The Sensorites

“Isn’t it a better thing to travel hopefully than arrive ?”

C’est captivant au début, mais chaque partie est moins bonne que la précédente, et l’histoire (même avec quelques touches brillantes) est de plus en plus grossière et seulement élevée par les interactions très touchantes de Susan avec son grand-père. 

Pourtant, en soi, c’est un épisode qui a quand même de bons instincts. Susan grandit, et elle n'a jamais été aussi touchante que quand elle affronte la solitude et l’exil.  

Mais c’est seulement (malheureusement) quand elle fait face à des aliens un peu neuneus dans un script dans l’ensemble assez médiocre qu’elle peut ENFIN avoir ce développement. Et non seulement ça prouve à quel point les 60’s sont carrément en retard. 

Mais ça prouve aussi que Susan est à la fois l’une des compagnes les plus importantes et une de celles qui a été la moins bien écrite. 

I liked that Susan got her chance to shine! I also liked the finale, where Ian is glad the spaceship knows where it's going, and the Doctor, immediately on the defensive, goes for a Tumblr-style "okay, you know what? Fuck this. Fuck you. I'm abandoning you at the next planet we come to" approach

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.

The Sensorites: 8.5/10 - I thought the resolution of the story was a bit too fast paced but I really enjoyed Susan's role in the story. The Sensorites themselves were interesting creatures and you can tell RTD got inspired by them when making the Ood. The Doctor was also great in this episode and its cool seeing the doctors first wardrobe change of the show

🙏🏼🙂✊🏼 31/50 = Fine! = Skippable!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

ALL ALIENS AREN’T MONSTERS!

This is a weird story in the sense that the first two episodes are completely different from the remaining four. Part One is a tense and exciting thriller mystery inside a cramped spaceship and one of the best single episodes within the First Doctor's era; it's a near-perfect mix of acting, music, sound design, direction, and camera work. The opening episode is a base-under-siege prototype that would work just as well with, say, the Second or Tenth Doctors.

I love how the characters take some time to reminisce about their previous adventures, including ones that we haven't heard about before or since.

The Part 1 cliffhanger is another classic one. I'm sure it terrified thousands of kids back in the day!

Part 3 is where the narrative decline begins, as we enter the Sense Sphere and begin following the talkative and identical Sensorites in their everyday duties.

The latter half of the adventure is very repetitive and struggles to find a satisfying path towards a climax, so much so that the eventual twist in Part 6 just kind of comes and goes with little impact. Peter R. Newman butchered that climax by building up to nothing and then hurriedly wrapping everything up.

Parts 4 to 6 are filled with padding, an uninteresting medical mystery, and the Sensorites plotting and scheming for the sake of it but never actually doing anything even remotely threatening. Unfortunately, the focus on the titular race in the latter half of The Sensorites results in a lack of inspiration and a significant loss of narrative momentum.

The writing in Parts 4 and 5 seems to make a few too convenient and contrived solutions to create artificial tension, and the way the City Administrator's idiotic plan seems to work by itself is simply stupid.

This serial begins the process of Susan gradually becoming independent of the Doctor, a development that the latter finds difficult to accept. This is causing great strain between the two central characters.

Newman decided to give Susan some character development and make her more useful rather than annoying, but unfortunately, this trend did not continue until her departure just a few stories later. Carole Ann Ford seems to relish this recent development and offers a fine performance.

The Doctor once again takes the lead (despite claiming he doesn't want to), and he truly feels like the Doctor we know and love. This story also allows him to do some investigating on his own for once. William Hartnell is on fire in the first two episodes; he is eager, funny, valiant, stubborn, and defiant, and he puts in one of his best performances on the show.

Yay for a "the Doctor doing science" montage!

The guest cast in the first two episodes is great, particularly Stephen Dartnell's John. It's unfortunate that they lose their opportunity to shine after Part 2.

The Sensorites are a fairly good concept and a nice idea for a more intelligent and less aggressive alien race; they also make for a perfectly creepy threat during the first half of the serial, but they gradually lose their charm and creepy factor as the serial progresses. The presentation of the Sensorites as highly telepathic aliens is somewhat troubling because they appear to communicate normally with everyone, including each other.

The Sensorite actors flub their lines so frequently that they give Hartnell a run for his money!

Peter Glaze, in his role as the City Administrator, embodies a pantomime villain, characterised by his peculiar, raspy voice and excessively theatrical sentiments. His grand plan is flawed since there are bigger variations between the different Sensorites than what the story tries to make us believe (such as their voices and body shapes differing).

The Sensorite masks look creepy enough, and the spaceship set is nice, so it's slightly disappointing to see the Sense Sphere look so boring.

No! Sensitises you started so well why you gotta turn boring!!!!

The Sensorites is alright enough in terms of a production thing, and easy enough to hand wave away as just a quirk of the series in it's earliest days. Still, it is just so boring. I really barely got through this one and compared to the better stories of this earlier era - like the Pilot, The Daleks, and The Aztecs, it just feels like a much weaker take on Doctor Who. The Sensorites feels like one of a handful of episodes from the First Doctor's era that show what could have been - a weaker version of the show that certainly wouldn't have the same lasting legacy than the full-blown franchise the show ultimately became.

I actually really enjoyed myself with this one. The Sensorites are unique amongst the “monsters” we’ve seen, since they’re not really monsters at all! Their society is well thought out and there’s good and bad people amongst them, and the same goes for the humans. It strikes a really nice balance that I’ve always wanted modern who to have more often! Science fiction is in its very essence left-leaning, but at the same time it often presents whole groups or races as ‘the evil ones’. It is odd that this is something the modern series can struggle with, when it’s done so well here (although I’m not entirely convinced the concept will stick around).

This story is, however, the most interesting in its first 2 episodes, and dwindles a bit in its last 2. The addition of the extra human plot drags quite a bit and feels unnecessary, even if it is a nice contrast against the good and bad Sensorites. Still, when it is focused, it is very high quality. Props especially go to the portrayal of John, a role of so little note that he does not even have his own page on the Tardis Wiki. He is the one most effected by the mental attacks, and shows a combination of fear and craziness that establishes the threat of the Sensorites before they’ve ever been on screen. His job makes their powers and threat much clearer early on, even if they don’t intend to use it all that much.

As for the regular cast, Barbara gets shoved to the sideline a bit this episode. I assume Jacqueline Hill was on vacation. It is fine however, since she just had the last story, where the focus was completely on her. The rest of the cast shines as brightly as usual for me. Ian has to show more restraint than usual, which proves troublesome in the first few episodes, since this is a foe they actually shouldn’t attack. It makes sense after the last few adventures to take an offensive stance at the unknown, but it is dealt with in a nice way. Susan shows off some standoffishness, which I don’t really find either appealing or distracting for her character. It doesn’t really add much in the grand scheme of things, but it does fit her character. It is fine. Meanwhile the doctor seems to show a bit more stubbornness and grumpiness than he had in the last few stories, which is less appealing, since he had started to soften a bit more than this, but it isn’t too distracting.

The Gallifreyan mind powers also come into play for the first time, with both the doctor and Susan showing them off a bit. They’re neat I suppose. Not that interesting in the grand scheme of things.

Overall this is one of the better episodes. It is not the best story ever, but it has an interesting opponent which leads to nice interactions and an understandable conflict. It’s a good time.