i think this is a really interesting story. i think hartnells era is really good at having more fast paced episodes - you think earlier ones would be slower! but they often split the serials up into mini stories and that is exactly what happens here. the first 2 parts are about the guardians having control over the monoids and the second 2 parts are about the opposite, set 700 years later. it is really neat. this could ever be revisted now to see how they have settled on refusius. i wonder if this was isnpired by the time machine bc the 2 different races as different classes is very similar. i think the monoids were right to rise up in a sense because they had been treated shittily. there never was a chance for any other intelligent life to evolve on earth beacuse humans would quash it or use it as slaves and hinder its development and if they still managed to get to our level we would want to systematically discriminaite. its sad to think about. i wonder if anywhere there is a planet with two distinct intelligent life forms like this. i think another thing this story reminded me of is the peasant revolt after the black death, and what if that had been successful continually? and in that case you do support the peasants. though there were probably always the same number roughly of guardians and monoids. i wonder how the guardian descended feelon the new planet, if they get preferential treatment. this also lines up very well with the end of the world from nuwhos series 1. i like dodo so much in this her knight outfit is super super cute! steven is idk. i dont feel a lot about his character - i guess i havent seen him in many stories overall. the way the reveal the statue having been turned into a monoid was very cool. would be interesting to do a full themes analysis