Doctor Who - The Dominators by Ian Marter

Published: July 1984

Edition read: Target first, 1984

Coolest Cover: I’d have to say Andrew Skilleter, for giving us Ronald Allen on the cover and a serious attempt to make the Quarks look menacing.

Purple Prose: "Their clothing was charred and rotten, here and there fused into a glassy lump with their roasted and flayed flesh. The eyeless faces were burned beyond recognition." (p.17)

Crimes Against Literature: ‘"What...what the divil are ye trying to do, ye Sassenachs...cook us?" Jamie spluttered. "Cos I’m no haggis..."" (p.22) Just in case anybody was thinking that Jamie was Welsh.

The TARDIS materialises with..."a raucous screeching and groaning"

Childhood Recollections: I remember reading this in a medical context so must have had it at one of my occasional hospital appointments or something.

Ramblings: After such a solid run of adaptations of the Fifth Doctor’s adventures, the appearance of ‘The Dominators’ out of the blue seems somewhat incongruous. But having said that, the Target range had a habit of nipping back to the monster stories of the Troughton era every now and then and neither was it the first Second Doctor story Ian Marter had novelised. Add to this the story’s showing at the Longleat Celebration in 1983 and it does seem to make rather more sense for a rummage into the Doctor’s earlier adventures.

It’s also fair to say that Marter brings out the best in the basic ideas of the story and improves on much of what was there to begin with. He clearly relishes the Dominators themselves; for characters in a black and white story, Rago and Toba are constantly described in terms of green eyes and pink lips, touches which help bring the characters to life much as their antagonistic relationship fleshes them out as the villains of the tale. Marter’s handling of the Dulcians is equally skilful; whereas the televised story tended to make the point about the Dulcians being fatalistic and deliberative by showing them being arthritic and debating at length, Marter cuts down those scenes so that we have one or two examples to make the point and nothing more. The regulars are handled well, and it seems that Marter did feel an affinity with the Troughton era cast; certainly his portrayal of the Second Doctor is a cut above most, and if he makes Jamie more recognisably Scottish, it’s without making the character into a stereotype.

Overall, then, this is one of those examples of a careful adaptation turning out a more satisfying result than the original story. It’s fair to say that Ian Marter brings out the inner monster story in ‘The Dominators’ without losing the important dynamic between Rago and Toba, so while the Quarks are rendered fairly well (and there’s no need to struggle to understand what they’re saying), the end result is a much more rewarding book which emphasises the story’s links to the monster stories of the previous season.