The female dominated society has been around in pop culture for centuries. From what I've been able to find out, the producers of Doctor Who have thought of sending the time traveler to a reversed gender-role world for nearly a decade before abandoning the idea. This story is the closest that they came to doing so.
The action takes place on a world with no animal life other than the occupants of two crashed space ships.
The Rills send out robots (Vicki names them chumblies) to... do things. It's not quiet clear exactly what they do aside from broadcast messages and take time traveler hostage. They aren't shown yet (this is a missing episode so please stretch the definition of "shown" for my sake), but are described by the other race as being disgusting.
The other race is called the Drahvin. Picture the Swedish bikini team with huge plasma rifles, more clothes and funky studded eyebrows and you pretty much have the Drahvin. Apparently the only "real" one among them is their leader Maaga. The rest are artificial humans created to serve a purpose.
One of the chumblies captures the travelers and is stopped by two Drahvin drones while bringing them back to the Rill ship. Steven is very appreciative of the rescuing Drahvin. I think that this represents the first time that the male companion has demonstrably showed an interest in the ladies that they meet in the course of their journeys.
The Drahvin take the travelers prisoner and bring them back to their ship. Once there they are told that the Drahvin were interested in colonizing this planet. While orbiting they encountered a Rill ship that fired on them without warning. Before crashing, the Drahvin's managed to knock the Rills out of the sky as well. After the crash, the Rills killed one of Maaga's soldiers. Whether this was before or after the point where the Rills warned the Drahvin about the imminent destruction of the planet is unclear.
The Doctor and company are told that the Rills have claimed that the planet will explode in 14 dawns.
Apparently that's how the Drahvins refer to days. The title of this episode refers to the 400 dawns it took the Drahvin ship to make it to the unnamed planet. I like the turn of phrase.
The Doctor wants to check these figures on his own. Maaga will allow him to return to his ship, but only if he leaves someone behind. Vicki, who hasn't liked them from the moment that she first lay eyes on them, volunteers.
Apparently the TARDIS now has a force field. The chumblies try to blast it, but the force is stopped by what the Doctor refer to as a force screen. There was something that protected the TARDIS from Dalek blaster fire back a few serials, but nothing has been said about the Doctor adding this function being added. It sure as hell wasn't there when the Sensorites cut the lock off a year and a half ago.
The Doctor and Steven make it into the TARDIS. A quick consultation with the astral map (last seen in the Web Planet) reveals that the planet has only two dawns left.
This was decent. The regulars provided decent performances and the actress playing Maaga did a decent turn with a limited part.
It concerns me that the female dominated society is portrayed as cold and sterile. It could be taken as "in a world where men aren't important, women become cold and bitter." Possibly this is a backlash at the feminist movement, possibly not. Emms is going to be attacking another trope, but hasn't gotten there in the story. I'll revisit this then.
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Next up: Trap of Steel
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