Meglos

‘Meglos’ is a very odd story. It’s not very original. There’s a mysterious power source that can destroy planets. It’s a bit like ‘Colony in Space’s’ doomsday weapon. There’s a dopple-ganger, a guest appearance by Barbara Wring herself (Jacqueline Hill), a strange jungle and so utterly woeful CSO. There’s a random human character used to the give Meglos form, but the form of the Doctor. There is a bit of humour, in the form of  incredibly stupid characters, and a general mocking of religion in general.

The Doctor? NO! It's Meglos!

Again the story under-runs overall by a whopping 13 minutes too. Yet the ending appears rushed. There are some nice ideas in the story amongst it all, and interesting plot devices including trapping the Doctor, K-9 and Romana in a time loop, and they have to ‘throw it out of phase’ to break free. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense but they had to get out of it somehow.

Tom and Lalla try to get out of the timeloop.

Let’s start with the CSO. JNT wanted to make the show appear ‘less cheap’ when he took over, but after two stories has failed dismally. CSO has by this time been used in Doctor Who for a good decade, yet they can’t get it right. Feet disappear, hair looks strange, there’s a clear outline around the people… it’s shocking. In no way could the audience believe the actors are where they are supposed to be. And there-in lies the real problem of CSO, it’s destroys all suspension of disbelief.

Bad CSO

I like the idea of a cactus being the main villain. A talk cactus? Pretty cool all said. And they didn’t make the mistake of trying to make it move about at all. What really irks me about this story is the Dodecahedron. It is some mystical object that came to Tigella one day a long time ago and powers their city. Not only that, it is worshipped as a gift from the God Ti. It defies all plausibility. The followers of Ti and worshippers of the Dodecahedron are led by Lexa (Jacqueline Hill), and they all wear robes and have chants and it’s pretty appalling really. Jacqueline Hill is committed and wonderful I should add, it’s not her fault that it’s all so stupid.

She meets her doom after she’s been convinced the Doctor is telling the truth (after she tried to sacrifice him in a Batman-esque scene). An almost dead pirate takes a pot shot at Romana as he dies near the entrance, and she jumps in front of Romana to save her. It was really pointless strange death. It added nothing to the script at all.  I don’t understand why the authors – John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch killed her off. It just seemed cruel frankly.

Grugger and Brotodac.

It’s four episodes in which you wonder what happened. No-one gets to Tigella until episode two, Romana leads the pirates around and around in circles, people are confused as to who is the real Doctor and finally the Doctor turns the weapon in on itself.

The design is interesting, quite 80s. The costumes in particular, which sees normal Tigellans all where the same white wigs. What was that. It is visually far more interesting than ‘The Leisure Hive’ though. Lots of purples and greens in the jungle. The music is very similar to the previous story, but thankfully toned down considerably.

The biggest positive of this adventure is Tom Baker playing the Doctor and Meglos, which he takes in his stride and does a fantastic job of. Sadly we really only get one scene with the two of them together. The cactus effect on the skin of Meglos, played by Tom, looks very good too. But alas, there wasn’t a hell of a lot to hold my interest.

4/10

The Chase

Things didn’t get any better after ‘The Space Museum’. The audience were led into the next adventure, ‘The Chase’, with a teaser featuring the interior of the Dalek time ship, which was a white wall with a couple of things stuck on it.

Prop-orama! The Time-space visualiser!

Daleks on sand!

Generally, however, there appeared to me a lot more money spent on ‘The Chase’, however whether it was well spent, or enough, if is a different matter. After a story in ‘The Space Museum’ which offered no decent characters or character development at all save for maybe Vicki, The Chase whisks us from location to location with even less thought on the characters. It’s fair to say that all characters in this story bar the companions are nothing more than functional stereotypes.

Underground city of the Aridians

The first two episodes are set on a desert planet where the Aridians live. They used to live under a sea that is now gone, and their city is now hounded by Mire beasts. Terry Nation is the writer for this one, it is after all a Dalek story. However, an interesting world has been created but we hardly see any of it. The characters are inconsequential because the Daleks are after the Doctor and his companions.

On top of that the first half of episode one revolves around the ‘time-space visualiser’, a prop that is huge, probably cost a lot to make and makes no difference to the story whatsoever except to alert the Doctor and Barbara the Daleks are after them, which could have easily been done a different way.

The Aridians decide to give the Doctor and Co. Up very easily, but they escape the Daleks. Opportunities lost galore already for interesting ideas to be played out. 

Peter Purves as Morton Dill faces a Dalek.

Episode three and episode four are just pure farce. In some ways that’s okay. Peter Purves appears as Morton Dill, from Alabama on the top of the Empire State Building as the Doctor, Vicki, Barbara and Ian arrive and leave as do the Daleks. Then the chase moves to the Mary Celeste. The episode, I guess, is a bit of fun. Maybe I shouldn't criticise it for that, I don't know, but I like a story and characters that you can care about, interactions. This sort of stuff we are subjected two in the third and fourth episodes is the attraction, for me, of Doctor Who.

The Doctor and Ian in the house of horrors.

By the time episode four rolls along, this viewer was well and truly over this story. Episode four is boring, poorly done and incredibly pointless.

Episode five sees us move to Mechanus, where the Daleks send a ridiculous robot after the Doctor. Ridiculous because the actor looks nothing like the Doctor, it’s very embarrassing. The plant life is unbelievable and the studio floor has never stuck out worse than in this episode.

A Mechanoid, interesting but under-used.

Peter Purves as Stephen Taylor

The final part is a little better. Peter Purves returns, this time as Steven Taylor, and does a good job. The Mechanoids are actually interesting robots, and the final battle between them and the Daleks is actually well directed, except for the cartoon zaps and flashes which belong in the 60s’ series of Batman.

Ian an Barbara make a sad farewell in a lovely little sequence that round out this six-parter. But what can I say, it’s pointless!! Really truly sadly pointless. Okay, the title is ‘The Chase’, and that’s exactly what it is. Six episodes of being chased. It does nothing for me as a viewer. The worst story so far.

1/10

The Space Museum

This is the first story I have seen to really play around with time. I enjoyed many aspects of this story, and was a little underwhelmed by some others. I am assured by my most excellent friend Andrew, that this is a common thing when talking about this story!

Hello! That's us over there trapped in glass cases!

For those who haven’t seen it, the only talking characters in the first episode are the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki. They have arrived... before they have arrived! The TARDIS has slipped a track in time. They can’t touch anything, or hear or talk to anything. Thankfully walking is ok! They don't disappear into the ground. The museum is rather simple, but they discover themselves in glass cases as a museum exhibit. The remaining three episodes will have them desperately trying to avoid this future!

It’s a great set up, and no doubt the original audience had their interested more than well and truly pricked. However, what followed perhaps does not live up to what was promised. I watched this on one of your Earth DVDs, and also watched a piece by Rob Shearman on ‘Defending the Space Museum’. He suggested that the last three episodes are a basically a satire of the series, that it is all tongue in cheek.

The Morox were at least given interesting hair!

Either that or no-one really cared to put much time, money and effort into it. As Rob said, even the computer that guards the weapons’ store sounds bored. The production notes proudly tell of how they ran the serial well under budget, and it shows. There are no frills here on this plain, dull planet.

The first issue is that we get no sense of the planet beyond the space museum. It seems unlikely that a space museum that no one visits is basically the whole planet, yet everything seems centred around it. The writer, Glynn Jones has not taken the time nor effort to imagine what the world is like beyond the museum, so when he writes about rebels overthrowing their oppressors, and then they win and over throw them in the space of half an episode, well it’s not even vaguely believable.

The locals and their wonderful eyebrows.

No characters outside the Doctor, Ian and Vicki (Barbara has precious little to do in this one) are worth caring about. There’s no thought been put into any of the characters. Then the costume designer steps in and decides that all locals just wear black skivvies and have very bizarre eyebrows. The poor actors have had their eyebrows poorly covered with face make up and new ones drawn a centimetre higher. It looks bizarre and not slightly convincing.

The sets are all white walls with whatever bric-a-brac is lying around. They did a great job in saving money I expect but expressed nothing artistically in the look of the thing. The actors are all so bored with the one-dimensional characters they have been given nothing stands out at all.

Vicki plots revolution, to raised eyebrows! (lol - gosh I make myself laugh!)

Having ranted a bit, it’s not the worst bit of TV ever made, just very uninspiring.  It is watchable, but very hard to sit through the last three parts. Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) gets a decent part in this one at least. She defeats the bored computer and starts a revolution! Her energy and positivity towards the role is always unquestionable. In a rather dull story, she is the shining light!

4/10

The Web Planet

The Doctor, Vicki, Ian and Barbara arrive on the mysterious planet Vortis. Here they meet all manner of strange creatures – Menoptera, Optera, Zarbi, Larvi Guns and the Animus in one of the strangest adventures yet.

Barbara meets the Menoptra

Intelligent bug creatures are much more frequent in the Universe than most people might realise. I have met some nasties in my time – the Leeches spring to mind, big slugs always hell bent on sucking the life out of worlds, but all of these were new to me. In fact they were all pretty friendly in this tale, especially the Menoptera who were based on butterflies but definitely in design bore more than a passing resemblance to bees.

I think that ‘The Web Planet’ is an amazing vision. I think most of the design was wonderful, and Bill Strutton, the writer, was certainly brave to write a story where the Doctor and his companions were the only ‘humans’ in the story. It left quite the challenge for the design and costume team, and indeed the director Richard Martin.

For the most part they succeeded. The Vortis set works very well for such a limited space, and they even managed to make the Menoptra fly by hoisting them up on wires, no mean feat at all. They spent time at Eeling studios getting the shots, and it made me wonder why they didn’t just shoot the whole thing there! The smaller Riverside studios and the others that they used were clearly far too small for the show – just watch this story you will see a camera hit a part of the set on more than one occasion! No doubt it was all about money.

It's a Zzzzzarbi!

For the Doctor Who community, this story seems to divide opinions as far as I can tell. It was explained to me early on that Doctor Who was a children’s programme, and this story certainly feels like it. One could even say it was aimed at younger children than usual. I think as far as imagery goes, it’s outstanding. They achieved a lot on the tiniest of budgets. Unfortunately you could see where the budget couldn’t stretch any further – the Optera were added after the script felt a bit thin, and design-wise they drew the short straw. It’s almost as if someone hollowed out a stuff toy and threw an actor in the shell.

The Zarbi, I think, look very good. I know the actors legs are very obvious, but apart from that they are a different sort of creature compared to what has previously been seen in Doctor Who. Bill Strutton has created an amazing world with different types of insects, and the viewer feels like he understands the intricacies of the world he has created.

However, it really does feel like it’s totally aimed at children. There’s not a lot for the adult viewer. The other real negative is the pacing, it’s really very slow after episode one. There is a distinct lack of background music as well, and parts of the story would have been carried better if there was some background music, especially in the final episode.

Ian, Vicki and the Doctor inside the Carsanome.

Ian’s story line seems quite superfluous to the rest of the plot, but someone had to spend time with the Optera I guess. The story was running very short. The work done with the Menoptera by Roslyn de Winter was fantastic though, coming up with an alien way of speaking and moving. Very clever choreography and a great effort to make alien creatures actually seem alien.

In summary it’s hard to know what to make of this story as a piece. It’s too long, slowly paced and let down by the Optera costumes. However it’s a wonderfully created and very unique alien world. 

Barbara prepares the Menoptra to fight!

The imagination put into the creatures is fantastic, the opening episode is wonderful as are the Menoptera. The Animus voice is very good too, a lilting deep female voice – certainly not your average evil creature.

The heart of the Carsanome - the Animus

7/10

The Romans

I have to say, this is my favourite Doctor Who tale so far! I found ‘The Roman’s’ to be a highly entertaining four episodes with a fair deal of comedy thrown in for good measure. It’s interesting and a lot of fun – and the cast members seem to be having a fair bit of fun themselves.

The Doctor, Vicki, Barbara and Ian enjoy a relaxing, lighter moment.



William Hartnell and the gentle art of fisticuffs.

The first episode ‘The Slave Traders’ is a very strong start, and the cast member who really shines is William Hartnell. He is really on song in this episode and doesn’t miss a beat. The same can’t be said for the remaining episodes where he appears to be really struggling at times, but nevertheless the first episode is his highlight thus far. It’s great to have Maureen O’brien in as his sidekick too – she does a wonderful job, is bubbly and intensely interested and amused by what the goings on. Quite the opposite of Susan.

 

William Hartnell in the title role has a ball. He even gets into a fight with a mute, and kicks his pants! There's an awful lot of hitting people over the head with vases - Barbara even knocks Ian on the scone.



Ian rows for his life in a slace Galley Boat.

Barbara and Ian each have separate storylines after being sold as slaves which are quite interesting. As in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, Ian (William Russel) finds himself paired with another similarly aged man, Delos (Peter Diamond). Ian leads the way here too, and the pairing works well. Barbara has less funny being chased by Nero (played by Derek Francis, who is excellent) and seems to always be the character who has to endure unwanted sexual advances (such as in ‘The Keys of Marinus’).



Highlights of this story include the Doctor pretending to play the Lyre, doing a whole ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ scene, and again William Hartnell in general showing glee in giving Nero the idea to burn Rome. Barbara and Ian have some wonderful moments in the first and last episodes in the villa they are ‘borrowing’.

Less impressive stuff? Well there’s a scene in episode two or three when two gladiators are practicing in a courtyard and they go at each other with the enthusiasm of a sleeping grandmother. Then we have the cut at the end of episode two where Ian looks out his cel window to see lions outside – clearly stock shots from a circus or zoo, or both! Not to forget when Ian and Delos are inside the galley, a well made set, they appear to have a bucket of water thrown over them from behind the camera instead of it coming from through the oar holes! Also, after episode one, despite a wonderful portrayal, William Hartnell does seem to really struggle on his lines for the remaining three parts. This was probably as bas as he's been thus far.

The limitations are a bit obvious, but despite them the story is effectively told. The sets belie the limited studio space, but also show what could be done. Simple, but very effective use of curtains and more curtains, balconies and columns equals authentic Nero-era Rome! J

The recycling of cast members is a little more puzzling. The rogue who is dealing in the slave trade suddenly appears as the captain of Nero’s guard! If so why did he need to sell Barbara to Nero via a third agent?

The models at the end when Rome is burning are rather well done. It’s hard to criticise the design when money and space were so scarce. It was interesting to learn that this story was in production around the time ‘Carry On Cleo’ was released in cinemas. Dennis Spooner, the writer, seems to have written a few gags and situations that wouldn’t have gone amiss in the Carry On series!  I enjoyed the comic turn however, and thankfully he didn’t set too much of this one in prison cells (unlike his previous entry, ‘The Reign of Terror’.)

I can honestly say I think this is the best story so far.

 

9/10

The Rescue



Ian and Barbara are faced with Koquillion

Next story along came this little two-parter – and now my blog has caught up with what I have been watching. I realise now that to finish all of Doctor Who by the end of the year I need to average a bit more than two episodes a day. I have watched four in the last five days so I am in a bit of trouble there!



Anyways onto the story which sees the Doctor replacing his grand-daughter Susan with the new Vicki (Maureen O’Brien). I have to say, Vicki is a decided improvement in my eyes. She is smiling and interested by most things, and generally bubbly and happier than Susan. This little story is well done. A very simple plot in David Whitaker’s functional script. Functioned to introduce Vicki and fill two episodes that is. Set on the planet Dido, Vicki and Bennet (Ray Barret) are waiting for a rescue ship to take them off the planet, where they crashed. They are monstered by the strange looking Koquillion, who has a magic spanner that can blast things. Turns out Bennet was responsible for the murder of the entire crew of the ship, and was disguising himself as Koquillion performing an amazing double act.

Ray Barret as Bennet.

The story is simple and easy to follow. The Production must have had a very small budget, but they did very well with the money they had. The space ship looks good and the model shots I think are far better than those in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’. William Hartnell as the Doctor has a very good story, almost without a fluff. The finale is shot in the Hall of Judgement or some such place, and that set is simple but very well done. The only thing that doesn’t quite look right is the presence of a reel to reel tape recorder, which I doubt will be in use a couple of hundred years into the future. Your future that is, not mine. I’ve been there but I would be contravening one of the laws of time if I was to tell whether they were or were not in use definitively here on this 21^st century blog.

Wonderful combination shot using inlay. Very difficult for the time.

I must admit I thought that Barbara and the Doctor were a little callous towards Vicki after Barbara killed her pet ‘Sandy’. Vicki screamed out to Barbara not to kill Sandy, but she shot it with a flare anyway! Surely Barbara would have known by now that just because it looks like a monster, it’s not necessarily hostile? Then they try to pass it off (Barbara and the Doctor) as something that couldn’t be helped. Well, thanks a lot!

Not much else to talk about here. Ray Barret, an Australian, did a very fine job as Bennet who was doubling as Koquillion, a stand out performance. All the regulars were good too, Ian had a slightly quieter role in this one. I liked it.

8/10

The Dalek Invasion of Earth

The Daleks have returned! Well I didn’t see that coming! And this time they invaded the Earth! The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara must be wondering when they will land somewhere safe!

What to say about this story? It’s pretty good I guess, well done in parts and less so in others. The flying saucers were right out of Ed Wood for starters! The Slither wasn’t very good either. Some parts lacked sufficient background music. Never the less, on the flip side some great shots were achieved, and they got the show out of the TV studio.

‘World’s End’, the opening episode, is very well directed and paced. Another case of the Doctor and his band of merry women and one man exploring their surroundings and gradually becoming aware of where they are and what’s going on. Unfortunately Susan hurts her ankle in a piece of appallingly bad acting that is hard to ignore. She’s squealing again!

The Robomen. What can I say? I understand the need for them in Terry Nation’s story, but the polystyrene head-gear that they wear is a bit embarrassing from a design stand point. However, achieving the Dalek coming out of the Thames at the end of the first episode is something the production team should be very proud of. I have never seen an In grin come out of water. The stuff on film generally looks great.

The plotline is definitely, though, B-movie. I don’t know if B-movie is a step up or down for Doctor Who to be honest. The way the explanations are delivered is not so well written for example. It’s very plain and functionary. However, direction Richard Martin did a great job with cross fades and the like to spruce it up visually.

 

For this viewer, the saucers are the biggest point of embarrassment (for the production team), both in design and in being in the story in the first place, and the detonation device in the final two episodes that is supposed to break the Earth’s crust. The model shots may have a lot of detail, but sadly look like toys. Ian spends all this time phaffing around inside the device pulling out wires, and later he manages to stop it with a couple of thin logs. Meanwhile all that was needed to defeat the daleks was ordering the robomen to turn on them.

The scenes are rather good at the end though, with the humans destroying the Daleks. The shot with a Dalek lifted above their heads is particularly memorable.

The costume people did something interesting with the character Jenny, played by Ann Davies . Apparently her hair wasn’t prepared for the film shots, so she had to wear and extremely comical

balaclava for exterior shots (and some studio work too). Bernard Kay is rather good in this as Tyler – I wonder if he’s likely to reappear in another story? Probably not, they wouldn’t re-engage the same actor for different roles in this series I imagine.

Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) has a nice role to play in this story, her character is very strong and she seems to enjoy the role. She is split from the rest, and so is Ian who has his own story. Susan spends most of the story with the Doctor and David (Peter Fraser) – where she falls in love. She has her fair share of screaming and crying, but a very nice final scene. The Doctor leaves her on Earth to start a life with David.  The final scene is very moving indeed and well delivered from the two actors.

The story has a few ridiculous things in it, and at the same time it is rather harsh at times. We get to see more death at the hands of the Daleks than in the first instalment, a lot of it is quite brutal in as much as it was needless. Perhaps the most horrific scene is the one where the character       is strangled to death by his brother, now a roboman.

London is destroyed by firebombs, but we really don’t see any of the devastation. Only one bomb is diffused, and most of the city should be in ruins, yet Barbara and Jenny don’t even hear the bombs exploding and drive off through London in an ancient fire truck, a London showing no signs of the fire bombs. It’s a nice scene, but the Dalek’s appear to have the least effective bombs ever devised.

To summarise though, I think the production team were easily attempting the ‘biggest’ story they had ever done. They were raising the bar with props, locations, characters and the like. The story is well paced and well done on the whole, especially for what was possible at the time and keeping in mind the limited budget.

 

7/10

Planet of Giants

Would I be the only one who found the title misleading to this new Doctor Who adventure/Susan scream fest? I mean, the Doctor and his company are shrunk down to the size of an inch, whereas all the other characters are normal size. So there are no actual giants. To be honest, I was disappointed.

On the other hand, a tricky concept to pull off and I think the production mostly succeeded in this story. Very big props were made for the actors to cart about and the giant-sized sets were excellent, I don’t think anyone could disagree with that. It’s just a pity that the storyline was a bit naff.

The soundtrack was very interesting I thought. Very much of the time. This was a rare case of the Doctor, Ian and Barbara possibly returning to their own time on Earth, but nothing is made of that at all despite Ian and Barbara desperately wanting to go home. Instead of the production team making something set in the far past or future, this story is very clearly ‘the early 60s’ in its design, its look and its feel. It felt very strange after watching the first eight stories, it was nothing like them.

 

And the Doctor etc etc don’t for a second really interact with the other characters, which makes two separate plots basically. There is the storyline concerning the nasty Alan Tilvern (Forester) who is happy to make money from an insecticide that will kill almost anything in its path. He shoots a man from the ministry and spends the three episodes trying to cover it up, with the aid of the scientist who invented the insecticide, and the storyline following the Doctor and his companions.

Once again, due to little more than curiosity, they find themselves separated from the TARDIS. Their only goal really is to get back there, alive. Barbara is infected by the insecticide when she handles a grain doused in the stuff, and for some reason tells no one about it for ages! A very odd thing to do really, there was no real motive behind it.

 

Credit where credit is due, the design, the sets, the props are all fantastic. A lot of work went into that aspect of the story. If it was going to interest or convince anyone, then they needed to be good and they were. I have learnt through my friend Andrew who seems to know a lot about this mysterious series that there was originally four episodes, and the squashed episodes three and four together because it didn’t sustain enough pace for four full episodes. I could see a case for making it only two to be honest! Nevertheless, it was far from all-bad. Well-directed, but the plot-line is simply too thin to sustain the story. Lack of interactions between the Doctor, his companions and the other characters limited dialogue, although it is an interesting way to do a story, with the other characters not even aware of the Doctor’s existence. The first time they’ve tried that.

For it to sustain three or four episodes, perhaps more characters are needed. You could still keep the split in the action, but the storyline external to the Doctor and co. needed a bit more intrigue.

An interesting study of what it’s like to affect an environment, a situation, without direct communication nor interaction with it.

 

4.5/10

The Sensorites

So we did, after all, go to the future from the past. From ancient Mexico to an age when humankind has ploughed the depths of space, and a space ship is trapped orbiting the Sensphere. I hadn’t heard of these Sensorites before, but I was interested to find out about them. There are many telepathic races out in the Universe, I’ve met a few of them myself.

The first episode, entitled ‘Strangers in Space’, was an interesting affair. Very atmospheric I thought, the design of the space ship was excellent if limited. I gather this story was shot in a very small space. The futuristic episodes especially seem to have a pattern of the Doctor and his team arriving and spending most of the first episode exploring and finding out where they are, this was no exception.

Barbara and Susan meet Crazy John.

They didn’t have so much to explore this time, but we were introduced to slightly melodramatic Maitland (Lorne Cossette) who is the sometimes sleeping sometimes awake captain of the vessel. There is something claustrophobic and scary about most of the first episode. Some good acting from Stephen Dartnell are the unbalanced John adds to that feeling. It all builds nicely.

Then the head of a Sensorite pops up on the screen and that kinda killed it to a certain extent.

It’s not fast paced, and the Sensorites masks are rather abysmal to be brutally honest. It’s almost like a sock over the face with needless beards. No female Sensorites either, and they definitely come across as male rather than sexless. The actual costumes are plain and uninspired. The best of the serial comes from the psychological build up that really dissipates in episodes three and four when they are down on the planet.

Naughty Sensorites who wish the Doctor harm are written and played so predictably that it’s tedious before that strand of the storyline even begins! However, Peter R Newman, who wrote this possibly true tale for its video visual interface, adds a nice twist. The real villains of the peace are actually EARTHMEN who are poisoning the water supply and killing the poor Sensorites. That was a nice twist indeed, and probably very radical for 1964. If this was fiction that is. And I really am not sure. I just know my adventures most certainly did happen to me!

The Sensorite who is very xenophobic is the ‘city administrator’. What is very strange is that he takes of some rings and plonks on a sash and fools everyone into believing he is the first elder. Even in black and white with poor definition the Sensorites look slightly different to the casual viewer. Surely other Sensorites wouldn’t be fooled? And then his demise is not even shown. The First Elder says he suddenly admitted to everything. Very loose piece of plotting. Unless it really happened like that.

This is a good story for William Hartnell as the Doctor. He gets to do stuff. Sadly we miss Barbara for a couple of episodes as she is stuck on the ship. William Russel gets sick for a bit too so the Doctor and Susan carry a fair bit of the storyline. Perhaps too much is carried by the Sensorites themselves. I liked the idea of them but not the realisation. It makes it very difficult to comment on the general acting too.

Nevertheless, I didn’t hate this story, was interested by it at points and thought some of the mood created early was excellent. I’d challenge anyone though to honestly say it doesn’t drag!

 

6.5/10