Time is Relative: Season 6. Part One.

Greetings, humans. If indeed that's what you are.

My quest to watch all of Doctor Who - even the terrible bits - continues. I've previously watched and commented on seasons 1 to 5, and you can find those exciting adventures on earlier blog pages. Where? I don't know, go look. I'm not your mother.

Or am I?

Anyway. It's time for Season 6. Or at least, the first third of it. I've taken pictures off the TV as I've gone along, to give you some sense of how thrilling it is to watch TV from nearly 50 years ago.


The Dominators

Season six kicks off in exciting style with this incredibly butch man, standing astride a hill like he is the king of absolutely everything. Which, in a sense, he is. He's a 'Dominator'. And you can kind of tell, can't you? Just look at those trousers. You wouldn't wear those if you weren't absolutely confident of your ability to be dominant in any given situation.

The little guys next to him are called Quarks. They are his friends, but only in a kind of hanging-around-with-the-bully kind of way. The one on the left looks pretty confident, but the one on the right is looking at us, as if to say "None of this is my idea."

The Dominators are the bad guys in this story. Obviously. I mean who calls themselves Dominators?

Zoe is in this story. I'm not going to mess you about here - I'm in love with Zoe. There's going to be lots of pictures of her, so you might as well just get used to it. She's the best companion. All the others have been whiny to some degree, but she spends most of her time going "I am best." And she is.

Here, Doctor Who and Zoe have been caught by a Quark. They are unhappy about this because, despite looking like Christmas decorations, the Quarks are actually evil little psychopaths. I mean, they've got spikes all over their heads. That's not normal.

Doctor Who looks particularly freaked out. He's worried about dying, but he's also worried that if he does die, everyone will laugh at him and say, "You got killed by Dominators!" This will cause him no end of social anxiety. The Dominators are idiots, and everyone knows it.

This Dominator has been going on for ages about how brilliant he is. He's not even really talking to Doctor Who and Zoe any more. He's just caught up in his own story. "Then the store assistant realised I wasn't messing about and that he was going to have to give me a replacement kettle, even if I didn't have the receipt..."


Doctor Who wants to leave, but thinks that it might be rude. Plus there's the Quark.

Zoe is thinking, "I have made a terrible mistake. This adventure is awful and now I am stuck in it, possibly forever."

It does not go on forever. But it does feel like it.






The Mind Robber

In this story, there is no set. They forgot to make one. So everyone hangs around in some nothingness for a bit. Jamie uses this as an excuse to stroke Zoe's fingers. Even her fingers are lovely. She is a bit scared, but mostly just glad that this is not The Dominators any more.

The actors here have been given different instructions. Zoe has been told to act like she is facing the most terrifying thing she has ever seen.

Jamie has been told to act like he has to choose between a Twix and a Crunchie, and he really wants both, but he's only allowed one.

There are some robots watching them, and looking slightly ashamed to be doing so.

Doctor Who has been asleep for a bit. When he wakes up, the TARDIS has turned white, as well as everything else. His face suggests that he finds this irritating, but that he is prepared to put up with it, as he has a massive hangover.

Jamie and Zoe have been turned white too. The robot on the right looks absolutely mortified that this has been allowed to happen. He's thinking, "Why do we always do this? What's wrong with us? I'm going to have to say something."

He won't, though. People never do.

After a bit, the TARDIS explodes for no reason. The console floats round in space, doing a spin, with Jamie and Zoe clinging on, thinking "This is making me sick. But it's still better than The Dominators, which was like being sick, and then having to eat the sick, and somehow still being bored".

This sequence is amazing and weird. It is often used on clip shows, to demonstrate how wacky Doctor Who is. Which is kind of cheating, because most of the time they just stand around in corridors wearing idiotic hats.

This is the most popular still image in all Doctor Who, for reasons which are probably obvious. I almost didn't take it, due to it's ubiquity.

But then I thought, no. There's a kind of postmodern brilliance to taking the exact same shot as everyone else does to represent my own viewing experience. It's a kind of self reflexive comment on the nature of engagement with a text that is, in its own way, already commenting on itself.

That's what I thought and that's why it's here. Prove otherwise.

Later on, Jamie turns into a cardboard photo of himself and his face comes off.

Doctor Who just goes, "Right." and gets on with things. That's why this is the greatest show that has ever been on television.






I'll be back soon, with more photos and insights from Season Six. Featuring the Cybermen!



Click here for Season Six, part Two

Go back to Season Five