"Always search for truth. My truth is in the stars "


SERIES 1

THE DALEKS

Written by Terry Nation
Directed by Christopher Barry (episodes 1,2,4 & 5) & Richard Martin (3,6 & 7)

TX - 21st December 1963 - 1st February 1964



The TARDIS lands in the middle of a petrified jungle where everything turns to dust with no signs of life anywhere. The travellers miss the warning given by the TARDIS and are unaware that the place is covered in high levels of radiation and go out to explore. When they reach the end of the jungle they find a huge sprawling futuristic city, again with no signs of life.
The Doctor wants to go and look at it but the rest of the travellers want to leave, especially after Susan is startled in the jungle and then they hear something trying to get into the TARDIS from outside. During take-off The Doctor sabotages the ship and tells the rest of the crew that they need more Mercury to fix the ship's fluid link before they can leave and there is only one possible place to get it from, the city. Meanwhile the crew are getting more and more sick from the effects of the high levels of radioactivity on the planet.

Regular Cast

Notable Guest Cast

Alan Wheatley as Temmosus - Made his name as The Sheriff of Nottingham in ITC's big budget 'Adventures of Robin Hood' in 1954. Also played Sherlock Homes in the BBC's adaptation of him in 1951. But from now on he will always be known as the first man ever to be exterminated by a Dalek.

Philip Bond as Ganatus - Another actor who would go on to have a starring role in The Onedin Line, this time as the wealthy Albert Frazer. Accomplished jobbing actor who has appearances in most British TV dramas up until the present day. Known now as being the father of Samantha Bond who appeared in the James Bond franchise as Miss Moneypenny alongside Pierce Brosnan's portrayal of 007.

Virginia Wetherell as Dyoni - Would appear in many Hammer Horror movies in the 60s & 70s. Married to fellow Hammer actor Ralph Bates, her most high profile role was in 'A Clockwork Orange' where she plays the naked stage dancer towards the end of the movie.

John Lee as Alydon - Australian actor who spent most of the 60s in the UK. Went back to his native Australia where he would appear in Prisoner Cell Block H and then onto Neighbours playing Len, the husband of Mrs Mangle.

Peter Hawkins & David Graham - Dalek Voices- Name any British kids TV show from the mid 50s to the present day and you can bet that either one of these men were involved in doing a voice over for a character on it.

Hawkins was responsible for The Flower Pot Men, Noddy, Captain Pugwash, Tin Tin and voiced Zippy in Rainbow's first series. He also voiced the first ever Cybermen in The Tenth Planet. Ironically he died in 2006 the very same day that a Cyberman story was being shown on BBC TV , The Season 2 finale Doomsday.

Graham was responsible for doing lots of voice overs for many of Gerry Andersons shows such as Stingray, Fireball XL5 and most notably Thunderbirds where he voiced most of the main cast. In 2015 at the age of 90 he voiced 'Brains' in the CGI remake of Thunderbirds.

Trivia & Continuity

This story was never intended to be called The Daleks. It was originally named The Mutants. But then in 1972 another story also called The Mutants was aired (also directed by Christopher Barry ironically.)
In 1973 for the shows 10th anniversary the BBC put out a special magazine with an episode guide giving names to all the full stories for the first time as opposed to the individual episode titles that were shown on screen. In that publication this story was named 'The Dead Planet'.
It was during the 1980s when more and more factual material about Doctor Who was being printed this story became known as The Daleks, mostly out of convenience.

The individual episode titles for this story were as follows
Episode 1: The Dead Planet
Episode 2: The Survivors
Episode 3: The Escape
Episode 4: The Ambush
Episode 5: The Expedition
Episode 6: The Ordeal
Episode 7: The Rescue
All 7 episodes exist in the BBC archives

On the planet Skaro there were two races, The Dals and The Thals. The Dals were a highly intelligent race of teachers, philosophers and scientists while the Thals were a warrior race. A vicious war between the two of them saw each other wiped out by an atomic blast almost 500 years before the Doctor's arrival. The Thals were able to survive by developing anti radiation drugs and becoming farmers by finding small plots of land unaffected by radiation and relying on special rare weather patterns that are becoming increasingly more rare meaning that if things don't improve they may die of starvation.
The Dals retreated to the underground of their city and encased themselves inside machines to protect them from the radiation, they also learned to develop and grow their own food under the city using artificial growing methods. They are increasingly becoming dependant on the radiation on the planet to survive.
Neither race seems aware that the others still exists until The Doctor shows up.

The Daleks we see here are not the full on ranting, trigger happy, exterminating ones we see of later years. They are confined to their city having to have contact with metal floors to be powered, they don't even appear to have had space travel, let alone time travel like they would a few stories later. Rather than kill Ian when he tries to escape they only paralyse his legs. When Susan comes back to the city with the anti-radiation drugs from the Thals she brings two boxes because she knows The Daleks will take one. When they do they still allow her to keep the other box to save the TARDIS crew. Having said that they do lure the Thals to the city with the promise of food with the sole intention of bumping the whole lot of them off, which they would have done had Ian not warned them of it being a trap.

The Daleks use the Thal's drugs on some of themselves and it causes them to get sick. They then realise they need the radiation to survive and plan to detonate another atomic bomb into the atmosphere.

Inside the TARDIS we get our first looks at the TARDIS Fault Locator and the TARDIS food machine.

The Doctor starts his running joke of getting Ian Chesterton's name wrong. In this story he refers to him as Chesserman and Chesterfield.

Episode One had to be totally re-shot when it was discovered talkback from the production gallery had interfered with the microphones and was audible throughout the episode recording. Shortly before the recording of episode 2 news was given to the cast and crew about the death of JFK, there was some suggestion the recording would be cancelled but it went ahead anyway.

The viewing figures jumped from 6.5 million for episode 2 to 9 million for episode 3. The last two episodes were watched by 10.5 million.

Sydney Newman hated the story and was furious when he read the scripts.
When the viewing figures came in he realised his mistake and decided that he had hired the right producer in Verity Lambert and from then on left her alone to do the job. He wouldn't get involved in Doctor Who again until 3 years later.

The designer that was allocated to The Daleks on the BBC staff rota was a young designer by the name of Ridley Scott. However a last minute screw up meant he was replaced by Raymond Cusick, and it was he who created the Daleks iconic design. Apart from directing a few small movies nobody has heard of such as Blade Runner, Alien & Gladiator nobody knows what happened to Ridley Scott.

Cusick's original Dalek design was more cylindrical in shape, which he changed when he realised the actors would have to stand up inside them all day. He then expanded the bottom to make the base wider so the actors could sit on a small tricycle and control it using that. In the end he decided to have just a seat and have the base move along on castors. You can see his early designs here.

The reason for the sink plunger was because they ran out of time and money, the idea was to have some kind of multi-purpose tool instead.
One dalek in this story has a welding tool instead of a sucker, each sucker contained a strong magnet so they could pick up props.

Because script writers working on BBC shows were hired freelance writers this meant they owned the rights to anything in the show they created. As Terry Nation created The Daleks it was he who cashed on the Dalekmania of the 60s and became a millionaire off of it. As a BBC staff designer Raymond Cusick felt that he deserved a cut of this money having created the design. On leaving the BBC in 1966 he was given £100 and a gold Blue Peter badge for his efforts.

Creating the Daleks was too big a job for BBC visual effects so their head Jack Kine suggested to Verity Lambert they use an outsider contractor named Shawcroft Models, who made 4 full size Dalek models for the price of £350, they also made the huge Dalek city model.
Shawcroft would be used to supply the shows special effects throughout the early years of the show.

The cliffhanger at the end of episode 3 when the Dalek claw creeps out of the cloak that it's bundled up inside was created by taking a hand off a gorilla costume and covering it in Vaseline.

In 1977 Northern Soul DJ and film collector Ian Levine approached the BBC about the possibility of selling him some episodes of Doctor Who they no longer had any use for. They told him that he could and sent him to their tape archive at Villiers House. On arrival he found all 7 episodes of this story sitting outside wrapped up in tape ready to be junked. He rescued them and then made calls within the BBC to stop them from junking any more episodes. Levine once said had he arrived one day later this story would no longer exist, although years later some episodes did turn up dubbed in Arabic.

In 1965 Milton Subotsky would adapt this story for Amicus Productions (Hammer's rival horror studio in the UK) for the first ever Dalek movie entitled Doctor Who And The Daleks, with Peter Cushing playing a human inventor named 'Doctor Who'.

Opinion
I have to admit I've never really paid much attention to this story before. In fact when I sat down to watch it over the past couple of nights I think that may be the only time I have watched this story from start to finish. Not being much of a fan of the Daleks and knowing how slow the show was in 1963/4 I can't say I was all that thrilled about watching all 7 episodes, but it surprised me.

What I really enjoyed about the story is the characterisation and the interplay between the regulars during the first four episodes. The Doctor takes great delight in sabotaging his own ship just to get his own way like a child and yet is really concerned when Susan is distressed and has a quiet word with Barbara asking her to talk to Susan as he feels that Barbara could do a better job of calming her than he could. I love the way during episode 7 he takes an almost childlike glee in smashing up the Daleks security system.

Ian gets to be heroic by making the Doctor accountable when his actions endanger the life of the crew. He is also strong for Barbara when she is scared of the alien-ness of everything around them and just wants to go home and basically tells her that while she's with him she'll always stand a chance of going home.

Barbara seems to make a real impression on the men in this story. In episode one she's really close to Ian telling him or her fears in a way that suggests there may be more to this relationship than meets the eye. By episode 7 she's caught the eye of one of the Thals, Ganatus who gives her material to make a dress as a goodbye present before kissing her on the cheek. She responds by giving him a full on smacker on the lips. As she leaves Ganatus says to Dyoni 'I'll never forget her'. The brazen hussy.

Susan gets to be the 15 year old girl nobody listens to. At least she doesn't trip over and sprain her ankle in this story.

The highlight of the story for me in during episode four. Having got back to the jungle after the Daleks had duped the Thals in coming to the city and exterminating their leader Temmosus the crew just want to get back into the TARDIS and leave the Thals to their fate. Ian then realises that the Daleks are in possession of the TARDIS's fluid link so they can't leave. We then get a situation where we see an different dynamic among the regulars. The Doctor and Barbara want to use the Thals to attack The Daleks while Susan and Ian are against the idea and thing that if the Thals want to attack the Daleks they should do it for their own reasons, which is unlikely with the Thals now being pacifists.

Barbara eventually talks Ian around to their way of thinking and so then he decides to act like a bastard to rile up the Thals to make them fight. Picking up on the feelings between Alydon & Dyoni he grabs hold of Dyoni and tells Alydon that if he has to use her in exchange with the Daleks to get the fluid link back he will. Alydon responds by punching Ian in the face. Lying on the ground Ian says to Alydon "So there are some things you'll fight for".

Episodes 5 and 6 are largely filler episodes. Ian & Barbara go off with a group of Thals to attack the Dalek city from the rear going through swamps & caves which means we get lots of slow walking through a jungle acting and jumping from ledge to ledge action. While The Doctor and Susan with the rest of the Thals stand at the edge of the city shining large mirrors at the Dalek scanners to interfere with them. At one point a Dalek asks another how long till the atomic bomb can be detonated, the other Dalek replies '24 days'. Clearly the element of urgency and suspense is alien to a Dalek. They decide to detonate their nuclear reactors instead because it's quicker..... smart.

One question: In episode 3 while being held captive in the Dalek city Barbara comes up with the idea of using their drinking water combined with the dirt scraped off Susan's shoes to put mud on the Dalek's eye stalk to blind it. When we cut back to the action Barbara has a massive mud pie in her hands....
Just how dirty were Susan's shoes??????

Verdict
This story rolled along at a pretty decent pace for the first few episodes and was really enjoyable but you could totally skip episodes 5 and 6 and not miss a thing as they don't progress the story along whatsoever. Much better than I was expecting but I'd still rank it last when it comes to 60s Dalek stories simply because it was the human characters that made me like the story and not the Daleks.

Rating

Ray Cusick's Final Dalek Designs

"Have you wondered what it's like to be wanderers in the forth dimension? ... Have you?"


SERIES 1

AN UNEARTHLY CHILD

Written by Anthony Coburn
Directed by Waris Hussein

TX - 23rd November - 14th December 1963



As the first story is really an amalgamation of two stories I have decided to treat them as two parts of the same story.

An Unearthly Child
Two schoolteachers, science teacher Ian Chesterton & history teacher Barbara Wright become concerned at the behaviour of one of their pupils Susan Foreman who appears the be brilliant at some things and totally ignorant of others . Ian concedes to Barbara that Susan knows more about science than he ever will, whilst Barbara is concerned about how Susan was keen to take more classes until she mentioned coming around to her house. She explains to Ian that when she got Susan's address from the school secretary she went there only to find nothing but a junkyard.
They decide to follow her home one night out of concern and curiosity. Susan disappears in the junkyard and the two teachers follow and find a strange old man who claims to know nothing of Susan and a strange Police Box that appears to be alive that the old man seems very defensive over.

100,000 BC
After refusing the allow the schoolteachers to leave his ship The Doctor dematerialises much to the horror of Susan. When they land they find themselves in the Stone Age and get mixed up with a Stone Age tribe embroiled in a leadership battle over who can provide fire and who can provide food.


Regular Cast

Notable Guest Cast

Howard Lang as Horg - Would later become well known as Capt. William Baines, one of the principle characters of the BBC's popular 1970s sea-fearing drama 'The Onedin Line'.

Jeremy Young as Kal - Had a long career in British television playing mostly guest parts but is included here because he was the husband of The Rani actress, Kate O Mara.

Derek Newark as Za - Would return to Doctor Who in Jon Pertwee's first series in the story 'Inferno' and be mostly remembered for playing Greg Sutton, the manly drilling expert who probably smelled of Old Spice. Also received praise for his portrayal as Nazi Martin Bormann in a BBC film titled 'Inside The Fourth Reich' in the 1980s.

Trivia & Continuity

Because this story is two stories grafted together and because when the show began it would display individual episode titles at the start of the episode rather than the full story title there has been some debate over what this story is actual called. The first episode was always called 'An Unearthly Child'. '100,000 BC' was the collective working title given to the three Stone Age episodes that followed it. To make matters easier on BBC documentation it was classed as one 4 part story and 100,000 BC was the name given as the full title in all the paperwork at the time. In 1991 the BBC released the story on VHS as 'An Unearthly Child' and has since then used this title for the story as a whole in all of it's literature & merchandise. 'The Tribe Of Gum' was also used as a working title for the story.

The individual episode titles for this story were as follows
Episode 1: An Unearthly Child
Episode 2: The Cave Of Skulls
Episode 3: The Forest Of Fear
Episode 4: The Firemaker
All 4 episodes exist in the BBC archives

The first episode of Doctor Who was screened at 5.15 on Saturday 23rd November 1963, the day after the assassination of American president John F Kennedy. The viewing figures for the episode were a extremely disappointing 4.4 Million because most people in the country were following news of the assassination. Verity Lambert requested the first episode be repeated before the screening of Episode 2 the following week which was granted. The viewing figures for that week were a little more respectable but still bad 5.9 Million. It was decided to cancel the show after the 2nd story had finished production because of it's high costs and low viewing figures. But we all know what happened next........

There was an urban myth that the first episode was delayed because of news of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. This was no truth in this as Oswald wasn't killed until the following day on 24th November. The show did go out late because of the news but only by 1 minute 20 seconds.

Sydney Newman hated the opening titles and music and instructed Verity Lambert to change them. She refused. He admitted later on that she was right to do so.

Famed hair stylist Vidal Sassoon was bought in to give Susan a hairstyle that reflected her alienness with the hope that teenage girls would rush out and copy it.... They didn't.

The policeman who appears in the opening scene was a bit part actor named Reg Cranfield. He would appear in various bit part roles in Doctor Who over the next 13 years. In 2013 in the 11th Doctor novel 'Shroud of Sorrow' there is a character named Reg Cranfield patrolling around the junkyard in Totters Lane.

When we first meet Susan it's stated that she has been attending Coal Hill School for 5 months. The Doctor claims he's only staying in London in the 20th Century to keep Susan happy and that he hates being there.

The address of the junkyard is 76 Totters Lane in the East End London suburb of Shoreditch and is owned by someone named I.M. Foreman.

The Doctor reveals to Ian & Barbara he and Susan are cut off from their own planet and time and that they are exiles.

In episode 2 Ian calls The Doctor 'Doctor Foreman' to which The Doctor replies to himself "Eh... Doctor Who? What's he talking about?" starting a endless pun that would go on throughout the shows history.

When the travellers land in the Stone Age The Doctor is surprised that the TARDIS still retains it's Police Box shape suggesting this is the first time it's Chameleon Circuit had gone faulty. He would attempt to repair this throughout the shows history (notably in Logopolis & Attack Of The Cybermen) but it still refuses to work.

In this episode we see The Doctor smoking a pipe. This would be the first and only time The Doctor smokes onscreen, probably because he loses both that and his matches in this story.

Opinion
An Unearthly Child as a 4 part story is very much a case of a game of two halves. the opening episode with Ian & Barbara discovering this whole new world inside a junkyard in London is just fantastic. It's interesting to look at this first episode in the context of a child in 1963 watching the show for the first time and also as a long time fan or fan of the modern series looking back at this story and finding out just how much of the shows iconic imagery and folklore stems from this one episode alone.

Image being a child in 1963 watching for the first time and seeing these almost psychedelic like opening titles 3 or 4 years before psychedelia ever became a mainstream thing. The haunting electronic score of which it's like had never been heard before. And once those are over you're placed right back into the comfortable familiarity of a normal secondary school with a pair of ordinary teachers. You meet this strange girl and then all of a sudden you're whisked from being in a junkyard to this magical futuristic box that can go anywhere in space and time with a crotchety old man with a warm grandfatherly like playfulness for doing things he shouldn't. Is there any wonder why this show took off?

One of the strengths of the early years of the show were down to it's solid casting of the regulars. Even fans of the new series who go back and watch the old show regularly say that Ian & Barbara are right up there with their favourite companions. Ian is very much the hero character in the early series butting heads with The Doctor about doing the right thing. Barbara is smart and resourceful and is often called on to be the voice of reason. It's very much Ian & Barbara who form the backbone of the shows morality in the early years.

Having Hartnell playing the Doctor was a master stroke. Many of the cast and crew from the time talk about him being a very dangerous actor in the sense that he was very unpredictable and quirky and sometimes likely to lose his temper when he felt things weren't being done in the right way, and yet at the same time most of them also say just how fond of him they were and how he could also be very charming. It's that edge and charm he brought to the part and although this would be toned down as time went on during the first few stories you really didn't know if you could trust this guy or not.

There's no better scene to highlight this when they are escaping through the forest in episode 3. They hear the caveman Za is being attacked nearby by a wild animal. Barbara runs to help him followed by Ian and they find Za bleeding to death. The Doctor just wants to get back to his ship and the only thing that stops him going is Susan follows the two schoolteachers going against the Doctor's wishes. With the help of Za's wife Hur the travellers tend to his wounds and decide to take Za back to the tribe again the Doctor just wants to leave. On the way there the Doctor picks up a large rock but is stopped by Ian before he can do anything. Ian asks the Doctor what he was going to do with the rock and the Doctor stutters an explanation about getting Za to draw a map on the ground so they can get back to the TARDIS. It's never stated what the Doctor's intentions actually are but given how dark his character is at the point in the show and how he's only really interested in self preservation, it's not really difficult to imagine his intentions being far more sinister.

Susan was probably the weakest link in the cast although she is good in this story. She's fiercely loyal and protective of her Grandfather but at the same time she genuinely has affection for Ian & Barbara and gets distraught that they think she is lying about the ship and her Grandfather.

The actual storyline about the Stone age tribe is dull as ditch water other than a few moments such as the Doctor full of bluster that he can create fire and then realising he hasn't got any matches which gets them into this whole mess in the first place, and also the (unintentional) comedic moment at the end of the story when the four travellers are running for their lives back to the TARDIS through the forest being chased by the tribe. As they didn't have a whole forest to run through the shots were achieved by having each cast member run on the spot while being hit all over by branches and leaves by the production crew. You can basically sum up the rest of the story as follows.
Episode 2 - they get captured
Episode 3 - they escape and get captured
Episode 4 - they escape again.

Verdict
Episode 1: A wonderful story that started off a television institution
Episodes 2,3 & 4: A dull stage play with people in animal skins grunting in an overly theatrical manner.

Just watch the first one and a half episodes to see most of the basis of the shows mythology.

Rating
Episode 1: Episodes 2,3 & 4:

The Missing Episodes: Mission To The Unknown

The Missing Episodes


One of these people is not a member of the outer galaxies but a genuine legend in British television.

Mission To The Unknown

Doctor : None
Companions : None
Series : 3
Originally Transmitted: 9th October 1965

I was going to feature in my first look at the missing episodes the sprawling 12 part epic The Daleks Master Plan, but before I get to that we need to cover the one episode long trailer for that series transmitted 5 weeks earlier otherwise known as.... Mission To The Unknown.


The name's Cory, Marc Cory

Space Security Agent Marc Cory and his crew have crash landed on the hostile jungle planet of Kemble. Cory has been sent there by the authorities of earth to report on a suspected Dalek presence on the planet, however the rest of his crew members, Jeff Garvey and Gordon Lowery know nothing of why they are there . While they are repairing their ship they are at risk from the Vaaga plants that inhabit the jungle. Garvey is infected by the sting of a Vaaga plant, Cory shoots him explaining to Lowery that Garvey would slowly be transformed into a Vaaga plant. Cory also explains that Vaaga plants only grow naturally on the planet Skaro. So if there are Vaaga plants on Kemble so must the Daleks. Garvey's hands begin to move again.


Sorry guv I got a lot on at the moment, I can have it ready for you a week on Thursday

As the Daleks prepare for their conference with delegates of the seven great powers of the outer galaxies the Dalek Supreme orders the Daleks to kill Cory and his crew. Meanwhile Cory & Lowery are in the jungle building a rescue beacon. They hear ships flying overhead and realise that the Daleks are planning something. As the work on the rescue beacon is completed the Daleks attack. Running into the jungle to escape them Lowery is stung by a Vaaga plant, Cory is forced to kill him.


A Vaaga plant, In trousers

The Daleks conference with the delegates of the seven great powers of the outer galaxies begins and they discuss their imminent take over of Earth's solar system. Cory finds the Dalek city and begins to record a message to relay back to earth. While he is doing so he is discovered by the Daleks & exterminated, his tape drops into the undergrowth.


The hero returns to his base and heroically...... oh wait. Shit.

The episode ends with all the members of the seven great powers of the outer galaxies pledging allegiance to the Dalek cause.


Tonight we're gonna party like it's 3999

Some facts about Mission To The Unknown

Mission To The Unknown is the only episode in the series entire run where no regular cast members appear. This was to give them an extra week's summer break.
-
Mission To The Unknown was original series producer Verity Lambert's final episode. Her successor John Wiles was more than thrilled to take over only to have a 12 part Dalek story dumped on his desk.
-
Mission To The Unknown is one of three Doctor Who stories where no film clips whatsoever exist of the episode. The other two being Marco Polo & The Massacre.
-
Mission To The Unknown is also the only standalone 25 minute episode in the series entire run.
-
Between Mission To The Unknown and The Daleks Masterplan was the 4 part story The Myth Makers set in ancient Troy. This story would see the departure of companion Vicki and have handmaiden Katarina join the Tardis crew in her place.
-
There is some confusion about which of the alien delegate is which, some can be established easily because they are named in the show. With only the soundtrack and photos surviving of both this story and Master Plan as well as changing actors playing these roles and various delegates appearing and then disappearing makes it difficult to establish just who is who.
I shall cover this more fully at a later date.


When asking 'Do you know who I am' Cory was banned from the Daleks party. Luckily for him he had backstage passes.

If this story had been done today it probably would have been a webisode much like Night Of The Doctor or the short prequels that have appeared online in various forms online since the series return rather than a full blown episode like this one. However in 1965 they didn't have that luxury and this is what we got, or had seeing it doesn't exist anymore.

To say I was watching this by listening to an audio soundtrack recorded by a fan and watching a few stills from the episode it moves along quite nicely. You can't really judge it on it's own, it has a compelling storyline, none of the actors sound really bad and despite some of the dodgy alien costumes there's a real sense of menace and foreboding. In fact it zips along at such a pace it barely even registers that Hartnell & crew are missing from this episode. It would also be nice if they bring back the Vaaga plants for the new series. With the technology the Doctor Who production team have access to now they could make them downright horrifying.

Putting myself in the place of a child watching this in the 1960s I would be really excited to see the Daleks again and begin wondering the following week what happened to them. As a single episode this is neither here nor there, as a way to draw you into the forthcoming 12 part epic it does it's job admirably, and lets face it. That's exactly what it was supposed to do.

---


Some press cuttings from the period

206: The Sensorites

206: The Sensorites

Doctor : 1st (William Hartnell)
Companions : Ian Chesterton (William Russell) Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill)
Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford)
Series : 1
Originally Transmitted: 20th June - 1st August 1964


A Colour BBC publicity shot from 1964 just in case you get bored of all the black and white.

It's funny how your mind plays tricks on you.
I first saw 'The Sensorites' sometime back in the early 90s when it was screened on UK Gold. Back then I knew virtually nothing about Doctor Who, only a few bits and pieces I'd remembered of the Peter Davison & Colin Baker episodes I'd watched as a kid and that was very little. Even watching this back then I was only a casual viewer. In fact it wasn't until they started screening the later 2nd Doctor & 3rd Doctor stories I became a fully fledged fan of the show. UK Gold were showing it right from the very beginning and I liked the show enough to tag along. (I gave up after The Dalek Invasion Of Earth and returned for the end of Pat Troughton's run)

I remembered it being a decent story. Nothing special but not bad. I also remember it being 4 episodes long. I never owned it on VHS, it was one of the last stories to be released and I had already moved on to DVD. By the time it was released on DVD in January 2012 it had been almost 20 years since I last saw it, and it was nothing like I remembered.

For one thing it was 6 episodes long and not 4, also I could not believe how slow the episode was. Throughout all the years I hadn't seen the story I had read fans opinions about it in books and online and the general fan concenus was it was terrible and boring. I didn't really understand why people had such a low opinion of it, The story previous to this one 'The Aztecs' was considered to be a Doctor Who classic by many fans yet I had found that to be even duller than 'The Sensorites' when I watched it. I changed my mind about 'The Aztecs' when I rewatched that for the first time in years when that came out on DVD would I change my mind about 'The Sensorites' as well?


During the story they can't seem to decide if it's a lock or an opening mechanism that's been removed. But since when does removing a lock mean that something stays locked? Let's go with opening mechanism

The first episode is rather good and is actually pretty creepy. The Tardis crew arrive on a spaceship in the 28th century where they find the two dead bodies of a man and a woman. They're just about to leave when the man begins to stir, He asks Ian to hand him a piece of medical equipment and resuscitates himself, he then asks Barbara to resuscitate the woman which she does. The two crew members tell the Tardis crew that they're being kept prisoner by the Sensorites who won't let them leave orbit of their planet. They keep them there by controlling their minds and putting them in suspended animation but make no attempt to kill them and even feed them to keep them alive.

While they're having this discussion an alien hand steals the opening mechanism from the Tardis.
The two crew members Maitland & Carol warn them to leave before the Sensorites discover them, they go back to the Tardis and discover they're locked out. The ship begins to be dragged towards the planet but the Doctor averts a collision.

Susan & Barbara go looking for John, the third member of the crew who is hiding in another part of the ship. John was the ship's mineralogist and Carol's fiancée but his mind was broken from the Sensorites getting into his head. After calming him down they look after him, meanwhile back on the ship's bridge they hear a Sensorite spacecraft approaching. Suddenly Ian sees one peering into the window.


Peek a Boo

The Sensorites board the ship and put Maitland & Carol in suspended animation, Ian and Barbara go to look for the aliens. (This one sentence takes 20 minutes to play out on screen).

The Doctor discovers John's mineralogy survey which shows the Sensorites planet high in molybdenum which is worth a fortune, he also manages to revive Maitland who shows the him how to secure the bridge once Ian & Barbara come back. The aliens begin to communicate telepathically with Susan and she opens the door to let them in.

The Sensorites explain that humans have visited their planet before and that they don't trust them. They want to take Susan down to the planet to negotiate because they trust her but the Doctor doesn't allow it. Susan goes anyway after a big argument but the Doctor stops this by turning the lights off on the ship guessing that the aliens are blind in partial darkness. They leave Barbara & Maitland on the ship while the rest of them with John who the aliens have agreed to cure leave for the planet to meet the Sensorite Elder.


Here's John burbling, dribbling, staring vacantly at the camera and shouting in Episode 1, and Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4 and Episode 5

The Sensorite Elder and his No 2 meet the group and orders his doctors to cure John while Carol goes with him. The City Administrator is not trusting of humans and orders them to be killed by training a disintegrator beam on them when they sit down to talk with the leader. The No 2 finds out the City Administrator's plans, stops him and removes the firing key from the beam. The Elder tells the Doctor that the first humans ship blew up in orbit due to them fighting amongst themselves over the minerals wealth of the planet. He also tells him that ever since then they have had a plague in the city.



Ian suffers the consequences of trying to watch Episode 2

When Ian gets sick from the plague the Doctor agrees to help and deduces that parts of the water supply are being poisoned. He finds an antidote to the poison despite the City Administrator trying to sabotage their efforts by kidnapping the No 2 Elder and pretending to be him to the humans.
The Doctor goes to visit the aqueduct, the source of the poisoning also a place where the Sensorites refuse to go because of the darkness and loud noises from the 'beasts' that live there. The Doctor soon discovers deadly nightshade growing near the aqueduct but is quickly attacked by one of the 'beasts'. A newly recovered Ian, with Susan just manage to drag him out in time his coat in tatters which he leaves behind.


The Sensorites plans to invade Earth was cut short by their discovery of Earth's devastating weapon .... regional local radio

The City Administrator threatens the No 2 Elder to order the firing key to the disintegration beam to be bought in or he'll kill him and his family group. When it arrives the No 2 Elder grabs the key and breaks it the City Administrator kills him. The Doctor arrives back at The Elder's palace and they discuss what he found at the aqueduct, The Elder gives him a cloak to replace his coat. The City Administrator comes in and tries to frame the Doctor for murder of the No 2 Elder. He is proved to be lying because he identified the Doctor by his clothes and especially his cloak. When confronted by this the City Administrator blames his subordinate for lying to him and his subordinate is arrested. With his No 2's death the No 1 Elder promotes the City Administrator to the position of his No 2.


Despite being kept prisoner by The Sensorites, Carol was well looked after with food and hair products

Ian & The Doctor plan to visit the aqueduct, they also send for Barbara to land on the planet (Having taken her 2 week holiday). The new No 2 sabotages the weapons and the map they take with them. They ditch the map and the weapons when they realise they're useless and find that 'the beasts' are actually the three survivors from the original Earth ship who have gone insane and think that they are a war with The Sensorites. Barbara & a now cured John go after Ian & The Doctor guided by Susan's telepathy reading a map at the palace and Barbara using one of the Sensorites mind transmitters. They all meet up in the aqueduct and convince the 3 humans the war is over. Upon leaving the aqueduct the human leader attacks the Sensorites waiting at the entrance for the Doctor so they stun him and the other two men leave quietly.
The crew leave for Earth with the three survivors of the original ship, the City Administrator/ No 2 Elder is banished to the wastelands for being a traitor and the Doctor gets his opening mechanism back for the Tardis. Upon seeing the Spaceship flying to Earth Ian makes a comment about 'At least they know where they are going.' prompting a furious Doctor to say if that's how he feels he'll dump him as soon as they land.'


Sensorite FM wasn't much better

4 Pieces Of Trivia
1. In the new series story Planet Of The Ood it's revealed that the Ood's home planet of the Ood-sphere and the Sensorite's planet The Sense-sphere are both in the same solar system and that the two species are related.

2. Susan telepathy is a huge part of the story, it's revealed in later stories that Time Lords have a limited telepathic abilities. In this case Susan's abilities are heightened due to the ultra high frequencies around the Sense-sphere. The Doctor tells her she can perfect them 'When they go back home'.

3. While on the subject of Time Lords, Susan describes her and The Doctor's then un-named home planet as having a burnt orange sky and silver leaves on the trees. This description would be used by the new series Doctors after the (apparent) destruction of Gallifrey after the Time War.

4. In this story the Doctor mentions his heart, as in singular. The fan explanation for this is that he acquired his second heart after his first regeneration. So I guess Time Lord hearts are like wisdom teeth.

Although the Sensorites are telepathic they cannot read each others minds. The can however direct thoughts to whoever they wish to receive them. They can boost the power of their minds over long distances using a mind transmitter. When Barbara uses a mind transmitter to receive directions in the aqueduct Susan tells her to speak the words as well as think them so she can receive her thoughts more clearly.
Human minds can be affected by The Sensorites when they experience extreme emotions such as joy which is what happened to the original Earth ship and John when they discovered the mineral wealth on the planet. The emotions causes their minds to open making them vunerable to all the Sensorites thoughts which caused them to go insane. The Sensorites do have the technology to reverse the process as seen when they cure John.


Susan's racist impressions didn't always go down well

The Sensorites is a weird one, it seems to have a really poor reputation amongst fans yet if you look at the reviews for it in sci fi magazines and other publications it seems to considered average to good.
I can see both sides, I think the story behind it is really good yet the direction is horrible. The director Mervyn Pinfield was known more as a technical type of director rather than an action director or an actors director and it shows because it's directed in a really flat and boring way. it's not really surprising that he was replaced by Frank Cox after episode 4, but by that point it didn;t really make much of a difference to the end product.

Episode 2 is the worst by far. Ian & Barbara go off into the spaceship to look for the newly landed Sensorites, yet the rest of the spaceship is made up of one corridor and a couple of small rooms. They spend around 10 minutes walking around these sets at a snails pace taking tiny steps so that they don't run out of set before they finish saying their lines. It's really badly done and really boring to watch.


The Sensorites were named because of their great sense of humour and pranks. Here we see Barbara fall for the old 'Superglue on the thought transmitter prank' an old favourite in the sense-sphere.

Another problem is the total lack of any tension whatsoever. This done properly could have been a really claustrophobic eerie story, but as soon as a moment of peril arrives it's just glossed over and solved about a minute later. For example a great deal is made of Ian being poisoned and the need to get the antidote to him, the city administrator stops the antidote from getting to him.
So what happens next?
A life or death race to get another batch of antidote ready for Ian only arriving in the nick of time?
Actually no, Susan just tells the scientist that the antidote hasn't arrived so he brings up another bottle.
Later on the Doctor is framed for murder, this again is resolved in approximately 2 whole minutes later.
It's the same when Ian and the Doctor's weapons and map have been sabotaged. They don't find out in a moment of great danger. Ian notices the weapon has been tampered with while walking along a corridor, then the Doctor looks at the map and decides that's been tampered with too, so they just throw them away and carry on as normal.

There are some good moments in this, Susan gets a lot more to do in this story other than her usual crying, tripping over and screaming. We see the first signs of her wanting to do her own thing and not wanting the Doctor to treat her like a child all the time (She will leave 4 stories after this one). Sadly this is the only time they show that tension between them and in the next story Susan goes back to being her normal self, which is the main reason that Carole Ann Ford was the first regular member of the cast to bail on the show.

Also I love it that Hartnell is so angry in this story, he's really pissed that they've stolen the lock from the Tardis and is gruff and short tempered with everybody, which is even funnier when you're putting that against aliens who hate loud noises. Also The Sensorites standing on each others huge feet never gets old. The Sensorites themselves are rather pathetic creatures. Loud noises cause their nervous system to shut down, they can't see in low light and even when Barbara & Susan both share the same thought to resist them they fall to the ground in agony. You can't really blame them for being so defensive against people from other planets. Also if greed and personal gain is such an alien concept to The Sensorites then why does the City Administrator have so much of it?

Barbara doesn't get much to do but then Jacqueline Hill did have to be written out of two episodes to accommodate her holiday (Doctor Who was filmed almost all year round at this time approx 40-45 episodes a year, one episode a week.) The Sensorites isn't a terrible story by any means but hugely flawed , rather boring and shows it's age badly.

The Sensorites : Coda

It's also worth noting that on the DVD of this story there's a great documentary called 'Looking For Peter' about the writer of story Peter R. Newman.



In the past nobody really knew anything about him, anybody Doctor Who related looking to find out about his life drew a blank. All that anybody knew was that he wrote a war film for Hammer in
1959 called Yesterday's Enemy and The Sensorites for Doctor Who in 1964 before disappearing off the face of the earth and that he died in 1975, which was just a bit before serious Doctor Who fandom began so there were no interviews or anything with him about his time writing for Doctor Who.

In the documentary they discover by looking through public records and tracking down his sister and niece that he was a pilot in Burma during WW2 and was captured by the Japanese although his sister and niece say that he got on quite well with the Japanese officer in charge. These experiences are what he based his script for his movie Yesterday's Enemy, which was quite controversial at the time because it was about a group of British soldiers who are cut off and who resort to committing war crimes against the Burmese people to find out the movements of the Japanese army. Despite being controversial it still recieved 4 BAFTA nominations. He attempted to write more films for Hammer but due to him being difficult to work with and him asking for too much money they stopped working with him.

He would take elements of his movie script (bad and good on both sides) and turn it into The Sensorites for Doctor Who. After that work as a writer dried up because he was suffering from writer's block. To make ends meet he got a job as a porter at the Tate Gallery, it was while working there where he suffered a fall and died in 1975.

In fact the best bit of the documentary is the heart-warming interview with his sister Vera who looks like she's well into her 90s or even older and clearly adored her brother. She seems genuinely thrilled that people are asking about her brother and his work 50 years after it was written.
It's not the greatest Doctor Who stories ever written but it's nice to end this on something positive. If you don't want to watch the story do yourself a favour and watch this lovely documentary instead.

Click on the picture of Peter to watch the documentary

207: The Lazarus Experiment

207: The Lazarus Experiment

Doctor : 10th (David Tennant)
Companions : Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman)
Series : 3 (New Series)
Originally Transmitted: 5th May 2007


The Lazarus Experiment is one of those mid series episodes that is just kind of there to fill space, and that's about it. Even before it aired there was very little to get excited about. The only real highlight of the episode is that we finally get to see long time Doctor Who fan & writer Mark Gatiss (He of The League Of Gentlemen & Sherlock fame) appear in an episode of Doctor Who. And it has to be said, he deserved a lot better than this.

The only other thing to get excited about is that Thelma Barlow who played Mavis in Coronation Street is in this episode as well playing Lady Thaw, so you can see the level we're dealing with here.
Also I suppose if you're a David Tennant fangirl (or boy) you get to squee all over him being suited & booted in a dinner jacket again, sadly Martha only gets to wear a brown dress that looks like a potato sack. You'd think the costume designers would have at least made a better effort there. Come on Russell, I know Doctor Who has a huge gay male following but give us straight fans a bit of eye candy too once in a while.


Tennant in a suit for the laydees

This episode was written by Stephen Greenhorn who's past credits include The Bill, Where The Heart Is, creating the Scottish soap opera River City and also adapting his own musical play about The Proclaimers called Sunshine On Leith into a movie.
Would he use this attempt at writing for something totally different like Doctor Who as a chance to really use his imagination and to blind the viewer with interesting and thought provoking concepts?
Well no actually, it's a story about a mad scientist. Which, to be fair to the man is exactly what Russell T Davies asked him for. A Marvel Comics style mad professor.
Did I mention I hate Marvel Comics?

I guess now would be a good time to explain the plot, although in fairness you could probably write it on the back of a postage stamp . But I shall attempt to go into a little more detail.
The Doctor takes Martha home after her promised one trip in the Tardis, totally oblivious to her disappointment when she realises he's materialised inside her living room and wants to dump her there. While he's saying goodbye to her Martha's mother phones and tells her to turn the TV on because her sister is on the news.
She turns on the TV to see her sister Tish alongside professor Richard Lazarus, who she is doing public relations work for. Lazarus announces to the assembled press that he will change what it means to be human.
The Doctor leaves Martha behind in the Tardis but then comes back seconds later when he realises what Lazarus said.

Later that evening they arrive at Lazarus black tie presentation being run by Tish. Tish seems impressed by good looking guy that her sister has bought to the event but soon leaves when she realises he's a 'science geek'. Martha's mother shows up and moans a lot which will be a reoccurring theme during this series. Although it is quite funny when the Doctor is trying to make small talk with her and accidentally gives her the impression that he & Martha have been up all night screwing each other.
Lazarus enters the room and announces he is about to perform a miracle that will change the coarse of human history. He tells everybody that he is 76 years old and walks into the machine behind him.


Why is there never a big red butt.... Oh wait, there is this time.

The machine is started up, and look it has a big red button. That would please the War Doctor. The machine begins to go haywire and the Doctor is forced to step in before the building blows up.
A much younger man emerges from the machine and tells the crowd that he is Richard Lazarus and he is 76 years old and he is reborn. The Doctor speaks to Lazarus warning him that he couldn't possibly have solved all the variables in the experiment and that if it wasn't for him the place would have exploded but Lazarus and his partner Lady Thaw are dismissive. Martha & the Doctor is horrified when Lazarus & Thaw tells them their plans to have the machine made commercially. Lady Thaw and Lazarus retreat to his laboratory to discuss things, the Doctor says he wants to run his own tests using the DNA from Lazarus where he kissed Martha's hand.


Lazarus reborn, He's 76 you know. Doesn't he look well.

In his laboratory talks to Lady Thaw about growing up the London blitz and that he would feel safe in Southwark Cathedral (There is also a model of the cathedral in his laboratory) . Lady Thaw tells him that she wants to be the next person to use the machine so they can both be young again but Lazarus refuses. When she tells him she'll get his funding cut he begins to have cramps and starts to change form into a giant scorpion creature that looks a lot like David Bowie for some reason and kills Lady Thaw.


Ch-Ch-Ch-Chaaaaanges

The Doctor meanwhile is doing tests and discovers that Lazarus has totally changed his DNA reactivating dormant genes and that they are mutating. He goes to Lazarus's laboratory and finds the skeletal husk of Lady Thaw with all of the life sucked out of her. The Doctor realises that Lazarus needs to do this to keep the DNA stable, Lazarus has since returned to the party in human form. At the party Lazarus is with Tish and taking her to the roof, when the Doctor & Martha are told this they rush off after then, soaking Martha's mother with wine. While she is cleaning herself up a mysterious man offers her a glass of wine and tells her that Martha should choose her friends more wisely.


Mavis from Coronation Street looking a little husky

On the roof The Doctor confronts Lazarus and Lazarus changes form. The Doctor manages to lock him out onto the roof but because Lazarus starts trying to break the door down the buildings security system goes into lockdown shutting everybody inside. At the party the Doctor gives Martha the sonic screwdriver and tells her to get everybody out. He announces to the crowd that they are in serious danger and should leave. A woman tells the Doctor that the only danger in the building is choking on an olive, Lazarus shows up and kills her first. In the credits she's referred to as 'Olive Women' which amused me for some unknown reason.



Olive Woman is about to cop it before we even find out her real name.


The Doctor managed to distract Lazarus by getting him to chase him around the building while Martha gets all the guests out. She goes back in to help the Doctor against her mothers wishes. The man in the suit appears again and tells her mother that the Doctor is dangerous and whispers something in her ear. The Doctor meanwhile sets a trap for Lazarus in his laboratory causing it to blow up but Lazarus escapes, Martha hears the explosion and they both run into the machine, the Doctor saying that it's the one thing that Lazarus won't destroy. While they are trapped in the machine Lazarus switches it on but the Doctor manages to reverse the polarity (Pertwee reference YAY!!) of the machine so it affects Lazarus outside. When they exit the machine they find him lying naked on the floor in human form apparently dead.

Lazarus's body is taken in an ambulance, meanwhile Martha's mother slaps the Doctor's face (A running theme in the new series) The ambulance crashes and the Doctor discovers the ambulance crew drained of life. Using the sonic screwdriver to track Lazarus's DNA he tracks him down to Southwark Cathedral. Lazarus tells him during the blitz he vowed that he would never die and that he will feed to continue his life, the Doctor tells him that he can't allow him to. The Doctor tells Martha and Tish to go to the top bell tower, Lazarus changes and begins to follow them up. The Doctor plugs his sonic screwdriver into the church organ and turns it up to 11 (The first and only Spinal Tap reference in Doctor Who ..YAY!!).


Big bottom, big bottom. Talk about mud flaps, my girl's got 'em


The vibrations cause Lazarus to fall off the bell tower to his death, although Martha who is hanging on for dear life and can't block her ears seems totally unaffected by it ... hmmm lazy writing.


Nudity at 7.35 in the evening? Wait till I write to Points of View about this.

Back at Martha's flat she is preparing to say goodbye but the Doctor tells he she can stay with him. after she departs in the Tardis her mother phones her and tells her that she isn't safe and that Harold Saxon himself says this.

Some trivia : Both David Tennant & Mark Gatiss were also in the BBC's live broadcast of The Quatermass Experiment in 2005, Tennant played the character of Dr. Gordon Briscoe. It was during the rehearsals for this that David Tennant discovered that he had got the role of The Doctor. During the live broadcast Jason Flemyng who was playing the role of Bernard Quatermass ribbed him about this by changed his first line from 'Good to have you back Gordon' to 'Good to have you back Doctor'.

Extra Trivia : Jason Flemyng's father Gordon directed the two Dalek movies in the 60s.

The Lazarus Experiment isn't a bad story as such it's just a bog standard idea with a really bad CGI monster and a really silly ending.
There are a couple of witty bits of dialogue but that's more down to the regular cast and subtle in jokes rather than through the story itself. The only real moments of drama in this are when Tennant & Gatiss are together, Martha is good also in that she's brave & smart but in a kind of generic way that most Doctor Who companions are, although her being a Doctor is shown when she treats her brother for a possible concussion. The rest of her family are just annoying. Her mother is constantly moaning, her sister is just obnoxious and her brother stands around like stuffed suit looking like he's waiting around for his cue to announce who is number one this week.(Her brother is played by former Top Of The Pops presenter Reggie Yates).



This is the kind of stuff the new series does when it's on auto pilot, it's predictable, it's been done to death already and that's just in the Doctor Who universe. In the Peter Davison story Mawdyrn Undead the same topic is used where a race of beings wanting to live forever, and it is covered in a much better way with more plot twists, ideas and peril for the Doctor to overcome than anything this story could manage. There are a few plot elements that would crop up later in the series but they are minimal really. You could easily miss this story out and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to the series as a whole.

I can handle Doctor Who being bad, I can handle it having no money, I can even handle really bad special effects but what I really hate is when it's totally devoid of ideas and poor writing. I wouldn't say this story is boring because it's not. I wouldn't even say it's forgettable either. It's just really really predictable and the only reason you'll remember this story is because you've seen it done so many many times before.