The Dominators - Episode 2

The bonus about watching the DVDs is that I can stick the information text and be a little bit more interesting when writing these reviews.  The first few minutes are given to who Norman Ashby was and how Henry Lincoln and Mervyn Haisman came to write for the show. It also means that whenever things get a bit dull then you can entertain yourself with a bit of information. The Doctor and Jamie start the episode being held against a wall by the dreary Dominators and the mildly amusing Quarks. They are quite silly when the don’t notice that Jamie and the Doctor have come away from the wall and when they are seen by one of the Dominators they don’t really seem bothered. Apart from being a bit dull, another thing that is wrong with them that spend a lot of time bickering with each other. This is tiresome and does nothing to make them seem the villains they are suppose to be.

The Doctor and Jamie do their very best to make the Dominators think that they are stupid. They have some good scenes together and they work well together and its something that makes the second Doctor’s era what it is. It’s a simple relationship between an alien and a highlander from the 18^th Century. The only downside is that they are subjected to these stupid tests for the vast majority of the episode. Zoe is stuck with Cully who both go travelling and when they arrive at the city we are met with Bovern and his band of equally silly looking Dulkians. When Zoe does get into her new costume it does seem like Benny Hill has become costume designer for this story. Wendy Padbury has a good episode considering she’s stuck with Cully and its hard to believe that just six episodes it was hard to imagine that she could ever be likeable but Wendy Padbury has managed to pull this off and she has become part of the team.

The cliffhanger is quite good as it puts Zoe is danger with debris falling around her. It’s marginally better than the last cliffhanger but at least the cliffhangers were something to enjoy as opposed the other 99%. I am probably being too hard to this story but to be honest there’s nothing else to really take from this story as the good guys are a bit dull and the bad guys are being upstaged by a spikey fridge. That’s not a good combination.