The Sensorites is one of those stories that when I first saw it was bowled over by. It’s another long story but written by Peter R Newman and my advise to anyone reading this would be to buy the DVD and watch the documentary about him as its one of the saddest and most impressive documentaries that I remember seeing on a Doctor Who DVD. There is a mystery about whether they have landed or not. There is a nice moment when they talk about how they have all changed since that very first episode. Amazingly its been eight months since the series started and its almost like they are reminiscing with the audience about how far they have all come since that very first episode .The moment where they walk from the TARDIS into the spaceship control room was a nice bit of continuity.
It seems like the two people they encounter are dead and its quite a sombre opening. After accepting the fact that they are dead there is a surprising moment when the chap starts to move. It turns out that they were in a deep sleep.
The woman is called Carol and the man is called Maitland and their story is that the ship is by a planet called the Sense-sphere. They don’t kill them but actually go to the trouble feeding them. They don’t sound like your typical alien. It’s at this moment that we learn that Susan has telepathic abilities. It starts when she senses something. This isn’t really given much time to settle in our minds but its enough to encourage the regulars to leave and go back to the TARDIS. The taking of the lock seems like another excuse to prevent the regulars from leaving. It’s similar to what was used in ‘The Keys of Marinus’. When Barbara smells something burning I don’t get why they don’t think to check the TARDIS or how they could miss the Sense-sphere taking the lock of the TARDIS. It’s not that great a distance to the TARDIS.
The first shot of the Sense-sphere isn’t a good one as its clearly a glove. It’s good that we don’t get a good full look of them. All we get is a glove and their head. By not showing us the full creature its making the viewer want to seem them all that much more.
There is regular mention of a third member of the crew called John. He seemed to be the worst affected by what the Sensorites have been doing and seems to be lurking around parts of the ship that Maitland and Carol don’t go to. In fact they don’t seem to have any urge to look for him until they realise that Susan and Barbara are missing. This is when the story starts to get going because it becomes very tense and atmospheric. It is Barbara and Susan that get separated and are the first to encounter John. He doesn’t exactly come out of it very well. Both Carole Ann Ford and Jacqueline Hill do very well in this story.
There’s a fun moment when they are trying to get through a door to get to Susan and Barbara with the smallest device ever. It wouldn’t get you into a can of beans let alone a door.
The cliffhanger was brilliant and it was the first time since An Unearthly Child: Episode 1 that I was genuinely stunned by what I saw. It was a Sensorite popping up into the window and its must have been great to think what was going to happen in the next episode. Despite not much happening in this episode I still enjoyed it. I thought the introduction of Carol and Maitland were good additions and helped interact with the regulars. A good opening episode.
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