[[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho recap index]]\\
'''Second Doctor Era'''\\
'''Season 6:''' '''1''' | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E2TheMindRobber 2]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E3TheInvasion 3]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E4TheKrotons 4]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E5TheSeedsOfDeath 5]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E6TheSpacePirates 6]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E7TheWarGames 7]]\\
'''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E1TheTombOfTheCybermen <<< Season 5]]''' | '''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace Season 7 >>>]]''']]-]]]
!The Dominators
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/quarks_9022.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Behold: The ''first'' failed attempt at replacing the Daleks. It goes about as well as you'd expect.]]
->Written by "Norman Ashby"[[note]][[AlanSmithee Pseudonym]] for Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln[[/note]]\\
Directed by Morris Barry\\
'''Production code:''' TT\\
'''Air dates:''' 10 August - 7 September 1968\\
'''Number of episodes:''' 5

->''"An unintelligent enemy is far less dangerous than an intelligent one, Jamie. Just act stupid. Do you think you can manage that?"''
-->-- '''The Doctor''', either appealing to ObfuscatingStupidity or [[DamnedByFaintPraise damning Jamie by faint praise]]

JustForFun/{{The one w|ith}}here the Doctor eats some jelly babies. Bet you weren't thinking ''those'' wouldn't be showing up again [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E6FuryFromTheDeep either]]!
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The TARDIS arrives on a peaceful planet of beings named Dulkis. The Doctor has visited the planet before, but didn't expect to accidentally land on an island that once served as a nuclear test site--especially considering that the last time he was here, the planet was uniformly peaceful. He's also puzzled by the fact that there seems to be no radioactivity present on this nuclear test site. Two alien invaders called Dominators also land on the island and promptly use their box-shaped robots (Quarks) to turn the pacifist Dulcians into slaves.

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe make friends with Cully, the son of one of the Dulcian councillors. They convince him to fight back despite his people's pacifism and love for drawn-out ethical debates. 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. Zoe is forced to wear a dress.

The Doctor intercepts the atomic seed and plants it aboard the Dominators' ship as it leaves, destroying it and killing its pilots, while the volcano erupts harmlessly. (Well, nearly harmlessly, as the TARDIS is right in the path of the lava flow. This cliffhanger leads directly into the following story.)

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!!Tropes included
* ActualPacifist: The Dulcians.
* ApocalypseHow: Nuking the core of the planet to make radioactive fuel would make this a Planetary/Physical Annihilation.
* BBCQuarry: {{Justified|Trope}}, as most of the action is set on an island used as a nuclear testing site, which had been too radioactive to clean up until recently.
* BigBad: Navigator Rago, the senior Dominator.
* BloodKnight: Toba the junior Dominator is like this, frequently disobeying and risking their plan in order to kill and destroy.
* BrokenAesop: Two, which contrive to make the story simultaneously far more left-wing than intended and far more right-wing than intended:
** First, [[invoked]] WordOfGod is that the aim was an allegory about how the hippie movement was bad because they would have got their arses kicked if they'd been in control when the Nazis had invaded. However, the oppressed, pacifistic Dulcians don't work as a hippie allegory, as they're characterised either as elderly politicians or as attractive young people who unthinkingly repeat the elders' lessons by rote until the Doctor and companions turn them against their racist, fascist oppressors, while the old Dulcians get slaughtered through trying to negotiate with AlwaysChaoticEvil aliens. The result comes off as an allegory about how student activism is the future because the apathetic old politicians are only concerned with keeping superficial comforts and not with fixing big societal problems, and have engineered their own destruction.
** The second is in the B-plot: The villains have an internal conflict, between Rago, who favours caution and condemns meaningless destruction, and Toba, a PsychoForHire who just loves destroying things. The problem is that everything Toba says is right — if he had just blown everyone up on sight (including the Doctor and Jamie) the Dominators would have succeeded in their plan.
* BusmansHoliday: The Doctor takes Jamie and Zoe to the peaceful planet Dulkis for "a nice holiday", only for the three of them to become caught up in the Dominators' attempts to exploit the planet for their own ends.
* ChekhovsVolcano: Albeit not quite as destructive as the villains planned.
* ChewingTheScenery: Both Dominators.
* CliffHanger: The ending is the last "routine" example of a story's final episode having a cliffhanger leading into the next story, something which had been common in the show's first two seasons but had gradually been phased out since. From now on, inter-story cliffhangers would be reserved almost exclusively for regeneration scenes, apart from a few examples during the Fifth Doctor era.
* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: The Dulcians have both.
* CuteMachines: The Quarks look like they just want a hug. The high pitched voices don't help.
* EarthShatteringKaboom: The Dominators' plan.
* EasilyConqueredWorld: The Dulcians are PerfectPacifistPeople, so they don't even know how to defend themselves.
* EstablishingSeriesMoment:
** The story begins with a little PlotParallel that does some {{Foreshadowing}} for the eventual direction of the season. Instead of the Doctor, we follow an anarchic adventurer and traveller named Cully (a RebelliousSpirit at odds with his repressive but highly advanced CrystalSpiresAndTogas society - something that hadn't been revealed about the Doctor at this point) is piloting his craft to a holiday destination that he hopes will yield things to explore and terrifying scientific thrills. His gaggle of adorable, bantering teen companions test the radiation levels, tease him about his bad driving, step out onto the beach to find out where they are and are ''suddenly shot dead''. [[spoiler:Season 6 concludes with a BolivianArmyEnding]].
** It's also the first story where the Doctor seems to have some level of control over where the TARDIS lands -- his dialogue on arrival implies that he was deliberately aiming for somewhere to take a holiday, rather than their destination being random as in previous stories.
* EverythingInSpaceIsAGalaxy: The Dominators are said to rule the ten galaxies.
* FailedASpotCheck: The Doctor clearly points out that the newly formed volcano is erupting, but doesn't notice that ''the volcano is erupting''.
--> '''Jamie:''' C'mon! The whole place is going to blow up!\\
'''Second Doctor''' No, it's quite all right, Jamie. The planet is quite safe. There's only going to be a ''localized'' volcanic eruption. It'll only affect the island.\\
'''Jamie:''' Maybe so, but ''we'' happen to be ''on'' the island.\\
'''Second Doctor:''' [[OhCrap Oh, my word!]]
* FailedAttemptAtDrama: the introduction of the island.
--> '''Cully''': Well, here we are everyone, the Island of Death! Uninhabited for one hundred and seventy years. Nothing can live on this poisonous plot of soil.\\
'''Wahed''': You're being melodramatic again, Cully, as usual. You know perfectly well there's a permanent survey unit there to monitor the radiation.\\
'''Etnin''': And there's a weekly visit by parties of students to show them the horror of atomic radiation.\\
'''Cully''': All right, all right, I know.
* FakeShemp: Creator/PatrickTroughton wasn't present for location filming; a body double, Chris Jeffries, filled in for a few scenes. His face is briefly visible in the final episode.
* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: The rather gruesome disintegration effect used when a Quark kills Tensa, which was cut in several foreign markets and toned down by the BBC themselves in later episodes of the story.
* GlassCannon: 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.
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: The Dulcians have golden hair to indicate their innocence and naiveté, with Kando being the most obvious example.[[invoked]] [[SpecialEffectsFailure Although it shows up almost not at all in black and white]], according to the production subtitles on the DVD the Dulcian characters were given gold makeup to emphasize this as well.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Or blown up by their nuclear seed, in case of the Dominators.
* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The Island of Death.
* InnocuouslyImportantEpisode: The first episode introduces us to Cully, an ageing ManChild from an alien species with two hearts, whose disgruntlement with his people makes him crave adventure and go travelling in his ship with a bunch of awkward teenagers. He lands and his entire crew gets murdered. This is an innocuous opening for a filler story at the time, but takes on a new meaning when you compare it to [[spoiler:the last episode of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E7TheWarGames The War Games]]", in which the Doctor is confirmed to be a Time Lord on the run from his boring civilisation and his crew get sent back to where they were from by the other Time Lords (including the implicit death of Jamie).]]
* InsultBackfire: Of a fashion.
--> '''Doctor:''' But Jamie, it's a brilliant idea! It's so simple, only you could have thought of it!\\
'''Jamie:''' Ohh! ''*clearly pleased, then cottons on*'' ... Hey!
* IWillOnlySlowYouDown: Cully says this when he gets hit by a Quark's blast. But NoOneGetsLeftBehind.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Toba always goes for the more violent option and repeatedly urges Rago to kill the natives (which they both think includes the Doctor). Rago says they need the natives for manual labour. It's easy to agree with Rago, since he doesn't want to kill our heroes and Toba is such a malicious bastard, but Toba is ultimately proved correct; if they'd killed the Doctor early on they would have succeeded in everything they were trying to do.
* MadeASlave: The Dominators enslave the Doctor and Jamie and intend to do the same to everyone else.
* MagicTool: This is where the sonic screwdriver ceases to be just a screwdriver, and [[Main/NewPowersAsThePlotDemands gains the power to burn through concrete]].
* MeaningfulName: 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".
** NumericalThemeNaming: The first three Dulcians to be killed by the Quarks are called Wahed, Etnin and Tolata -- Arabic for "One", "Two" and "Three".
* MechaMooks: The Quarks for the planet-conquering Dominators.
* MerchandiseDriven: 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.
* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: See IWillOnlySlowYouDown.
* NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering: The only thing they can agree to do is wait.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: The Doctor realises the Dominators need at least semi-intelligent slaves, so he pretends to be really dumb.
* ObviousStuntDouble: At one point in the final episode, the face of Creator/PatrickTroughton's double is visible.
* OhCrap:
** The Doctor manages to get two of these. The first is when Jamie points out that he's just set the Dulcians' travel capsule to take them to the survey base, where there's a Quark waiting for them. The second is at the climax of the serial, when the Doctor casually observes that he's saved the planet and only the island will be devastated and Jamie reminds him that [[FailedASpotCheck that's where they are]].
** The Doctor is demonstrating to Jamie how to set off the chemical bomb he and Zoe have created by dropping a number 9 pill inside, [[ExplosiveStupidity which he demonstrates]].
-->'''Doctor:''' But whatever you do, and this is important, you must throw it before ten seconds have elapsed, otherwise you're liable to blow up with--
-->'''Zoe:''' ''(alarmed)'' Seven, eight...Doctor!
-->'''Doctor:''' What?! ''(The Doctor tosses the vial away and everyone ducks as it goes bang!)'' It works!
* OutOfCharacterMoment: The Doctor trying to get a peaceful civilisation to take up guns against alien invaders without even considering any diplomacy or ScienceHero methods — partly why Creator/PatrickTroughton decides to play his part with lots of [[invoked]] HamAndCheese. He even [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]] on it in an obvious adlib: The Doctor tells a Dulcian that the Dominators are aliens and therefore don't understand the meaning of pacifism, the Dulcian retorts that the Doctor is also an alien, and the Doctor quickly adds "You got me there!" ''just'' before the edit cuts into it.
* PeopleOfHairColour: See HairOfGoldHeartOfGold.
* PerfectPacifistPeople: The Dulcians. It’s not portrayed in a complimentary way.
* RedOniBlueOni: Toba and Rago, respectively.
* RockBeatsLaser: Most of the Quarks are taken out by fairly low-tech means, including dropping rocks on them.
* RummageSaleReject: The Dulcians' outfits have to be seen to be believed. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Zoe, when she has to wear one: "[[RealWomenDontWearDresses They're not very efficient garments, are they?]] ... [[UnwillinglyGirlyTomboy They feel impractical!]]" Though Cully tries to invoke SheCleansUpNicely, saying she looks "more like a girl now".
** To be fair, Zoe and Kando's (the only Dulcian girl we see) floaty little see-through dresses do actually look relatively 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 [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal rough rocky rubbly]] quarry-type terrain, which could easily be painful on such barely-protected feet.
* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: The intended Aesop is about the naivety of pacifism. Except that, because of the particular story choices, the story can more easily be read as an [[invoked]] AccidentalAesop ''supporting'' activist students, encouraging them to reject rote learning and the irrational laws of the older generation, and take direct action against injustice.
* SimilarSquad: The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe encounter two-hearted thrill-seeking ManChild explorer Cully, his protective but little-bit-thick young male student and his young female student with perfect fact recall.
* SmoulderingShoes: What's left when a Quark gets blown up.
* SomebodySetUpUsTheBomb: The Doctor places the armed atomic seed device on board the Dominators' spaceship as it leaves.
* StyrofoamRocks: All over the place.
* SuicidalPacifism: The Dulcians were intended as a satire on hippie anti-war protesters, in their high-minded refusal to accept that the people invading their planet actually were aggressive militarists who had to be fought.
* TookALevelInBadass: Cully goes from being a spoiled rich kid with foolish thrillseeker tendencies to helping overthrow an alien invasion and saving his planet, and even gets wounded in the process.
* TinCanRobot: The Quarks.
* ToiletHumour: Creator/PatrickTroughton ad-libs that his improvised bombs are made with "number nine pills" -- the British Army quartermasters' code for laxatives.
* UnwillinglyGirlyTomboy: Zoe complains that the Dulcian dress she has to wear is impractical.
* VerbalTic: Rago really enjoys yelling "[[SilenceYouFool SILENCE]]!"
* VillainousBreakdown: After talking in a CreepyMonotone for the rest of the story, Rago suddenly loses it on discovering the bomb he intended to destroy the planet is just a few feet away and is told the countdown can't be stopped.
-->"[[ThisCannotBe OBEEEEYYYY!!!!]]"
* ViolenceReallyIsTheAnswer: Because otherwise the Dominators will destroy the whole planet.
* WeWillUseManualLabourInTheFuture: But only because the Quarks are low on power.
* WithDueRespect: Toba's fractious and violent nature leads to frequent insubordination, once prefixed with this.
* YouthIsWastedOnTheDumb: Sure, go on a trip to the radioactive island. And when the radioactivity turns out to be gone, go wandering about and attract the attention of the aliens that have just landed.
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