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

watched mostly the animation, but the real episode for part 3. there were significant differences. its sad how much you miss out on from the missing episodes. i did not feel it quite so much with reign of terror but with this whole unique alien world i think it does suffer. interesting theme of solidarity with other races in the face of adversity? id love a story set on dhrava to understand their culture and history more. is maaga uniquely evil? whats with the clones? do they ever uprise? they seem to have their own thoughts and personalities. always interesting when a story has a female villain

i loveee serials set across time theyre soo fun!! some great little comedy vingettes really, with the reveal of the mary celeste and the monster house just being an ordinary house of horrors where the doc and ian tried to come up with a super scifi explanation. all the empire state building stuff was fun. and the daleks are always nice to see! and it was such a sweet and lovely ending to barbara and ians story, with them getting a little epilogue and then you find out the doctor was watching them! i like to imagine he often does from time to time. i love ones era for having epilogues and tardis opening and endings so much more often!! and with multiple parts the serial is way more fast paced and engaging

this felt soo crazily different from so much of doctor who but i guess ones era was just more experimenal. the song that ran through was very well done. i think dodos and doc hollidays friendship was very sweet - and it didnt seem sexual or creepy, just a earnest cute friendship. i really liked the doctor in this, his character and role felt very strong for once, with his mantra against guns and violence. classic who does these stories a lotttt where the only problem the tardis team need to fix is just them getting back to the tardis cause they got mixed up in trouble, but no threat to the people from the time theyre in. it would not fly today really!! i liked steven and dodo having fancy names, dodo dupont and steven regret. a fun little detail! the song was actually really good and it grew on me a lot, especially about how tragic a lot of the random deaths, like charlie were, and his death was taken decently seriously, with his dead body just.. lying there. it was a bit slow and confusing to start but it really won me over which i was not expecting a western to do at all. it was a bit confusing trying to tell the men apart though. i liked stevens outfit, and dodo had an awesome, very 60s one she wore just at the begining.

what a horrible exit for dodo,probably the worst companion exit. why even write her in? i get the impression she was a late addition by a writer who didn't realise they were meant to include her at first. i like ben and polly i think! i think they should have already known each other before the start of the story though. i like the begining, it is very nice and slow in a good way. it seems like this story is meant to be a critique of nato, as wotan without the w is just the spanish/french name, otan, or it is just nato backwards. and it is this inhumane unfeeling war machine taking over europe, then the usa and then the world

for a cyberman episode, they are super super different here. they basically drop the whole twin planet thing in later stories mostly. the s2 cyberman 2 parter has them from a parallel earth and pulls off a similar concept much better. the things i really liked about this episode was that it was the first time the show ever feels diverse. there's an actual black character, and the space hub thingy has people clearly from all around the world taking part in these space missions, and the antartica base has some clearly non british people. all the mainest characters are still white and british though. i like tito he was cute but he dies pretty quick. i thought the 3rd episode where it suddenly became all about defeating the human captain was really weird - the cybermen should be the focus, not some random guy who tbh feels kind of in the right for what he was doing! i wish they sold us more on the father/son thing and deepened that relationship, at least gave the son a name!! the unique title sequence is so appreciated though. i think the doctor and polly honestly did very little in this story. i dont even understand why the doctor regenerates at the end?? ofc it's the first one so they didn't  have the rules for regeneration down yet, but it is still odd. it's also weird that this is one of few time that the doctor explictly already knows what is going to happen roughly, which is probably why he takes a back seat

i didnt really understand what was happening the whole time and it seemed to metaphorically be about maintaining your society's supposed natural order. no other species should be allowed to evolve above humans or move away from being used by humans for farming, etc. very odd. did not need to be six parts and the poor costumes constantly took me out of the story. i do appreciate playing with evolution and the idea that insects could become the dominant species

not entirely sure how i feel about this one tbh. i dont like the sensorite design much. i think the idea of the doctor going and fixing a planets problems is compelling. i liked in the aztecs that barbara was using her history knowledge, i would have liked it in this one if ian used his science knowledge more. the engagement between the humans and the sensorites, it seems like this is all taking place prior to the eventual conquest of the sensorite planet by humans, that's the vibe it gives. i think the gone mad humans were interesting but they needed to be more developed, not just brought out in the last episode. we needed a bit more time with them, as apparently they are what the story was inspired by. also the tardis team brings up the caste systems and it seems like they will develop this more but instead it is just dropped, no arguement that they should get rid of the caste system and we spend basically no time with the other castes, we have little understanding how sensorite society functions. this serial i think first marks the begining of doctor who canon, with the team refercing past episodes, the doctor expressing his dislike of weapons and the first(?) reference to Gallifrey, and ideas about susan and the doctor travelling before they met barbara and ian

i thought this was going to subvert expectations and show that even if aztec culture had some bad elements, there were mostly positives and people enjoyed their lives. i think that was what they thought they were going for but instead it was too focused on how evil and primative and barabaric these non-europeans are for having human sacrifices and physical punishments, as if europe at this time also didnt. barbara is incredibly white saviour-y; she thinks the spanish wiped out the aztecs and burned all their records because of the human sacrifices and not out of a desire for conquest and riches and power. its also notable how the one person who is presented as reasonable and against the human sacrifices, the high priest of knowledge is explictly stated to be some different and unlike the rest and the rest would never change their evillll ways. there is stuff to like though - i like that we get to see the doctor fail and make mistakes, like almost getting ian killed with the poison and accidently getting engaged. its fun when the doctor isn't always right. and him and cameca are actually really cute together i think theyre a good fit. would be nice if she could have become a  companion! i dont even know why tlotoxl is a villain and we are meant to dislike him - barbara is a false goddess and she is legitimately trying to destroy his culture. also i think they purposefully made him up to visually look the most different and 'savage' so the audience would dislike him more. just a lot of racist stuff and only really good for doctor character stuff

one of my favourite ever doctor who stories. it is very exciting, each episode has a different setting and plot so its very fast paced. similar to what key to time was doing but condensed into 1 serial instead of being spread over a season which makes it way better and more engaging. it shows how diverse one planet can be, which is something planets in scifi often lack, they are often all the same biome or culture everywhere. but in this you get the sense you're going to different countries. the episodes also have different genres. like snows of terror is drama, sentence of death is murder detective, screaming jungle is puzzles, velvet web is scifi. velvet web was probably my fvaourite for how barbara focused it was. i dont think season1 has too many character, because they all get enough time, but still it is nice to focus on just one of them and flesh them out more. its the first doctor lite stories as well. season 1 is pretty experimental in some cool ways