Leon E. Bender life

…in space, no one can hear you laugh, it’s…

The Sensorites

In which we get
to see our very first spaceship (there again, the model shot in Episode Six is
so small for all I know it could just be an old toilet roll tube with a couple
of buttons and a Liquorice Allsort
glued to it)…

It was no good, the Doctor

still couldn't get Channel 5.

There was nothing else for it,

Barbara was going to have to

get onto the TARDIS

roof and have a fiddle with

the aerial.

- Barbara’s in something predictably starchy/tweedy looking...with a medallion of outrageously large proportions (stick a handlebar moustache
on her and she’d be the spitting image of Peter Wyngarde), while Susan’s
plumped for dungarees, which make her look a) like a lesbian, and b) as if
she’s about to become the latest inmate at Wentworth Prison. Her hair’s also
looking more than a little Barbara-ish today (more backcombing…trouble won’t be
far away then!) Meanwhile, Ian’s opted for a black polo neck, which makes him
look a bit like the Milk Tray man’s
dad. Mind, it shows off his moobs beautifully.

- the TARDIS lands on the move. That’s it! You heard me
right. The move. Not the
“move” meaning the moon à la Anneke Wills in The Moonbase (who, let’s face it, had probably been at a cocktail
party on the King’s Road until four o’clock in the morning on the day filming
was due to commence on that particular story and probably hadn’t bothered taking her
script out of her handbag, and would’ve been to pissed to read it if she
had…probably…the posh minx). ‘This says everything has stopped but the ship’,
explains the Doctor, pointing to what looks like a Frisbee glued onto the console. Both he and Ian look at Barbara as
if she’s just piddled on the floor when she suggests the TARDIS might’ve landed
inside something…but isn’t her answer the most likely explanation to the (not
so mysterious) conundrum the last episode so dramatically (or so they’d have us
believe) closed on? We don’t get all this faffing around in other spaceship set
stories.

Grabbing the Captain's

knackers and asking him

to cough was a strange way

to check someone's pulse

thought Ian's companions.

- in an attempt to bring some much needed logic to this
situation Barbara suggests they try turning on the scanner, but - surprise,
surprise - it’s covered in static. Ian suggests an unsuppressed motor could be
the cause, the Doctor a magnetic field, both failing to pinpoint the real
reason - it’s fucked. Perhaps the Doctor should trade it in for a mobility
scooter. It’d be much sturdier, and far more reliable.

- leaving the TARDIS, the Doctor finally realises they’re on-board a spaceship. Hallelujah! Ian goes
to have a poke at the pilot! On pronouncing him to be dead, the incidental
music comes in so loud and so dramatic that my afternoon cuppa nearly ended up
decorating the wall on the other side of the living room! Thankfully, when
Barbara declares the same fate for the girly crewmember (who’s no doubt only
on the mission to run a hoover over the flight-deck and dust the controls) it’s
not repeated - though my buttocks were firmly clenched just in case and my tea
placed well out of harm’s way on the coffee table. ‘What can have happened? I
can't see a wound or anything’ she ponders…well, I’m not a medical professional
you understand, but looking at her,
I’d guess it was death by beehive (she’s not from Millennius is she; please God
tell me the Marinusians haven’t developed space flight).

Carol loved to watch Captain

Maitland as he fiddled with

his joysticks...it gave her

a warm tingling sensation

down below, which she

rather enjoyed.

- Ian muses as to whether the two astronauts could’ve died
through suffocation, something the Doctor presupposes could be the case, both
men seemingly forgetting that they and their two companions are also oxygen
breathers and that none of them seem to be turning blue in the face or are on
the point of passing out clutching their throats whilst making desperate
gasping noises.

- hmmm, the Earth people rewind their watches with a flick of
the wrist! I bet on such a long journey Captain Maitland’s remained fully wound
all the time!

- Maitland suddenly falls forwards with a bit of a moan -
which is in all honesty the best bit about Lorne Cossette’s truly feeble effort. What is it with the sci-fi scripts bringing out the worst
performances, or do they just hire shite actors? ‘They were both dead’ insists
Ian - well, that’s as may be dear, but both are revived by having silver snuff
boxes attached to their tits! Actually the heartbeat sound effect that's played in as the
crew awaken is very effective.

'Hmmm' pondered Susan, 'What strange

insignia.'

- the set’s so small there’s not even enough room for all the
actors to be standing at the same time, so Maitland has to remain seated
throughout much of the dialogue that follows, which makes proceedings feel a bit
awkward and stilted. You’d think that after hours and hours of being sat unconscious
the first thing he’d want to do would be to have a bit of a stretch and a walk around - surely both
he and Carol must be in danger of developing deep-vein thrombosis after being
stuck in the same position for so long. They must both be desperate for the loo
as well.

- the conversation that follows their revival is all a bit
odd. Maitland doesn’t seem to bat an eye when Barbara reveals she and Ian are
from the Twentieth Century (partly because Mr Cossette isn’t capable of
carrying out such complex emotional reactions), so are we to take it that Earth
has time travel capabilities by the Twenty-Eighth?

- the spaceship seems to be made of wood! And the control
room contains a bookcase!! Still, I suppose John needed somewhere to put his
collection of National Geographic.

- a strange alien hand can be seen in a cutaway shot having a
good old fiddle with the TARDIS lock. The removal of this proves to be a real
problem considering the size of the rocket set - it’s only a couple of feet
away from the main action and yet no one clocks a thing, even though they can
all smell something (perhaps the four regulars are all secretly putting it down
to the newly awakened crew, but are too polite to say anything - Barbara’s ‘I
can smell something burning’ being a euphemism for “Bloody hell, Carol’s
dropped one”).

A Sensorite, pictured yesterday. Ahhh, a-coochy-coochy coo...

oh what a beautiful ba-...erm...ahem...hmmm, yes, well...

never mind.

- The Sensorites - what
an interesting bunch they are. A bizarre mix of doddery old man (in appearance)
and vulnerable child (they’re frightened of the dark and loud noises, and act
as if they could burst into tears at the drop of  a HappyLand
Ready to Play Village Set. They wear baby-grows and carry stethoscopes and
therefore look like infants playing at doctors and nurses. The masks are great
(just don’t look too closely at the area around the ears) and their dark
unblinking eyes are rather spooky - they’re completely dilated according to the
Doctor (which makes one wonder if they’re actually “on” something). Seeing the
two on the spaceship in Hidden Danger cowering terrified,
utterly lost in the dark is surprisingly upsetting to watch. ‘The light, the
light…afraid…help us’ they plead. Awww. This, coupled with their shyness,
timidity, and general aversion to loud noises makes you wonder how on earth
they manage to propagate their species? I mean, can you picture a randy
Sensorite, coz I certainly can’t. They’re too bloody uptight. Maybe they take
tranquillisers and play whale music during the “dirty deed” (I’ve just had a
hideous picture flash through my mind of a Mrs Sensorite in a see-through
negligee giving Mr Sensorite the old glad-eye...whilst sipping a chamomile tea).
Actually, we don’t see any lady Sensorites, but family groups are mentioned so
I presume there is a female of the species (and if not maybe the all-male
Sensorite’s should pay a visit on the similar looking all female Cryons)? They
also have no noses! How do they smell, I hear you all ask. Well, at a guess,
I’d say of wee. Their faces are covered in wispy hair, especially around the
mouth, which probably means they’re very messy eaters - soup must be
particularly nightmarish. Their feet are big, flat, round things (perhaps a
close-up of them stepping on each other’s toes wasn’t the best introduction to
them proper…what is it with Season 1 and alien races with ridiculous
footwear?), while their voices are croaky and husky, as if they’ve all been
eating peanuts and, in some bizarre freak accident, one’s got lodged in each of
their oesophagi.  They’ve also seemingly
adapted the table tennis bat to use as an all-purpose tool.

'You look just like my sister'

John told Barbara, 'She's

rather plain with no dress

sense too!'

- the whole John sequence is completely surreal, but really
serves to drag one wholeheartedly into the mystery of this spaceship and its
highly strung crew (much more so than the scenes featuring the other two dreary buggers earlier).
While this game of cat and mouse is going on, Maitland and Carol hold a brief,
yet interesting conversation about whether their actions are their own or
whether they’re still being controlled by the Sensorites, an idea which could
have been explored in so much more detail if this weren’t a kids show that had
to be more visual than cerebral and exciting rather than reflective…and if it
weren’t for the fact that the story’s first twenty-five minutes were already
up. If this were an episode of Out of the
Unknown, say, then this is the point where the whole thing would go off in a
completely different direction.

'Good evening, and here is

the news...' Switching on

the television, Ian was

somewhat taken aback

by the appearance of the

Sensorite equivalent of

Angela Rippon. What a

munter!

- Stephen Dartnell does a fantastic job of lifting John off
the page (and this is the man who was Yartek, leader of the alien Voord just a
few episodes ago!) Telling Babs she looks like his sister and asking her if
she’s come to help brings a real lump to the throat. And her reaction to all
this is to hug and comfort him. God, I love this woman. What a fantastic scene.
Everyone applauded Vincent and the
Doctor for broaching the delicate subject of mental illness, completely
forgetting The Sensorites got
their first, forty-six years earlier! And handled it in an equally sensitive
way. John’s one of the most interesting character’s we’ve encountered on our
journeys so far. He’s very well written and certainly one of the most
well-rounded guest roles to date. He’s utterly terrified of his situation yet
he surprisingly offers to protect Barbara and Susan when he senses the
Sensorites approaching.

- now, either the Sensorite at the window at the end of
Episode One has a bit of a shave and combs what little hair he’s in possession
of prior to the start of Episode Two, or a new mask is used. This slightly
revamped design makes them appear much less comical and actually serves to give
them the look of William Hartnell! I wonder if anyone dared to point this out
to him?

'And when I get back to the

ship I think I'm going to paint

my bedroom this colour'

said Ian. All Susan could

think was it was a strange

time to be looking at

swatches.

- the Sensorites using John as a puppet, trying to get him to
frighten the girls, is again rather chilling. The whole sequence is a bit like The Exorcist meets Muppets in Space. Stephen Dartnell’s performance really pulls at
the old heart-strings in the early episodes and gives the Sensorites a menace
that’s lacking from their appearance. But that’s what’s so great about these
creatures - they look utterly pathetic (it’s a bit like being threatened by
Clive Dunn’s Grandad), yet they can
cause such awful mental cruelty.

- ‘He’s so tense, Barbara. Can’t we help him?’ asks a
concerned Susan with regards to John. Erm, what had you in mind, dear?

- as the Sensorites try to make off with Susan (maybe it’s
best if we don’t ask what they’re going to do with her…sex slave? Hostage?
Hmmm) Ian and Barbara try to stop them. ‘They’re not carrying any weapons and
yet I am frightened of them’ says the one Sensorite to its mate (why can’t they
have individual names for god’s sake, this is all going to get very confusing
very quickly). Well, that’s really given the game away, hasn’t it! Not only do
they look about as threatening as Thora Hird after a couple of glasses of
sherry, but they’re also quite prepared to tell their enemies how scared of
them they are. Has he forgotten he’s a member of a telepathic race and doesn’t
need to communicate via the spoken word. Doh! You can imagine him mentally
kicking himself for this oversight.

[Voice of Cilla] 'So Carol, chuck,

for your "Blind Date" tonight

you've chosen Alan and Geraint,

warrior twins from the

Sense-Sphere'...

'Oh shit' thought Carol...

- ‘Intruders from other planets always say they wish to talk,
but all they mean to do is destroy’. These poor folk have just had enough and
want to be left alone. It’s as simple as that. In a way, it’s a continuation of
the theme of invasion and colonisation that was the backbone to the previous
story, except that here we see it applied to an alien context.

- ‘I don’t believe you have the ability to represent us’, the
Doctor tells his granddaughter, to which Susan responds ‘Stop treating me like
a child!’ Ooooh, the worm’s definitely turning - someone, at long last, is
coming of age. It’s a real surprise to hear her talk to her grandfather in this
way. All praise to Peter R for putting her in the spotlight instead of the far
more reliable Barbara. She caves in to his demands eventually of course, but
this is the beginning of the road that eventually leads to her departure.

The Sensorite Doctor really

was a bit rubbish at his

job...he'd absolutely no

idea where the heart

was. And as for locating

the superior vena cava,

well...you might as well

forget it.

- so, after much buggering about on the spaceship, it’s time
to journey down to the surface of the Sense-Sphere, although Barbara stays
aboard with Maitland and a Sensorite. Bloody hell! I hope she’s got a good book
to read! (Jackie herself is getting straight into her Riley 4/72, putting her foot down and not looking back for a
fortnight. Maybe the four regulars chipped in on a holiday home and are taking
it in turns to use it - there always seems to be one of them buggering of just
recently).

- City Administrator -
judging by his girth, it would seem that the Sense-Sphere has at least one
branch of Gregg’s. He’s very
reminiscent of Tlotoxl, intent as he is on preserving the Sensorite way of life
from outside interference. Indeed, whether his intentions are for the good of
all his people or just for his own personal gain are likewise blurred. He even
soliloquises like his Aztec counterpart. I wonder if it’s a bit of purposeful
casting having a larger actor playing such a greedy, self-obsessed character?
You can tell its Peter Glaze just by his voice - I keep expecting him to shout
‘crackerjack’ and shove a couple of cabbages into the Second Elders arms.

Judging by the state of his

beard, the Second Elder could

tell the City Administrator

had had a croissant

for breakfast.

- the travellers are quick to judge the caste system on the
Sense-Sphere, which is a bit surprising considering they couldn’t be arsed to
give a reaction to the autocratic Conscience Machine when on Marinus.

- during the meeting with the First Elder everyone sits
around little metal tables - just like the ones you see in branches of Prêt A Manger. It looks like they’re
waiting for their milky decafs to arrive.

- did the First Elder just say ‘…a valuable whore’?

- isn’t the First Elder’s servant bony.

- thankfully we don’t get to see Ian spew all over the floor
after the Doctor gives him the salt and water mixture to drink after his
poisoning. We’re also spared the Sensorite servant mopping up the mess with a
squeegee.

'Waiter, what's this fly

doing in my soup?' asked

a disgruntled Susan. 'A

jolly good impersonation

of Esther Williams by the

looks of it' came the reply.

- it was a very wise decision on behalf of the director to
realise that Bill didn’t stand a chance of remembering the symptoms of atropine
poisoning, allowing him instead to produce some notes he’d made on it earlier.
Crafty bugger.

- there’s a poisoner at work, so what follows is a series of
cutaway scenes, played over some rather pensive music, as 1) the Doctor runs some
tests in an attempt to track down the source of the outbreak, 2) Susan mops Ian’s
brow (with a bloody great bath towel - there again, perhaps the Sensorite’s
haven’t invented the flannel yet) and 3) the First Elder crosses off his list of
districts with a felt-tip pen, looking for all the world as if he’s playing a
game of bingo (although as they’re in the tenth district, shouldn’t he be
crossing them off from the bottom up - surely you’d test the water from your own
area first?)

- Technobollocks - Radio-Electric Light, something
whereby you can see where you’re going whilst listening to
the top twenty at the same time? John’s condition, meanwhile, can be cured by the application of
some futuristic looking Carmen Rollers.

'Going anywhere nice on

your holidays this year

dearie?'

- Carol takes on Barbara’s traditional role during her
fortnight off, but she’s a poor substitute (considering she works in space
she’s hardly Sigourney Weaver, is she). She’s just a bit glum and always
thinking the worst - I bet people left via the back door in their droves
whenever she turned up at a party. First she thinks there’s no hope for John
and exiles him to the arse end of the spaceship and now she’s convinced the
Doctor and his friends are gonners after venturing into the aqueduct! Bloody
hell, talk about seeing the glass half empty! Hers would also have a bloody
great crack in it and somebody else’s lipstick around the rim. She’s also the
one to tell the funny little foreign chappies they all look alike, which is
possibly one of the most awkward moments in the series history, if not for the
Sensorites themselves, then certainly for us fanboys watching, as we squirm in
our seats trying to pretend it didn’t happen. The worst thing is, and I’m
loathe to say this, she does have a point. Throughout, I’ve been getting a bit
confused as to which Sensorite is which. I’m sure the City Administrator’s mask
changes with the wind, and I bet that even the production team were having to draw
lots as to who they thought was who. Part of the problem is that the masks the
actors wear have obviously come out of the same mould (some are a much better
fit on certain actors than others), and it's one that's only exacerbated by the
director having the actors double up in their Sensorite roles. Carol’s remark is outrageously rude and frankly racist, yet Peter R Newman thinking the Sensorites themselves won’t be able to tell each
other apart without the aid of their visible signs of office is where the real problem lies. Carol’s
observation shows how thoughtless and arrogant invading forces are - she’s
merely displaying an attitude that would follow en masse if the Earth ever did
decide to send in a colonisation force. What’s the Sensorites’ (and by extension, Peter R's) excuse? Surely their eyesight can't be that bad?

- from the painted backdrop it would appear that the First
Elder lives next door to the O² arena.

- Carol’s hair is the same shape as a Sensorite’s head!

- Frank Cox steps in to direct Kidnap and A
Desperate Venture. He also directed The Brink of Disaster…and
cocked that up too. Changing director mid-way through a story happens often in
the first season (sometimes having been planned that way, other times happening
out of necessity) and it just doesn’t work. To be fair they are having to
complete someone else’s work, using what’s available to get the job done,
without having had any real input of their own. It may be considered by “the
powers that be” that it’s good experience for new and inexperienced directors,
but when all’s said and done they are only doing half a job. All the groundwork
- employing the actors, deciding on a style, setting a tone - has been established by
the time they arrive, and I can imagine it’d just be a matter of them pointing
a camera in the right direction and getting it “in the can” before they’re able
to move onto something over which they’ll have complete control. Handing the
reigns over to a novice in such a way does give the show the air of a training film at times.

- I love the design of the Sensorite doors - they’re round.
In fact there are no hard edges at all evident in the design of their city -
their architecture reflects the gentleness of their personalities (well, not
the City Administrator’s…he a complete shit).

- Carol, who’s being held captive by the City Administrator,
must be absolutely feeble if she can’t deck a Sensorite to ensure her own
safety. I was going to suggest she kick him in the goolies, but their tight
costumes would suggest they don’t have any!

- Death-O-Meter: 39. Second Elder - killed with a
bitch-slap delivered by the Sensorite Engineer.

The Doctor's tests proved

conclusively that Sensorite

urine was completely

different to his own!

- Barbara’s back! Hooray! She’s instantly described by the
First Elder as being ‘…a very capable human being. Gentle, yet with strong
determination and courage.’ Ooooh hello! Is he joining the ever expanding list
of those wanting to get their leg-over?

- I preferred John before he was cured. He’s a bit of an
arrogant, know-it-all tosser now he’s better.

- exploring the aqueduct, Ian suddenly warns ‘Something moved
up ahead of us’, to which the Doctor rolls up the flimsy map they’ve been given
and hands it to his companion to use as a weapon! Oh for god’s sake, come back
Mervyn Pinfield, you really are sorely missed. Some directors really don’t
think things through and end up making a bit of a mockery of the show. Why not
have the Doctor give Ian the torch to hit the unseen figure with? It’s not as
if they need it anymore - the place is lit up like a sunny day in Blackpool now
Mr Cox has arrived on the scene (mood lighting goes right out the window with
his arrival). Rolled up map indeed! What does he expect him to do with it - shove
it any protagonists arse?

- it’s unforgivable to let Billy’s slip of ‘I-N-N-E-R’ go
out. He spells it out whilst the camera is in close up on the bit of cloth, so
why couldn’t Bill have dubbed the correct spelling on afterwards as a voice over?
Or just cut the dialogue completely and let the audience do the job of reading
it out for themselves? It really does feel as if the director isn’t competent
enough. What makes it worse is that Bill’s been so good up until now. It’s
almost as if a change of director has unnerved him and he’s lost his trust and
confidence and started to make stupid mistakes as a result

- apparently it was very hot in the studio when this was
being filmed, and indeed Jackie Hill does look a bit sweaty at times!

The two humans were

armed with extremely

large eyebrow pencils...

and they weren't afraid

to use them!

- The Humans - they’re
hairy, unkempt, in rags and carrying wooden stakes - hang on a minute, I’m
having a Tribe of Gum flashback! Interestingly it would appear there were no women on the first
human mission to the planet. Perhaps feral psychotic members of the fairer sex
was thought to be a bit too kinky for a Saturday teatime show…although that
didn’t stop them in 100,000 BC. It’s
good that at least one of the stranded spacemen blinks and screws up his eyes
upon leaving their underground lair - this is the first time in an age they’ve
been out in the open after all. Mind you, the other two don’t bother! Of
course, the Commander’s dislike for the unlike could have spelt the end of the
Sensorite race in the same way the arrival of Cortez spelt the end of the
Aztecs (there are also shades of Saunders from Kinda in his character). It’s funny how closely linked thematically
this story is with its predecessor, despite them being so vastly different in
style and ability. The reveal of these humans is all a bit rushed, yet at the
same time it feels as though what we get is enough.

- Henry VІІІ, Beau Brummel, Susan’s description of Gallifrey
and Esto - we learn more about the Doctor and Susan and their past travels in
this story than in any other so far.

Score on the
TARDIS Doors - 6 - it feels as if
halfway through this story the penny drops for everyone concerned and it
becomes the taut, claustrophobic, psychological thriller Peter R. Newman
intended it to be, as opposed to the “let’s all pretend we’re in outer space
and act a bit earnest approach” of the first half (even though I enjoyed it
more than I thought I would, especially the first episode). The addition of the
“monsters in the aqueduct” is a great little twist, even though it turns out
to be a red-herring. And that’s what I like so much about this story - there’s
always something new just around the corner that’s introduced just in time to
stop my interest from waning. It opens with the mystery of the astronauts, then
focuses on the unseen menace from the planet below, goes on to present the
Sensorites and their society in all its *ahem*
glory, brings in the mystery of the deadly nightshade poisoning, then seems to
veer off into a traditional "monster’s lurking in the dark" story and ends up
being a giant metaphor against colonialism. It’s interesting that, just like
the Sensorites, the humans have ended up referring to themselves by numbers
and titles, having seemingly forgotten the individual names they once had. This
story is all about identity, and how it can so easily be stripped away by outside forces, no
matter who you are or where you’re from.

The original "old man" look of the Sensorites (based on a likeness of Woody Allen,

or so it would appear) was thought to be just a bit too horrific for the kiddies watching

and was hastily redesigned at the last minute.