I was pleasantly surprised revisiting this story how much I enjoyed it - I remember this being a very slow, drawn out story with not much happening but there's a lot more there. I'm a sucker for stories with political intrigue and while what is here is fairly surface level (the City Administrator is sceptical of the humans and wants them killed, the Elders disagree so he gets himself the position of Second Elder to achieve that goal) but it works. The early episodes have this dark ominous tone that really helps this story and I think helps to subvert expectations - all the aliens met so far have been evil (Daleks, Voord); and so this is subverted quickly when the Sensorites turn out to be friendly; if very different.

The other thing this story does well is that it's the best use of Susan in the whole TV series - if only because it takes advantage of her not being human for the first time. Her telepathy is what establishes a connection with the Sensorites and opens the door between the humans trapped on the ship and the Sensorites; and is crucial at finding the Doctor and Ian (lost in the aqueduct after being captured by the previous set of humans who were trying to poison the Sensorites).

I do think the slow pace broadly does hurt this story - especially between a pair of the top tier historical stories which have slightly quicker pace. Overall though this is worth a watch.