Originally I had intended to only watch the last episode of The Dominators today, but then I figured since The Mind Robber also has an odd number of episodes I may as well start on that. I was not optimistic for either episode, really. For the end of the stupid, stupid Dominators story my lack of anticipation was well-founded. For the opening to The Mind Robber, however, it wasn't quite as dreadful as I had feared.

Let's talk about that.

The Dominators - Episode 5, The Mind Robber - Episode 1

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

As I said, The Dominators died as it lived -- stupidly. The two Dominators bickered some more, Jamie blew up a few more Quarks, and the Doctor ultimately foiled their plan by capturing the nuclear seed and hiding it on the Dominator spacecraft. The good news: that blew up said ship. The bad news: although the planet itself was saved, there was still a volcanic eruption which left the TARDIS in the path of a lava flow.

At the start of The Mind Robber, the heat of the lava causes the Fluid Link to act up again and even vaporizes some of the mercury. The Doctor seemed much less concerned about that than I would be, but there you have it. Unable to dematerialize normally, they use a special emergency system that takes the TARDIS entirely out of space and time. At this point, Jamie and Zoe take the opportunity to get cleaned up and change into fresh clothes. Jamie changes into a kind of modernized Highland outfit, whereas Zoe...  well, Zoe changes into a sparkly catsuit.

Hello, gentlemen!

As you may have noticed from the picture at the top of this post (I'll get to that particular plot point in a minute), I think noted aficionado Sir Mix-a-Lot would appreciate the costume change. I'm just sayin'.

So anyway, while the Doctor is fiddling around trying to repair the TARDIS, both Jamie and Zoe each individually see tempting visions in the scanner screen. Jamie sees the Highlands outside, whereas Zoe sees the futuristic city in which she grew up. Then things get surreal, as Zoe goes outside into the white mist and then not long after Jamie follows to find her. There is a weird mental battle with the Doctor as he sits motionless in a chair, and then he rescues Jamie and Zoe (who have been surrounded in the white nothingness by a group of large robots), by calling them back into the TARDIS. Apparently that is just an illusion, however, and the TARDIS explodes.

In the wake of the explosion we see the TARDIS center console spinning in space, with Jamie and Zoe both clinging to its surface. Well, I mean, Jamie is clinging to the surface, whereas Zoe is more kind of seductively laying on the surface as the console spins slowly and lovingly, revealing her big sparkly booty in all its glory.

Did this really need to be colorized? Yes. Yes it did.

Fan art of this particular moment abounds, and you will be shocked to hear that not all of it is entirely tasteful. So, anyway, Zoe screams when she sees the Doctor floating apparently dead in space. Roll credits.

The thing about The Mind Robber is that it was originally scripted to be four episodes. But because The Dominators got trimmed from six down to five, The Mind Robber had to be expanded out to five to fill the missing week. This was achieved by shortening the episodes from 25 minutes down to 20 minutes, leaving it the same overall running time but spread out across one extra week. The upshot of that is that my next two days of viewing is going to leave me with about ten extra minutes of treadmill time with nothing to watch. Yippee.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Second
Companion(s): Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot
Episode(s): The Dominators - Episode 5, The Mind Robber - Episode 1
Steps Walked: 6,155 today, 735,101 total
Distance Walked: 3.04 miles today, 353.86 miles total
Weight: 274.50 lbs (five day moving average), net change -32.80 lbs