User:KJBracey/The Sensorites

The Sensorites is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from June 20 to August 1, 1964. The third episode was postponed by one week following the overrun of sports programme Grandstand.

Synopsis
The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan arrive in the TARDIS on board a spaceship. The ship's human crew are suffering from telepathic interference from the Sensorites, a race of reclusive aliens fearful of an attack from other species.

Strangers in Space
The TARDIS travellers land on a moving spaceship and find the crew apparently dead. However, one of the crew members, Captain Maitland, regains consciousness and Ian Chesterton fully revives him and another woman, Carol Richmond. These two tell the travellers that they are on an exploration mission from Earth and are orbitting Sense-Sphere. However, its inhabitants, the Sensorites, refuse to let them leave the orbit. The Sensorites visit and stop the travellers from leaving, while sending them on a collision course, which the Doctor diverts. The travellers then meet John (whose mind has been broken by the Sensorites) and find out that he is Carol's fiancé. Returning to plague the crew, the Sensorites freeze Carol and Maitland once more.

The Unwilling Warriors
The Doctor breaks Maitland's mental conditioning, but cannot help John. Susan's telepathic mind is flooded with the many voices of the Sensorites who remain scared of the humans and are trying to communicate with her, but. Meanwhile, The Doctor works out that the Sensorites attacked the human craft because John, a minearologist, had discovered a vast supply of molybdenum on Sense-Sphere. Susan reports that the Sensorites want to make contact with travellers, asking the crew to go aboard Sense-sphere and reveal that a previous Earth expedition caused them great misery. The Doctor refuses but Susan, under duress, agrees and departs.

Hidden Danger
The Doctor deduces that the Sensorites need plenty of light, so Ian reduces the lighting on the ship, in a bid to rescue Susan. As a result, Susan returns to the spacecraft. The Doctor then asks the Sensorites to return his lock and is invited to go to Sense-Sphere to speak with the leader. Susan, Ian, Carol and John join him while Barbara and Maitland stay behind. John is promised that his condition will be reversed. On their journey to Sense-Sphere, the party learn that the previous visitors from Earth exploited Sense-sphere for its wealth, then argued. Half of them stole the spacecraft, which exploded on take-off.

The Sensorite Council is divided over the issue of inviting the party to Sense-Sphere: some of the councillors plot to kill them on arrival, but some believe that the humans can help with the disease that is currently killing many Sensorites. Their first plot is foiled by the other Sensorites, but they continue to plot in secret. The humans are not told of the first plot, and John and Carol are cured. In the main conference room, Ian starts vomiting and collapses. Suffering from the disease that has blighted the Sensorites, he is told that he will soon die.

A Race Against Death
It turns out that Ian was actually poisoned by drinking water from the general aqueduct. The Doctor finds the problem aqueduct and starts work with the Sensorite scientists. The plotting Sensorites impersonate the Sensorite leader and steal the new cure, before it is given to Ian, but a new one is made easily and Ian is cured.

Meanwhile, investigating the aqueduct, the Doctor finds strange noises and darkness. He finds and removes deadly nightshade (the cause of the poisoning), but on going back, meets an unseen monster.

Kidnap
Susan and Ian find the Doctor unconscious with a ripped coat, but otherwise unharmed. On being recovered, he tells of his suspicion that some Sensorites are plotting to kill them. The plotting Sensorites kill the Second-Chief and one of them replaces him in his position.

John tells the others that he knows the lead plotter, but he is now too powerful, so The Doctor and Ian go down to the aqueduct to find the poisoners. Their weapons and map were tampered with and are useless. Elsewhere, a mysterious assailant abducts Carol.

A Desperate Venture
The City Administrator forces Carol to write saying she has left back for the ship. Neither Susan, John or Barbara believe this so they go to investigate and find her imprisoned. Susan, John and Barbara overpower the guard and release Carol. On finding out about the tampered tools, they go into the aqueduct to rescue the Doctor and Ian. The leader discovers the plotters a little while later.

Ian and the Doctor discover that the monsters were actually the survivors of the previous Earth mission, and they had been poisoning the Sensorites. Their deranged Commander leads them to the surface, where they are arrested by the Sesnsorites. The Doctor and his party return to the city, pleading clemency for the poisoners. The leader of the Sensorites agrees and sends them back with Maitland, John and Carol to Earth, for treatment for madness.

Cast

 * Dr. Who — William Hartnell
 * Ian Chesterton — William Russell
 * Barbara Wright — Jacqueline Hill
 * Susan Foreman — Carole Ann Ford
 * John — Stephen Dartnell
 * Carol — Ilona Rodgers
 * Maitland — Lorne Cossette
 * Commander — John Bailey
 * First Human — Martyn Huntley
 * Second Human — Giles Phibbs
 * First Sensorite/First Scientist — Ken Tyllsen
 * Second Sensorite/Second Scientist/Warrior — Joe Greig
 * Third Sensorite/City Administrator — Peter Glaze
 * Fourth Sensorite — Arthur Newall
 * First Elder — Eric Francis
 * Second Elder — Bartlett Mullins
 * Sensorites — Anthony Rogers, Gerry Martin

Cast notes

 * Actor and variety performer Peter Glaze appeared as the Third Sensorite. However his familiar face is obscured by his Sensorite mask.
 * Arthur Newall also appeared as a Sensorite in this story, not a Dalek as is commonly believed.
 * Stephen Dartnell appears as John. He had previously appeared as Yartek in The Keys of Marinus.
 * John Bailey, later to feature as Edward Waterfield in 1967's The Evil of the Daleks has a role here as the Commander.
 * Jacqueline Hill does not appear in episodes 4 and 5.

Susan's telepathy
This episode is known for Susan's use of telepathy. The earlier character conception of Susan had her as a less ordinary girl who had unusual abilities, of which Susan's abilities in this story may been seen as one of the few remnants. At the end of the story, Susan loses her telepathy because according to the Sensorites, the Sense Sphere "has an extraordinary number of ultra-high frequencies, so I won't be able to go on using thought transference." However, the Doctor says that she has a gift and "when we get home to our own place, I think we should try to perfect it."

Whether Time Lords in general have telepathy is unclear. In The Three Doctors (1973) and The Five Doctors (1983) the different incarnations of the Doctor were able to telepathically communicate with each other, but it was not certain if this was an innate ability of their race or the fact that they were the same person. The TARDIS, though, has 'telepathic circuits' and the Doctor uses them to send a message to the Time Lords at the climax of Frontier in Space (1973); the Doctor displays telepathic (and apparent telekinetic) abilities at the climax of The War Games (1969), sending a message home on this occasion by placing his thoughts via a trance into an assembling box that is somehow then transmitted through time and space. The Tenth Doctor read the mind of Madame de Pompadour in The Girl in the Fireplace (2006).

The spin-off media have made it more explicit that Time Lords have limited telepathic abilities, but the canonicity of these sources is unclear.

Trivia

 * The name Sensorites is pronounced 'sens-or-ites', not 'sen-sor-ee-tes'.
 * The story is the first to make use of humans in contemporary-looking space suits, notwithstanding apparently being set in the 28th century. This contrasts with previous serials which had either been set in the present or past, or had featured no humans except Ian and Barbara. It thus provides the series' first glimpse into mankind's future.
 * Designer Raymond Cusick used almost all curves in his sets for the Sense Sphere, feeling that this would give a more alien look.
 * The serial was novelised for Target Books by Nigel Robinson in February 1987 as Doctor Who: The Sensorites.
 * A young Richard Branson bought the rights to manufacture Sensorite action figures but failed to get the project off the ground.
 * In the Doctor Who Confidential episode, "You've Got the Look" (released to accompany The Impossible Planet), Russell T. Davies said that he wanted the Ood to resemble the Sensorites, and that he likes to think they come from a planet near the Sense Sphere.

Target novelisation

 * On Target — The Sensorites
 * On Target — The Sensorites