But the problems set in early. We get our first look at the Dominators and the relationship between the two is quickly established: Rago is in charge and wants to use the planet as a fuel source, while Toba wants to go around destroying everything he can. Through this conversation we learn that the Dominators have already absorbed all the radiation on this atomic test island. All well and good, except then all the other characters have long conversations wondering where all the radiation has gone, a mystery that might have been more interesting if we hadn't already had it answered for us in the first two minutes.
There's also the matter of the young people running about. The ones Cully brings to the island are an awfully dreary lot, with an oddly stilted delivery. Still, they're wiped out pretty quickly, so I guess we can't complain too much. And then, as the Doctor and Jamie go to check on the TARDIS, they're spotted by Toba and the Quarks, and we get to finally actually see the robots that caused so many problems behind the scenes.41
Episode 2 sees the problems get a little worse. The main issue is that no one believes anything Cully says (the result of crying "wolf" too often, it seems), which means that we get lots of arguing and nothing happening as a result. The Dulcians refuse to believe anything that they haven't personally witnessed, it seems, and they have a decided lack of curiosity regarding the things they have. "Oh, I dare say our atomic experts could provide a reason," Supervisor Balan says regarding the disappearance of the radiation, "but it seems pointless to spend time searching for reasons to prove facts." So they're not just pacifists; they have no thirst for knowledge either. One wonders why they're even out there collecting data in the first place.
It seems edited rather badly as well; we go from the cliffhanger reprise, with the Quarks asking in a creepy girly voice, "Shall we destroy?" to them suddenly inside the Dominators' spaceship. (That said, the Doctor/Jamie interplay here is quite good, with them trying to convince the Dominators that they're very stupid and thus no threat to the Dominators, even with some odd directorial moments: "Oh, if only I could get away from this wall!" Jamie says while clearly not standing against the wall the Dominators have attached them to -- did a camera need to get in behind them?) And Toba sure does like to destroy things, doesn't he? Rago has to continually tell him no, which is entertaining, but probably not in the way intended. Toba also seems to jump around the island, from inside the survey unit to well outside it, ordering the Quarks to destroy the building -- with Zoe and Cully still inside...
But really, the problem is that this episode is very uninvolving. The Doctor and Jamie's clowning aside, it feels rather pointless, and little is done to make the viewer care about what's happening, as if the Quarks should be sufficient. In some ways this is where the approach from season 5 falls down: the assumption is that the monsters will be interesting enough to keep the viewers engaged, and the fact that they're not doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone.
41 We might as well get this out of the way now. Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln submitted this story after The Web of Fear, but rather than write yet another monster story they decided to write a polemic about the dangers of the hippie movement and pacifism (hey, it worked in The Daleks). Script editor Derrick Sherwin got these scripts and rewrote them (not because he was pro-hippie, but rather because the arguments Haisman and Lincoln had included (mainly old men standing around arguing pointlessly) reportedly weren't very interesting -- director Morris Barry backs up this version of events), truncating the story from six episodes to five in the process. The story goes that he neglected to tell Haisman and Lincoln that he was doing this to their story, and so, deciding this wasn't really their story anymore, they chose to send it out under a pseudonym -- hence the credited writer "Norman Ashby". It seems this wasn't a deal-breaker though, and Haisman and Lincoln began work on "The Laird of McCrimmon", a third Yeti story that would write Jamie out of the series. However, in the meantime both the BBC and Haisman/Lincoln had set up merchandizing deals regarding the Quarks, which both parties figured would be the next big monster (no, really). Apparently there was some confusion as to who actually owned the copyright to the Quarks. The result of this was that Haisman and Lincoln threatened to sue to prevent The Dominators from being transmitted. Eventually an agreement was reached (the details of which are unknown), but the fallout from this was that Haisman and Lincoln no longer wanted to work on the series, and so "The Laird of McCrimmon" was dropped. And now you know why The Web of Fear seems to set up a third Intelligence story that never happened.