Episodes - Afterlife: The Quarks

Thanks mainly to the falling out between writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, and the production team of Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin, the Quarks were never to return to the series - at least not in any new adventure of their own. That, and the fact that the latter pair really weren't at all happy with The Dominators as a story.

It's a pity, as the costumes probably cost a bit of money, in a season that was stretched financially, and they are such a distinctive shape - lessened slightly by coming so close after the Servo Robot perhaps.

We did get to see one of the robots on screen at the end of the season, when the Doctor requested a thought channel during his trial to show the Time Lords some of the dangers he had fought whilst they were content to simply observe. The Quarks were deemed as threatening as the Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors and Yeti.

The Quark was operated in studio by Freddie Wilson, one of the three stage school pupils who had performed this task in The Dominators.

The producer and script editor had been looking for a new monster that could be brought back for rematches with the Doctor, in place of the Daleks and to give the Cybermen a rest. The writers, on the other hand, had been looking for a lucrative merchandising deal that might have matched that previously negotiated with Terry Nation.

Another element of the falling-out had been over the rights to use the Quarks (and Dominators) in TV Comic. The BBC had pressed ahead with this in late May 1968, without proper consultation with Haisman and Lincoln. For a period of 12 months, the Quarks could be used in the "Dr. Who" comic strip, though the Dominators themselves would never appear.

The robots made their first appearance in Invasion of the Quarks (issues 872 - 876, August / September 1968). This had a setting of Claw Castle in Scotland, and the Doctor - as you can see from the panel above - claims never to have encountered them before, though he has heard of their "unparalleled" reputation for destruction. The thing about the Quarks in the comic strip is that they are now entirely independent of the Dominators - a destructive force in their own right.

After a warning from a fortune teller of great danger ahead, the Doctor ditches grandchildren John and Gillian at Zebadee University, and continues on to Scotland, where he is reunited with Jamie McCrimmon - even though the story is set in the 1960's.

The Doctor and Jamie steal a Quark saucer and fire upon their approaching invasion fleet, causing confusion as the robots don't know which ship is firing at them. The invasion is thwarted, and the Quark leadership, back on their home planet, vow revenge.

Interestingly, had the writers not had their big falling-out, a Scottish castle would have formed the backdrop to a further Yeti / Great Intelligence story.

The Quark revenge came quickly - in the very next story in fact. The Killer Wasps (issues 877 - 880, October 1968) has to be one of the oddest stories ever. The Quarks grow giant wasps to attack the Doctor and Jamie on the planet Gano. However, the oversized insects attack their own masters, allowing them both to flee back to the TARDIS.

The Quarks have a "Death Chant" in this story, and a secret laboratory on their home planet sign-posted "Secret Laboratory"...

After an interlude with Ice Apes, the Doctor and Jamie encountered the Quarks once more in Jungle of Doom (issues 885 - 889, November / December 1968).

In this, the Quarks just happen to come across the Doctor and start off by trying to bury the TARDIS under a rockfall. The Doctor and Jamie are aided by some workers clearing the jungle nearby, and at one point a bulldozer is used to attack the robots. The Quarks counter by getting the natives to attack the interlopers, but the Doctor starts a stampede of local wildlife which destroys the Quark force.

After another brief gap, the Quarks returned in yet another oddity - Martha The Mechanical Housemaid. This appeared in issues 894 - 898, through February 1969. 

This one sees the Doctor as a famous inventor, who appears on American TV demonstrating his amazing household-helping robot invention. The Quarks find out about this and plan on taking over the "Martha" robots, employing them for their own ends. The Doctor regains control over the "Marthas" and a war breaks out between them and the Quarks, which rages across the USA. By the end, after the Quarks have been defeated, the Doctor is being put forward as President of the USA...

This is the last of the strips to feature Jamie.

The Quarks were back in the following story, however. This was The Duellists (issues 899 - 902, March 1969). Despite the apparent Regency England setting, this actually takes place in 2044 on the Earth colony world of Hekton. A group has set up a Regency-inspired society here, and indulge in all manner of cruel sports. The Quarks are around - ready to kill the Doctor if he survives the various ordeals the men put him through. The Doctor simply manages to escape back to the TARDIS, without doing anything about the nasty colonists or the Quarks.

This was to be the final appearance of the Quarks in the comic.

Doctor Who Monthly used to run Doctor-less back-up strips featuring characters from the series, and in issue 64 (April 1984) the Quarks made a return appearance more in keeping with their origins. In The Fires Down Below, they were simply the robot servants of the Dominators once again.

The plot has similarities with parts of The Power of the Doctor, in that we have an alien force trying to trigger volcanoes to cause devastation on Earth. Here, a UNIT squad investigate seismic activity at an Icelandic volcano and find the Dominators preparing to set it off, aided by Quarks. UNIT activate the Dominators' own equipment prematurely to destroy them.

Due to their distinctive shape, Quarks have also appeared as background figures in a couple of the lead DWM strips, in panels involving large groups of creatures and robots.

A further comic strip outing for the Quarks, serving the Dominators again, came in IDW's 50th Anniversary epic Prisoners of Time. The Quarks featured in the Tenth Doctor / Martha Jones section titled Quiet on the Set, which was centred on 1950's Hollywood. In this, the Dominators are going to use the movies to enslave the human race through subliminal messages. The Doctor exploits the Quarks' clunky design against them, and basically just chases the Dominators off the planet.

More recently, Candy Jar Books have begun publishing works based around characters created by Haisman and Lincoln, with the blessing of the writers' estates. Ironically, the range has expanded to include characters created by Derrick Sherwin, such as Benton and Tobias Vaughn.

The first batch centred around the Brigadier, and have featured the likes of Professor Travers and his daughter, and the Great Intelligence. The Dominators appear in several books, not always accompanied by Quarks. Two which do feature the robots are those pictured above - "Mutually Assured Domination" and "Legacy of the Dominator".

You'll find the full range on their website.