Day 18 — January 18th 2021
Kidnap and A Desperate Venture
Kidnap (The Sensorites — Episode Five)
Doctor Who namedrops Beau Brummell in this episode, and it’s reminded me that I wanted to try and keep track of his ‘celebrity’ namedrops throughout the series. We’ve already had quite a few by this point; Gilbert and Sullivan are the first at the end of The Brink of Disaster, the philosopher Pyrrho in The Keys of Marinus, and Henry VIII at the start of this story. I like the idea of him dropping in these references (and I like even more to assume that he’s not actually met any of them and is just making it all up), but what an unusual bunch to choose. The king, of course, and Gilbert and Sullivan have a certain cache, but did kids in 1964 have much concept of the other two?!
I’ll admit that my patience has slipped a little in this episode, and it’s certainly the weakest of the story so far, but there’s still plenty to enjoy. I think my biggest issue is that several elements of conflict are set up and then resolved very quickly, where they could be strung out for drama. Yes, that’s right, I’m complaining that The Sensorites is moving too quickly.
I’m as surprised as you, frankly.
Take, for example, the accusation that Doctor Who has attacked and killed the Second Elder. This could be a brilliant plot point, serving to shake the First Elder’s faith in these visitors to their world. While Ian’s cross-examination proving the ‘witness’ to this crime is lying, it feels a bit too easy. Doctor Who is accused, and less than two minutes later he’s been aquitted.
Now that could work. It could have ramifications, making the City Administrator’s attempt to seize control more difficult because now the First Elder is on the lookout for a traitor… but it doesn’t. It sort of goes nowhere. The Sensorite who gave false testimony is sent to prison, and then two scenes later he’s back, with a glib comment about the City Administrator having ensured his release. A little later on, the First Elder says he’s worried that a Sensorite might be plotting against him… but again, does nothing about it.
Then there’s our heroes accidentally ensuring that their enemy is promoted to a position of power. Again, there’s loads of scope for drama in that — they’ve removed the obstacles which were keeping him from beating them — but only a few minutes later they discover their mistake, and things carry on as before. And given that the City Administrator had been acting in the position of the Second Elder for a couple of episodes anyway, it does little to alter the plot.
I think there’s simply too many ideas being put into play too late in the story — they’re not given the room they need to breathe and serve as really effective drama.
A 5/10 for today.
A Desperate Venture (The Sensorites — Episode Six)
There’s more ideas being brought in during this episode — including the introduction of three entirely new characters — but I think it works better than in Kidnap.
The introduction of the three human survivors fighting their own little war in the aqueduct works surprisingly well, and they give the story a shot in the arm for it’s final instalment. I can’t help but wonder if we need to have them seeded in a little more than they have been, though. We’re told the story of the spaceship explosion in Episode Two, and there’s been little discussion of them since then. Even Doctor Who has had his suspicions since Episode Three with no hints towards this conclusion.
Oh, I’m complaining for the sake of it, though, because today’s been a really enjoyable one again. John Bailey is brilliant as the human commander, and his two subordinates are a fun introduction, too. There’s something that always captures my imagination in those stories of soldiers still fighting World War Two years or even decades later, and it works well as an analogy here.
I can’t let this episode pass without mentioning Susan’s description of her home world;
‘Oh, it’s ages since we’ve seen our planet. It’s quite like Earth, but at night the sky is a burned orange, and the leaves on the trees are bright silver.’
I remember when this description resurfaces in Gridlock there was a real thrill of excitement about it, and it is a lovely thing. I’m also fairly sure this is the first time the programme has ever expressly said that Doctor Who and Susan are from another planet. The first couple of episodes play vague, and you could read ‘their world’ as meaning a time in the future when Earth has changed massively from 1963.
It’s perhaps telling, though, that they stop short of confirming that they’re aliens. In the second episode Doctor Who says of the Sensorites ‘they can see better than we humans’ (emphasis mine), and Susan doesn’t say they’re not humans when describing her home, only that they’re not from Earth;
First Elder: ‘When I listen to you, you who are so young among your own kind, I realise that we Sensorites have a lot to learn from the people of Earth.’
Susan: ‘Grandfather and I don’t come from Earth.’
I look forward to seeing when they first make it explicit that Doctor Who is an alien.
A couple of other firsts pop up in today’s episode. With the exception of The Edge of Destruction — which is set almost entirely within the ship — this is the first time we see the TARDIS Interior in an episode but not the Exterior. We’ve had it the other way around lots of times. It’s also the first time it’s implied that the ship can float in space, as our heroes watch the human spaceship fly away in the final scene.
Oh, and I can’t not mention Jaqueline Hill’s fantastic tan when she arrives on the Sense Sphere. I reckon she’s been having a whale of a time on the tanning beds on the spaceship, and must have been gutted when some Sensorites came to take her down to the planet.
Overall, The Sensorites has been a nice surprise for me. I was always under the impression that it wasn’t as bad as ‘fan wisdom’ would make out, but I’ve really enjoyed it on this watch-through. I maintain that the first episode is an absolute classic, and although it sags a little in the middle, we end on a decent note today with a 7/10.
