Why Are Earth People So Parochial (The Dominators)
![]() |
You know, looking at them, I can’t think of any witty jokes to make that the picture doesn’t do for me. |
It’s August 10, 1968. Tommy James and the Shondells are at number one with “Mony Mony,” but if we really want to capture the spirit of this one we need to look at number two, or just jump a week ahead to where it hits number one and look at Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s “Fire,” which dethrones Mr. James for a single week. From there on out, it’s just the Beach Boys and the Bee Gees. So let’s go back to Arthur Brown. Personally, I advocate taking three minutes out of your day and just watching Mr. Brown perform this song on Top of the Pops. But if you cannot spare the time to watch a man with a hat whose most visible feature is the fact that it is a pair of horns that are constantly on fire scream “I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE” on BBC One, well, I pity you. It’s basically the greatest thing ever, and should really be recognized as the anthem of uniquely British psychedelic culture as discussed last Friday.
For most of the ten, there are clear reasons why they’re hated. Of the three 1960s stories in the bottom ten, two are ones that have single surviving episodes. Those episodes are watched only by particularly dedicated fans, and if they’re dodgy, they are remembered for the constant mocking they elicited. So, for instance, The Underwater Menace is basically down there entirely on the basis of Joseph Furst shouting “Nothing in ze world can stop me now!” Further, there are five stories from John Nathan-Turner’s tenure that are slammed as part of a well-rehearsed (and largely, though not entirely, correct) critique of his tenure. Similarly, there’s one Graham Williams episode that is slammed because it’s the worst story of another era with a ton of detractors. But then you have two episodes that are down there despite having no obvious reason for the hatred – a lone turkey from the new series, and The Dominators. The Dominators, in other words, is one of the two most hated episodes of Doctor Who that has no credible explanation for the hatred other than being truly terrible.