The Sensorites

The story opens on board the TARDIS, picking up from the last few moments of The Aztecs. There is an awkward moment of dialogue between the crew of the ship wherein Ian praises the marvels of the TARDIS and a quick recap of the previous adventures follows. It all seems a bit forced to have everyone stopping to reflect, but by this time Doctor Who had been on the air for 24 weeks, which is already longer than a normal television season these days. Here we were with characters who had been through several levels of hell without much of a break in between adventures, their lives threatened at almost every step. And there were still 12 weeks of programming to go before the season ended.

This is also the first story to take place partly in a space ship. The ship is held captive in orbit around the Sense Sphere, home of the mysterious Sensorites, who all resemble short old men with black eyes, white hair, and round floppy feet. The Sensorites are another xenophobic race, suspicious of vistors from other worlds, and to protect themselves they have prevented the Earth ship from leaving orbit by controlling the minds of its human crew. Unable to control the Doctor and his party, they steal the lock from the TARDIS to prevent them from being able to leave in it. This is the first time the TARDIS is directly attacked, and one of the few times it is actually shown to be vulnerable. And, it is now the third time the travellers have been denied access to it. They become uneasy allies with the Sensorites, helped by the fact that Susan appears to be a latent telepath and they can communicate with her directly. On the Sense Sphere the travellers become embroiled in not only a mystery that will determine the fate of the Sensorite race, but a political scheme that may well result in their deaths.

Barbara sits two episodes out, marooned on the orbiting Earth ship, and Susan suddenly decides to be a grown up and doesn't scream at all, but adopts an air of arrogance at her newfound powers - to such an extent that she challenges the Doctor's decisions. Yes, I am still gnashing my teeth about this character. I would like to surmise that Susan's inconsistencies would be a result of her alien past conflicting with her emerging human side due to her time on Earth at Coal Hill School, but somehow I doubt it was thought out to that extent. Susan serves not only as a foil for the Doctor so he can have someone to relate to, but she's really just there to keep younger viewers interested, giving them someone to identify with in the series. The Doctor, after all, can be very harsh and mean when his temper is stirred, and Ian and Barbara... well they're teachers, no child is going to spend Saturday afternoon cheering for characters who respresent their mortal enemies from Monday to Friday. And I don't mean to down Carole Ann Ford's performances as Susan - she was doing her best with what she was given to work with - but I just think that Susan was not the best thought-out character, swinging from maturity and aloofness one episode and reduced to a cringing whiner the next. In later novels (published well after the original series' final air-date in 1989) authors would get the chance to revisit Susan and shed some light on her character - the two novellas that I reviewed as prequels to the series are fine examples - but for the time being, she is a bit of a weak link. What are we going to do with her?

NEXT EPISODE : THE REIGN OF TERROR