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

some decent stuff here. i like jak's design, i like the foreign culture aesthetic of the mainplaneters. i like that both sides are vil not just jak. i dont like jak being kinda creepy towards peri. i like the doctor's descion to go into the dangerous cave and to only give the cure to peri, which is something six would never do they are very different incarnations. a lot of stories like this though have way too many similiar characters that all have different wants in regards to the political situation that are hard to keep track of whether you watch it all in one go or spread out. this is a consistent problem with this medium though. the recall of the docs companions is fun; i just love seeing adric. the masters inclusion and line is very curious though. i dont know what throughline they were going for with his character. Stotz's shooting of the men who don't want to join him and morgus felt very odd, unnecessary and especially dark for the show. i guess morgus was the main villain, not just jek, but i didnt like either, and i think and equal villains thing is more interesting, even in the case where jak is only villainous at first and then gets better and close to the doc and peri. i think the way this is consistently ranked as one of the best dr who/5 stories is wild it is not that good. i have liked many others more

loveee the medieval aesthetic but we should have gotten more women. i did not expect kamelion to be in this so that was a sick surprise i love him hes cute and scary (so i get why tegan doesn't like him). trying to track allegencies over the course of the story is pretty difficult, everyone looks very similar, so that makes the story hard to follow. eg. the doctor is the champion one minute and not the next and the master doesn't like the doctor being the champion even though he picked him?? i don't understand all the demon references, they're all mostly coming from the non-medieval characters. why is the master so obsessed with the magna carta anyway they address it's weird but don't address why he is doing it. the doctor/the episode placing it in high importance is also weird. english democracy would be better if that magna carta had enever been developed, so that democracy could develop later under capitalism instead of under feudalism which has really f**ked it in a major way. but i digress

everything with tegan and the marriner in this really put me on edge. he's constantly leading her around to different rooms aloneadn you're worried he's going to sexually assault her, and to me, it really reads as he has. he's flirting and she's so uncomfortable and it's a really horrible way to write tegan. her and wrack's edwardian (?) dresses both looked sooo good.

turlough in this serial is also quite strange. he is constantly doing things for his own benefit, betraying whoever. i understand his conflict in regards to killing the doctor but this is a different bad personality trait that i dont think is sufficiently resolved by the end of this serial where the doctor forgives him. he doesnt betray the doctor one time and that makes him good and sympathetic? it's very odd. the scene where he jumps overboard and is floating through space is so well done in isolation though.

the whole seaboat aesthetic of this serial is very sick in general, with them floating through space, all the different eras of boats. theres a lot of creativity with the conception of this story. the eternals are fascinating beings, so different from any other enemy we've encountered thus far. i think they were a good enough villain on their own without needing to bring in the black guardian but that is just where this serial fell in the series as a whole.

just a really fun romp! not incredibly plot heavy but that is not massively the point, the point is to have fun. i would have liked a few more unusual character parings, as mostly characters stuck to their doctor, one and tegan being the exception. cool timelord stuff, more of their incredibly wacky and ineffective power structures. the part where borusa became a stature-plaque with only moving eyes has to be my favourite part, it was just so creepy and a really cool end. but really as a multidoc story i think 2 and 3 doctors work better because you get more interaction between different character that you like.

the first thing to note about this story is slavery. the vanir, the garm and turlough are all slaves in one sort of way. i think this works it making turlough more sympathetic whilst he is trying to kill the doctor, as we can understand how he can be made to attempt these things. i think it's also good in this being the only s20 story without any deaths. it wouldn't have been at all nice for the vanir to die. as a nyssa departure story, i wish this focused more on her. it is a cool thing for her to be doing with her life, and she has been established as being good at bioelectronics, which is similarish to medicine - would have been cool to see that more in other stories though. a healer is a useful thing. yeah this episode does not balance its companions well.we needed more nyssa and more turlough for sure. turloughs narrative is so divorced from the doctor. i like tegan and nyssas goodbye. its so sweet and sad, tegan loves her so much. it's hard to not read them as a couple. nyssa getting leprosy is so wild though. the non-companion stuff in this story is a little boring though. olvir acts suspicious but it does not really go anywhere, and kari doesn't really do much. also the company would definitely send troops to terminus, no question. it's just much less exciting than arc of infinity and mawdryn overall. this whole series has felt underwhelming

turlough time!! i thought he was simply a snobby schoolboy at first but there does actually get to be more to him - we will have to see how that evolves to see if i will like him as a character. what i don't like this story for is the brigader. him being into cars is strange because that never came up when he was hanging out with three, a definite motorhead and him encouraging corporeal punishment is accurate for the time but horrible to see from a sympathetic character. i think him retiring to be a maths teacher is quite sweet though. the time loop stuff with things happening in 1977 and 1983 is pretty clever and experimental for doctor who at this time so thats very enjoyable. nyssa's outfit is really really sick (she might have started wearing this in snakedance but still). it does feel strange for the doctor to refuse to give up his regenerations to the mawdryn though, or at least figure out a solution. they're in so much pain and he can help. it is a big sacrifice for him but he has already lived so much life at this point that it does not feel justified for him to hang onto having even more in the face of others' suffering. also the doctor not sussing out turlough is pretty crazy, this is such an actively suspicious boy

also

!!LIZ SHAW MENTION!!

the mara is a very confusing creature. we first see it on deva loca but apparently it began on manussa? the snakedancers and the manussans and the kinda are similar but not releated i think? it is quite confusing. tegan is great but once lon gets infected we barely see her, which is a missed opportunity, because janet fielding is really great as the conflicted tegan/mara. i like when dr who uses an academic field quite a lot, like planet of the daleks being very biogeographical - here this is very anthropological, so i enjoyed that. lon is a charasmatic character indeed. so ultimately it is not a very good sequel to kinda and the mara but i like it more than kinda in its story elements (study of a society vs conflict between natives and colonists)