The library has some Doctor Who dvds. I decided to start watching some of the older shows to see if I might like them. I had seen a lot of Doctor Who episodes in the 1960's and don't remember them that fondly. I never got interested in later revivals either. Since the library has a good number of them and I always need some new SF stuff to watch sunday mornings I put one of their older stories on my request list.
The Sensorites is the 7th serial and it was broadcast June 20 - August 1 1964. The Tardis comes to rest inside a spaceship that has a crew of three. They appear to be dead but they are only in suspended animation. No prop money for a fancy life support booth, the crew is just sitting in chairs. They tell the Doctor and his posse, Susan, Ian and Barbara, that the Sensorites are aliens who have mind control. The Sensorites steal the lock from the Tardis while the Doc and gang are standing 15 feet away. Susan smelt something burning and no one ever turned their heads. We see the alien hand for several seconds, a couple of times, no one notices that going on just feet away. They were all in the same room. Unbelieveable. I understand it's a low budget tv program but, really.
The Doctor comes off as a bit of a dick to me. I don't care for him very much at all. William Hartnell plays the Doctor. He played him from 1964 to 1966 when the second Doctor arrived from the regeneration chamber. Maybe he mellows into the part in later episodes. The Tardis crew gets taken to the Sensorites planet where the aliens have had some trouble with human's visisting before. There's a disease that is killing the Sensorites and Ian gets it. The Doctor comes up with a cure and saves everyone. Turns out the visiting humans had been poisoning the water supply. There's also a revolt in the government. Some of the Sensorites want to kill the Doc and his people. That takes a while to get straight but things work out for the most part.
It's better than I thought it might be. The aliens are kind of interesting, though their costumes and makeup wasn't very good. The the sets are pretty sad but some of the props were kind of nice. They try hard to make do with what is probably a miniscule budget. There is commentary on the shows. I listened to a good chunk of that. There are some short pieces, mostly interviews, one of which finds out more about the writer of the serial. That was almost as interesting as the tv show. I'll put another on my request list at the library and see what turns up next week.
Comments