Alright, here’s what we got....The Doctor is not so keen on Susan going alone, and uses his postulation that the Sensorites would be blind in the dark (for reasons that I don’t think are entirely scientifically accurate) to both get her back and show that they are not hostile. After some negotiations, The Doctor, Ian, Susan, John and Amy Schu--I mean Carol are brought to the Sense Sphere for a conference with the First Elder, An attempted assassination of the crew is foiled by The Second Elder before any suspense is generated, and we learn the backstory of our aliens dujour. It seems that the previous human expedition had an accident as they left the planet, causing the spaceship to explode. Ever since, Sensorites have been dying except for the Elder Caste from some sort of disease and they’re desperate for a cure. The Doctor offers to find a cure in exchange for the lock of the Tardis and The First Elder accepts...just before Ian falls prey to that very same illness.Remember when I mentioned how I suspected Carol Ann Ford was expressing displeasure with her role as whiner-and-cryer, leading to her being proclaimed psychic in this serial? We see more of that effort to give her more dimension in her interactions with The Doctor, asserting that she is an adult capable of making her own decisions and not needing to be saved. I could say that this is Newman planting the seeds for Ford’s departure next season, but I don’t think the production was thinking that far ahead. Still, it’s nice to see Susan actually doing something as opposed to crying for her grandfather. It’s also nice that Hartnell manages to work some of the intensity from the earlier serials into this softer version of him he’s been doing here in his protectiveness of Susan and his outrage at the Sensorites’ initial actions.
I still really like how Newman is approaching the Sensorites not being ‘eeeeeeevil’....except when we meet the one who is. The one actor who portrays the City Administrator, who plots the assassination of our crew--even to the point of debating where to place the shots of the disintegrator with his lackey--made my eyes roll. After two episodes hinting at this being a story without a real villain, we get this goof. There’s also the introduction of a caste system that is obviously a part of the whole reason for this story once you realize the arc of the disease plot, yet is kind of waved away in two lines of dialogue. These aspects don’t break the serial for me (so far), but they certain do draw attention away from the positive elements of this story.
I am worried we’re getting the same sort of ‘narrative drift’ I detected in ‘The Daleks'--I can easily see the bulk of this and the last episode being condensed into a single half-hour--and the actors playing the spaceship crew are still not doing themselves any favors (they have a scene all to themselves this episode and it’s death, and it’s encouraging that John and Carol seem to be written out once everyone arrives to Sense Sphere), but I am trying to keep my mind open as this serial unfolds. Russell T. Davies must have seen something in this serial to inspire him to create what amounts to a key element in his run; I am hoping that is revealed before everything shakes out. There is charm here, but fans do not live on charm alone.
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