The Sensorites

I want one!

Strangers in Space

Blimey, the Sensorites. One of the least popular early stories, and no surprise about that. A painfully slow-moving plot, and a simplistic one at that, and some rather poor directing. But I haven't seen it in a long time, and have few memories of it, so it will be interesting to see. The TARDIS scene at the start is bizarre. Barbara's over her ordeal in the Aztecs already, although for all we know this could be a couple of years later. The strangest bit is the four of them standing there reciting all of their previous stories. It's very clunky, and the sort of thing JNT would receive much criticism for, and yet it is also endearing. "It all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard, and now it's turned out to be quite a quite a great spirit of adventure," as the Doctor states. It's quite funny having Ian and Barbara and the Doctor and Susan telling each other how good their character development has been. Clearly Ian and Barbara haven't been paying too much attention to Susan's (lack of) development, or they somehow know she'll get a little in the upcoming story.

I quite like the Doctor being almost surprised at being on a spaceship. It's something we take for granted now, but this, the seventh adventure, is the first time our heroes have landed in a spaceship. It actually looks quite good, which is nice, as there's something to distract from the lack of anything happening. They find two people, Ian checks the pulse of the first and proclaims him dead. We get a couple of seconds of silence, and then a crashing DADAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Goodbye subtlety (again)! Actually I have to say I'm not very keen on Norman Kay's incidentals throughout this story. It's the first instance of incidental music in this marathon that I've found to be jarring. Hartnell fluffs again, talking of "non-winding time watches". Yes, those watches that tell the time are very handy, Doctor. In all seriousness, though, watches that are powered by movement of the wrist are quite a nice idea, even if the Doctor's mention of watches that need winding is a little odd. Surely Time Lords have moved beyond that?

The Doctor's spirit of adventure has deserted him a little here. They arrive, see the crew is dead, and the Doctor says, "there's nothing we can do, let's go". Then Maitland suddenly wakes up, tells them his story and the Doctor says, "there's nothing we can do, let's go". Is this the same man who sabotaged the TARDIS to see the Dalek city? I do like his attempts to say he doesn't meddle and has no curiosity. Ian's having none of that.

The Doctor calls Ian "Cheston", and Barbara and Susan wander about for a bit and then have a hug with John. We get an extremely long close-up of Ian, then see a Sensorite at a window and that's the cliffhanger? Sheesh.

It's a fairly intriguing first episode. It's a little bit bland, and doesn't feel quite natural at times, but it builds up the suspense relatively well, and John is an interesting character so far, being frightened, and yet wishing to protect Barbara and Susan. Is it just me or is Lorne Cossette as Maitland really stiff? It sounds like he calls Carol "Kell". He's the weakest aspect of this. 6.5/10

The Unwilling Warriors

The Unwilling Warriors? Interesting choice of a title. We get another big "dadaaaaa" as we see the Sensorite at the start here. This is so slow. I'm trying to like it, I really am, and there are a couple of fantastic moments here, provided by Hartnell (no surprises there). 

 

As a whole, though, this episode does have rather long periods of absolutely nothing happening. The worst example of this is Ian and Barbara walking slowly down a corridor, then Ian goes into a room and stands still for a while before gesturing to Barbara to come in and they both stand there looking around. What is so fascinating? Oh, nothing is, they move on to the corridor out the other side and walk very very slowly across it, whilst Norman Kay's music grinds away. Sheesh. That bit is made even worse by the fact that the Sensorites appear from behind a door, so then we have Ian walking very very slowly back the way he came for a while, with them slowly following him. I know it's an attempt to build up tension, but it really doesn't do it very well. Which is another point. Why does Ian back away, without making any attempt whatsoever to communicate with them? It's so ridiculous that Barbara scolds Ian for trying to "keep them off" by saying, "do you need to keep them off? Have they actually attacked you?" Just to show that he could make Ian even stupider, Newman has him saying, "they were as frightened of me as I was of them". So why not bloody say hello and see if they're friendly? 

Oooh, there's an "educational" bit here. Or at least, I think that's the reason the Doctor decided to tell us the melting point of iron. It's not exactly as practical as curing hypothermia, or as interesting as learning about Marco Polo and the Aztecs, but it's an effort of sorts! We also have Ian and Barbara really playing to the Doctor's ego here. First we have Barbara say that the Doctor leads and they follow, and then when the Doctor says that the Sensorites don't like noise or darkness, Barbara questions whether he's right and Ian says, "but he is, of course"! It's quite sweet, really.

Hmm, the Sensorites don't like a little bit or noise or darkness. There's no heavy metal on the Sense-sphere, I take it. It does make it seem a bit absurd that we've had an hour of being told how frightened everybody is of them, and we find they're ridiculously timid. Does nobody talk to each other in the 28th century? (Actually, some people will say we probably aren't going to, the way society is going).

Anyway, I mentioned a couple of brilliant moments. The first few were Ian and Barbara flattering the Doctor, and the Doctor thanking Ian for "his admiration". But my favourite bit of this episode, by a wide margin, is when the Doctor is asking the Sensorites for his TARDIS lock, and they say he's not in a position to threaten them. He replies, "I don't make threats, but I do keep promises, and I promise you I shall cause you more trouble than you bargained for if you don't return my property!" It's a great line, and Hartnell pulls it off beautifully.

It's an interesting one. I can see what they were trying to do, continuing to build up the suspense, but I'm afraid I don't find people walking really slowly around a few corridors all that suspenseful. It's a bit dull, and really we're just waiting now to go to the Sense-sphere, where the story can start properly. This is the only time I can think of when the writer uses two episodes rather than one to set the atmosphere. For a couple of great moments near the end, I'll give this a slightly generous 4/10.

Hidden Danger

It's Jacqueline Hill's turn for a holiday over the next two episodes, so it's quite sad she leaves halfway through this one. It will be interesting to see how the story copes without her. The best part of this episode comes right at the end, with Ian's coughs. I have to say, they're played brilliantly by everybody. He coughs whilst he's talking and carries on, then coughs again during a speech by the Doctor, who simply ignores him. It is almost deliberately played as William Russell having an attack of the coughs and trying to cover it up, rather than something being wrong with Ian. It's a nice little surprise, although it isn't as if the writing is good enough to keep us guessing. The Elders have mysteriously never suffered the disease. The Elders only drink from a spring. Ian just drank from the aqueduct that the other Sensorites use as their water source. It's all made fairly clear just from the speeches what caused it.

"His mind is open, he can tell the difference between good and evil people," says Susan about John. Yes, well that's not absurd and simplistic, is it? What about people with shades of grey? What about the Doctor?

I do quite like the line, "are their hearts in the right or left of their bodies, or in the centre, like ours?" It's rather poor writing, but quite enjoyable at the same time. Sometime around that, the City Administrator (or Third, as he's credited), says, "when they're seated, kill them!" and we get that loud sting of music again. So far the Sensorites on the Sense-sphere don't have very much personality, do they? The First Elder is the "good" one (as John helpfully pointed out to us), the Second Elder and the "weak-willed one", the City Administrator is "the evil one". The City Administrator in particular is fairly one-dimensional. He hates the humans and wants to kill them! Essentially, that is his character.

Again, Hartnell is brilliant. "I'm being dictated to by petty thieves and my own grandchild!" he exclaims angrily. Sadly, again, the good moments are few and far between. More does happen this week, and we don't get people walking around slowly, and we get introduced to a whole new bunch of Sensorites, so there is enough going on to prevent it being a disaster, but the writing is rather poor, frankly. And we've seen the last of Maitland, which is a blessed relief, as Cossette is a strong rival for Virginia Wetherall and Katherine Schofield in the "worst acting performance in season one" stakes. Not great, but not awful 4/10.

A Race Against Death

A lot of this is quite poor. Actually, the whole episode is pretty dreadful, and yet in a perverse sort of way I found it rather enjoyable. Peter R. Newman clearly didn't put very much effort into this script. Near the end of this episode, the Doctor says to the Scientist, "the Sensorites don't like darkness, do they?" Huh? He knows they don't. He's the one who was telling everybody that an hour ago! Just to make it worse, later on in the same scene he helpfully tells us that the Sensorites don't like noise or darkness, even though we've been told the noise thing about five times in this episode, and he just said they don't like the dark! It's not just Newman, surely David Whitaker should have been quietly removing lines like that?

Saying that, if he'd removed every bad line this would be a two-parter. The scene with John and the City Administrator is awful. It's bad enough having John helpfully telling us he's "evil", just in case we had forgotten that the one who keeps saying he wants the Doctor and his companions dead is the bad guy. But it's made far worse that the City Administrator then gloats and taunts John, and basically admits to being evil. He was introduced as a xenophobe, genuinely worried about the safety of his people, and that could have been explored quite well, but now he's just acting like a bog-standard baddie who wants our heroes dead because that's his role in the story. It's not just the bit where he admits to being evil, it's also where he's told that the Sensorite scientists have worked with the Doctor. He doesn't even bother coming up with an argument against that, he just says, "it's a trick". Oh, okay. 

 

The montage scene is quite a funny thing to have in such a slow-paced story, and the piece of paper the First Elder holds which just says "First District, Second District, etc." which he ticks off as each district is cleared of poison is horribly simple. "Top secret" from the Claws of Axos came to mind when I saw that. Oh, and we get another moment of excited music. The Doctor looks keenly into the camera and asks, "will they let me have my ship?" dadadadaaaaaaa!

The City Administrator complains about all the "absurd" names the humans have. Yes, much better to have First, Second, City Administrator, First Scientist and so on! What a ridiculous society the Sensorites have. And I'm not even going to mention the "they all look the same" thing, because that is one big can of worms. All I'll say is to repeat what I said earlier, that Newman really can't have worked too hard when writing this. Anyway, this is a dreadful episode, where the Doctor analyses some water and tries to get an antidote to Ian (who's basically a little way down a corridor). Yet somehow it was actually so awful it wasn't too bad. William Russell's weak acting is a little suspect, but I'll let him off. The cliffhanger is genuinely good. The scene in the aqueduct with the Doctor is really creepy. 3.5/10.

Kidnap

Yes, well, this is getting even worse. The episode is called Kidnap, even though that's the cliffhanger. It does sum up this episode quite well, though, since the cliffhanger is the first thing to actually happen. Essentially what happens is the Doctor returns from the aqueduct to the city, talks about going off to explore the aqueduct and then goes back off to explore the aqueduct. Along the way Ian repeatedly pesters the Doctor to ask the Sensorites to let Barbara come back from her holiday. It's shockingly uneventful, to the point where it rivals the Screaming Jungle from the Keys of Marinus. Yet it still isn't that bad. It's poor, but somehow manages to remain watchable. I think part of that is just through struggling to work out what they were thinking. It also features one of the worst fluffs I've heard, from one of the Sensorites, reporting back to the City Administrator. He says, "I saw the Doctor and the other two leave the aque-aqueduck. I heard them over over er talk-talking". I do genuinely think it's sad we don't get things like that these days. 

 

That aside, there are quite a lot writing fluffs in this episode. A Sensorite states that, "our society is based upon trust. Treason or secret plotting is impossible". That's taking being naive to fairly absurd levels. John just suddenly wakes up and is perfectly cured. Just like that. All the trauma and distress nicely vanished. The reason? People have a veil that covers fear, and his veil was stuck open, so he was permanently afraid. The Sensorites had to rehabilitate him, yet without closing the veil permanently or he'd never be afraid again. Um, okay then. Then we have Susan suddenly coming to the conclusion that the City Administrator is the baddie after all, since he was rude to her. Ian agrees. The City Administrator was rude to him too, therefore he must be the evil one. I did like that bit though, I have to admit, where the City Administrator tells Ian to call him Sir, and Ian just walks off.

Oh yes, and the "plot" to frame the Doctor for the murder of the Second Elder fails miserably, and the First Elder says, "your story is a tissue of lies" to the plotter. Okay, I am being extremely unfair here, but this story asks for it. Would Sensorites even have tissues, let alone know a phrase like that? The Scientist in this episode has to have the concept of a handshake explained to him, so would they know what tissues are?

That last paragraph indicates how far I needed to go to say anything about this episode. It is horribly uneventful, and reminding us over and over that Barbara isn't in it at the moment doesn't really help matters. The cliffhanger is abysmal, too. Oh, Carol is kidnapped. Oh well. 2.5/10

 

A Desperate Venture

Blimey. The previous episode was named for the kidnap of Carol which was there simply to serve as the cliffhanger and be resolved in a moment. She's freed again right at the start of this episode. That is pretty unsatisfying. Which sums up the whole story, as well as this episode. A Desperate Venture? Interesting definition of the word desperate. Nobody in this episode is more than mildly concerned. John is slightly upset for the five seconds that Carol is being held prisoner and that's the height of emotion. The humans poisoning the water supply, who are in many respects bigger villains than the City Administrator, don't appear until twelve minutes into episode six! Their leader doesn't then appear until sixteen minutes in. It's hardly surprising it's unsatisfying. The Doctor and companions trick the humans into believing the "war" is over and persuade them to leave the aqueduct. The Sensorites are waiting ready to catch them. If they'd been introduced earlier (even just earlier in this episode), they could have done a bit more with them. As it is, our heroes face the mildest of mild peril and resolve matters without breaking a sweat. 

 

Oh, not only does Carol escape immediately, the first time we see the Doctor and Ian in this episode, they've already worked out the guns are broken and the map is wrong. That's the trouble with this story, Newman has serious pacing issues. We have long periods of nothing happening, and then people suddenly leap to conclusions, and things happen far too quickly. 

The First Elder is a bit strange here, too. He's intrigued by the compassion us humans have for each other, and also says that he trusts all Sensorites because their way of life is based on trust (as the subordinate said earlier). To have had him say that earlier might have worked, but having him say this now when he knows at least one of the Sensorites has tried to frame the Doctor, and tried to prevent Ian from receiving the antidote to the poison just makes him sound like a total idiot.

It's a poor final episode, but somehow I'm still quite enjoying it. The resolution is ridiculously fast and simple, and it's probably the calmest and least threatening final episode that the Doctor and his companions will ever have. The scene at the end with the Doctor and Susan is sweet, talking about whether they'll ever go home, the Doctor saying, "this old ship of mine seems to be an aimless thing". His outburst at Ian seems a bit out of sorts from the cuddly hero he's already developed into, though, and just seems tacked on because they wanted a cliffhanger. I guess that is a rather fitting end for the Sensorites, frankly. 3.5/10

Conclusion

Though I've given it an identical score, I enjoyed this far more than the Keys of Marinus. The trouble is, I probably enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. However, there are genuinely good things about it. Cusick's designs are superb throughout the story. I love the guns the Sensorites have. The Doctor has some terrific moments. However, the plot is so simplistic it's fairly amusing. It's fairly awful, childish stuff, really. There's no need to repeat what I've already said, just that this and the Keys of Marinus are for me the disappointments of the first season. Everything else is decent at worst. I'm just glad we've seen the back of Newman, and that Nation bloke. Sorry, what's that? They asked him back? Anyway, goodbye Sense-sphere, hello 18th century France and somebody called Dennis Spooner.

Average Rating: 4

Old Rating: 5

New Rating: 4