Earthshattering Kaboom
- Fake Shemp: Patrick Troughton wasn't present for location filming; a body double, Chris Jeffries, filled in. His face is briefly visible in the final episode.
- Glass Cannon: the Quarks have firepower capable of destroying an entire building at long range, but are helpless against the terrible threat of a Scotsman tripping them up, throwing a blanket over them, and sitting on them.
- Hair of Gold: The Dulcians have golden hair to indicate their innocence and naiveté, with Kando being the most obvious example.
- I Love Nuclear Power
- Inferred Holocaust: The Dominators have sent for their fleet. The Doctor only foiled their current plan.
- I Will Only Slow You Down
- Made a Slave
- Magic Tool: This is where the sonic screwdriver ceases to be just a screwdriver, and gains the power to burn through concrete.
- Meaningful Name: All over the place.
- From the Latin we have "Dulkis" (dulcis, "sweet, pleasant, agreeable"), "Senex" (senex, "old man") and "Bovem" (bos / bovis, "cow").
- "Cully" is an old English word for 'dupe' or 'simpleton'.
- Numerical Theme Naming: The first three Dulcians to be killed by the Quarks are called Wahed, Etnin and Tolata—Arabic for "One", "Two" and "Three".
- Merchandise-Driven: The Quarks were conceived with an eye to the merchandising opportunities. In the event legal disputes about their ownership prevented the creation of the proposed range of Quark toys.
- No One Gets Left Behind
- Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering
- Obfuscating Stupidity
- People of Hair Color
- Perfect Pacifist People: the Dulcians. Not portrayed in a complimentary way.
- Rock Beats Laser: Most of the Quarks are taken out by fairly low-tech means, including dropping rocks on them.
- Rummage Sale Reject: The Dulcians' outfits have to be seen to be believed.
- Lampshaded by Zoe, when she has to wear one: "They're not very efficient garments, are they? ... They feel impractical!" Though Cully tries to invoke She Cleans Up Nicely, saying she looks "more like a girl now".
- To be fair, Zoe and Kando's (the only Dulcian girl we see) floaty little dresses do actually look pretty good on them, but the heavy, pleated dresses made from miles of cloth that are worn by the men are not flattering...
- For that matter, everyone on Dulkis also seems to wear flimsy open leather sandals, in spite of all the outdoor areas shown on camera consisting entirely of rough rocky rubbly quarry-type terrain, which could easily be painful on such barely-protected feet.
- Lampshaded by Zoe, when she has to wear one: "They're not very efficient garments, are they? ... They feel impractical!" Though Cully tries to invoke She Cleans Up Nicely, saying she looks "more like a girl now".
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids: the intended Aesop about the naivety of pacifism.
- Accidental Aesop: The story can be read as supporting activist students, encouraging them to reject rote learning and the irrational laws of the older generation, and take direct action against injustice.
- Smoldering Shoes: What's left when a Quark gets blown up.
- Styrofoam Rocks: All over the place.
- Tin Can Robot: The Quarks.
- Violence Really Is the Answer
- With Due Respect
- Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb