C06S01 The Dominators

Synopsis

Dulkis: planet of harmony and enlightenment.  Home to the peaceful Dulcians.  An oasis of calm in the cosmos - and completely defenceless.

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrive to find Dulkis enslaved by the cruel Dominators and their deadly robotic servants, the Quarks.  The pacifist Dulcians offer no resistance.  Can even the Doctor save a people who are willing collaborators in their own destruction?

Cover notes

The Dominators (1968) was the first story of the sixth series of Doctor Who.  Its production was troubled: originally a six-part serial, it was cut at the pre-production stage to five episodes.  Various disagreements with the production team led writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln to remove their names from the final version.

The plot of The Dominators reflected contemporary turbulence in Western society.  Young people of the post-war generation were expressing their unhappiness with the world their parents had created.  The hippy movement was growing, and the war in Vietnam was the focus of its displeasure: a popular slogan of the time was 'Make Love, Not War'.  Many of the older generation - deeply suspicious of appeasing 'the enemy' following the experience of World War II - found the pacifism of the young impossible to understand.  The Dominators explores this conflict, inverting the situation to make the elders pacifists, whilst the young rebel by embracing the use of force.

The Dominators can therefore be seen as a Doctor Who story that is very much of its time.  Ultimately, there was to be no clear solution to the questions it posed, either within the story itself or in society as a whole.

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