A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 32. The Unwilling Warriors (The Sensorites, Episode Two)

This serial is six parts....and like the other serial that we’ve seen that’s more than four parts, there’s a stop-and-start feel to this one so far.  The bulk of this episode is literally people opening and closing doors and being spooked by the creatures on the other side and vice versa.

And it’s that vice versa aspect that makes this half hour mildly interesting.  Writer Peter Newman and Director Mervyn Pinfield make it very clear that the Sensorites are pretty freaked out by humanity...which makes their boasting and ultimatums feel like something other than ‘we’re Eeeeeeevil, Ertsmans!  Fear us!’  It makes these proclamations nervous and anxious, like they’re not even sure if they believe their boasts.  And the fact that their idea of a solution to the problem posed by their holding the spaceship hostage is not to destroy everything but set up a home on the Sense Sphere for them and take care of them makes those boasts seem even more hollow.

Now that we see them for a length of time, the Sensorites are better than the Voord but a little lacking when put up against the Daleks.  Sure, the onsies with the circular booties that look somewhat-but-not-quite like a psuedopod are...odd, and the stethoscope they seem to use to communicate with others (the item that inspired the Ood holding their communication device--and later, their brains--in their hand connected to an umbilical cord) is strange.  It does seem that the design was inspired by the classic ‘Grey Alien’ conception with their elongated heads and all-black eyes...but they’ve also got these weird ruffs of hair that obscures their jaws which gives the Sensorite a distinctive look.

Surprisingly--maybe because, I speculate, that Carol Ann Ford is beginning to sour on being the designated whiner of the crew--Susan takes center stage.  She figures out how to hold off the Sensorites because...she turns out to be psychic.  This creates a relationship between the two aliens and Susan, which prompts them to try and communicate with the crew.  This leads to Susan agreeing to go to the Sense Sphere, and she warns them not to follow.  These actions really makes her stand out for a change.

We also learn more about why the Sensorites are a bit suspicious of humans.  It turns out that the Sense Sphere is rich in Molybdenum,  which our friend John got so excited at finding out that the aliens zapped them to keep them from telling Earth....and the Sensorites also alude to a previous Earth expedition that triggered a disease that’s killing the whole race.  So one of the nicer things about Newman’s script continues, in that our aliens aren’t cardboard conquerors but intelligent people who might actually have some good reasons not to trust us.

(Oh, and nowhere are there ‘Unwilling Warriors’...unless the episode title refers to the Sensorites themselves or the controlled humans--who, given they’re controlled to sleep, aren’t much in the way of warriors...)

Once again, I can see how this half hour could’ve been condensed and rejiggered so that the serial could’ve been four episodes.  I like where Newman is going with his story.  I just wish it wasn’t so...leisurely.