The Sensorites: Doctor Who: Season 1

SYNOPSIS

DETAILS

CAST & CREW

REVIEWS

Goldby

Grob

Long

The Sensorites SYNOPSIS:

The Tardis arrives on a spaceship with a seemingly dead crew. But two, Commander Maitland and Carol are alive and helped to revive by Ian. They explain they are kept from leaving the orbit of the Sense Sphere by the telepathic Sensorites who try to crash the ship. The Doctor breaks the mental conditioning on the crew and finds the Sensorites attacked the craft and broke the mind of the mineralogist as he had discovered molybdenum on Sense-Sphere.

The telepathically attempt to get Susan to meet with them but fail thanks to the Doctor. He is offered the lock of the TARDIS back if he will come to the Sense Sphere. Accompanied by the others he meets with the Sensorite elders and finds that the planet's mineral wealth has been previously exploited by humans and some of the councilors had planned to kill the party upon arrival. Some sensorites are still planning the visitors deaths.

Ian falls ill to the same disease that's killing many Sensorites and the Doctor finds that the drinking water has been poisoned with deadly nightshade and works on a cure with Sensorite scientists. The unfriendly sensorite faction tries to take control of the council and the travellers warn the sensorite leader of the plot against him while Doctor and Ian try to expose the real perpetrator of the poisoning dwelling beneath the Sense sphere aqueducts.

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The Sensorites DETAILS:

Episode	Broadcast	Run Time	Viewership (In Millions)
Episode One: Strangers In Space	20-Jun-64	24:46	7.9
Episode Two: The Unwilling Warriors	27-Jun-64	24:44	6.9
Episode Three: Hidden Danger	11-Jul-64	24:53	7.4
Episode Four: A Race Against Death	18-Jul-64	24:49	5.5
Episode Five: Kidnap	25-Jul-64	25:47	6.9
Episode Six: A Desperate Venture	1-Aug-64	24:29	6.9

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The Sensorites CAST & CREW

Stars:
The Doctor:
William Hartnell (First Doctor)

Companions:
Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman)
William Russell (Ian Chesterton)
Jacqueline Hill (Barbara Wright)

Guest Stars:
Stephen Dartnell — John
Ilona Rodgers — Carol
Lorne Cossette — Maitland
John Bailey — Commander
Martyn Huntley — First Human
Giles Phibbs — Second Human
Ken Tyllsen — First Sensorite/First Scientist
Joe Greig — Second Sensorite/Second Scientist/Warrior
Peter Glaze — Third Sensorite/City Administrator
Arthur Newall — Fourth Sensorite
Eric Francis — First Elder
Bartlett Mullins — Second Elder
Anthony Rogers, Gerry Martin — Sensorites

Production Staff for Serial G:
Writer - Peter R. Newman
Directors - Mervyn Pinfield (episodes 1 to 4) & Frank Cox (episodes 5 to 6)
Script editor - David Whitaker
Producer - Verity Lambert
Associate producer - Mervyn Pinfield

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The Sensorites REVIEWS

Goldby

Well the first two episodes are slow…the next two are half that speed and if you hit the fast forward button on the last two you may get it playing at normal speed.

The Sensorities seemed like a good idea on paper but it seemed to have only four sets and take an awfully long time to tell. Amazing how this was compelling viewing even back in the 60's. Some of the supporting cast seem ok, though the main guy seems to suffer from 'the deli factor'. The Tardis crew are good, particularly Hartnell but after dragging myself through the first two episodes was either day dreaming about the blondes on the beach or just dreaming…and snoring. Occasionally waking up for the theme tune.

The sensorites were an ok monster and actually not really the bad guys for a change! Think this was the one I watched this after one of our first ever DW talks together and borrowed a shitload of Hartnells from a mate of mine on your advice Grob as I hadn't seen many. So must thank you for the excellent and refreshing sleep I got from this one. Can't even remember what the whole thing was about and the boredom factor was very high... 2.5/10.

Grob

I actually TRIED to watch some of the Sensorites while I did my housework and I STILL can't get into it. Okay, I gave up after fifteen minutes cos vacuuming and wiping down benches is more interesting but still.... Probably the one positive thing I can say about this story is that at least the producers were trying something different this time out. Rather than six episodes of nasty aliens, lets have six episodes of friendly aliens. Yep; there's a recipe for tedium right there. I have no idea what happens further on in the story cos I simply haven't got there. There are a couple of interesting bits in the first episode. There is a nice panning shot of the crew leaving the Tardis and the camera following them out the main doors, then panning back to show Susan locking the doors which helps reinforce the fact that the interior of the Tardis is bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Also, the initial exploration of the Earth ship and the reveal of the "dead" crew is quite good. We also get Susan's description of Gallifrey here; "......but at night the sky is a burnt orange, and the leaves on the trees a bright silver." Sadly when we finally got there it looked like a Southern England quarry! Also, did you know that you lock people out of the Tardis by............removing the lock???? Fuck me, that's a first. Oh, and Susan is telepathic - just in case you didn't know (I didn't.) In the second episode when we see two Sensorites together, the camera pans down to show one of them standing on the foot of the other! After that...........well, I kind of nodded off. I'm hoping one or both of you chaps can fill me in here on the rest of the episode cos I sure as hell have nothing else to add here! Sorry, its a 1 / 10

Long

Like all episodes of the time, yes, this is slow... slower than slow... in fact it's possible that the main bad guys in this were originally called Slowy McSlow Slow from the planet Slowdonia... I guess it was made even slower by the fact that there was a lot of telepathic gear going on... which of course to the audience, means just silence!

All in all though, I think that as a story, this one is OK. The Sensorites are interesting looking, and they have an interesting problem, which the Doctor solves... if it was only done in two parts rather than 6 this could be a classic!

5.5/10

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