First Transmitted:
Cast
Crew
Plot Outline from Wikipedia The TARDIS travellers land on a moving spaceship and find the crew apparently dead. However, one of the crew members, Captain Maitland, regains consciousness and Ian Chesterton fully revives him and another woman, Carol Richmond. These two tell the travellers that they are on an exploration mission from Earth and are orbitting Sense-Sphere. However, its inhabitants, the Sensorites, refuse to let them leave the orbit. The Sensorites visit and stop the travellers from leaving, while sending them on a collision course, which the Doctor diverts. The travellers then meet John (whose mind has been broken by the Sensorites) and find out that he is Carol's fiancé. Returning to to plague the crew, the Sensorites freeze Carol and Maitland once more. The Doctor braks Maitland's mental conditioning, but cannot help John. Susan's telepathic mind is flooded with the many voices of the Sensorites who remain scared of the humans and are trying to communicate with her, but. Meanwhile, The Doctor works out that the Sensorites attacked the human craft because John, a minearologist, had discovered a vast supply of molybdenum on Sense-Sphere. Susan reports that the Sensorites want to make contact with travellers, asking the crew to go aboard Sense-sphere and reveal that a previous Earth expedition caused them great misery. The Doctor refuses but Susan, under duress, agrees and departs. The Doctor deduces that the Sensorites need plenty of light, so Ian reduces the lighting on the ship, in a bid to recue Susan. As a result, Susan returns to the spacecraft. The Doctor then asks the Sensorites to return his lock and is invited to go to Sense-Sphere to speak with the leader. Susan, Ian, Carol and John join him while Barbara and Maitland stay behind. John is promised that his condition will be reversed. On their journey to Sense-Sphere, the party learn that the previous visitors from Earth exploited Sense-sphere for its wealth, then argued. Half of them stole the spacecraft, which exploded on take-off. The Sensorite Council is divided over the issue of inviting the party to Sense-Sphere: some of the councillors plot to kill them on arrival, but some believe that the humans can help with the disease that is currently killing many Sensorites. Their first plot is foiled by the other Sensorites, but they continue to plot in secret. The humans are not told of the first plot, and John and Carol are cured. In the main conference room, Ian starts vomiting and collapses. Suffering from the disease that has blighted the Sensorites, he is told that he will soon die. It turns out that he was actually poisoned by drinking water from the general aqueduct. The Doctor finds the problem aqueduct and starts work with the Sensorite scientists. The plotting Sensorites impersonate the Sensorite leader and steal the new cure, before it is given to Ian, but a new one is made easily and Ian is cured. Meanwhile, investigating the aqueduct, the Doctor finds strange noises and darkness. He finds and removes deadly nightshade (the cause of the poisoning), but on going back, meets an unseen monster. Susan and ian find him unconscious with a ripped coat, but otherwise unharmed. On being recovered, he tells of his suspicion that some Sensorites are plotting to kill them. The plotting Sensorites kill the Second-Cheif and one of them replaces him in his position. John tells the others that he knows the lead plotter, but he is now too powerful, so The Doctor and Carol go down to the aqueduct to find the poisoners. Their weapons and map were tampered with and are useless. Elsewhere, mysterious assailant abducts Carol and forces her to write saying she has left back for the ship. Neither Susan, John or Barbara believe this so they go to investigate and find her imprisoned. Susan, John and Barbara overpower the guard and release Carol. On finding out about the tampered tools, they go into the aqueduct to rescue the Doctor and Ian. The leader discovers the plotters a little while later. Ian and the Doctor discover that the monsters were actually the survivors of the previous Earth mission, and they had been poisoning the Sensorites. Their deranged Commander leads them to the surface, where they are arrested by the Sesnsorites. The Doctor and his party return to the city, pleading clemency for the poisoners. The leader of the Sensorites agrees and sends them back with Maitland, John and Carol to Earth, for treatment for madness.
Analysis by Cuisle From history back to outer space and a future time episode which plays its educational part by revealing ideas of how Earth could look in the far future - The lower half of England is known as Central City. London hasn't existed for 400 years and the Earth space-exploration programme has reached deep space in search of mining rights on other planets. It is far from the complete future mythology which Gene Roddenberry created from the start of Star Trek, but it served as a peek into the possibilities. The central plot, meanwhile, was basically a morality piece about not judging a book by its cover. The humans saw the "alien" Sensorites with their very different physiognomy and their telepathy as something to be attacked and destroyed. The Sensorites thought the human 'invaders' were ugly and, since they WERE, after all the cause of their environmental disaster, were justified to some extent in their treatment of the humans. It is worth wondering whether the scriptwriters realised that this portrayal of the humans as invaders causing harm to the indigenous population, either deliberately or otherwise was a counterpoint to the Doctor's point about Cortez's Spanish invaders bringing down the Aztec civilisation of the previous issue. As such, the Sensorites stand as a futuristic analogy for all native cultures over the centuries which have been affected by European exploration, invasion or missionary efforts - the American Indians might be another example, or the Aborigines of Australia. As a piece of science fiction mythology, it has parallels in Star Trek, where the Federation's "Prime Directive" prohibits interference with indigenous cultures, especially on planets which have not had 'first contact' from aliens before. The Sensorites provide an excellent example of just why the Doctor urged non-interference in the Aztec world and why the Enterprise crew are bound by the same restraint. The concept of humans as the 'aliens' on other planets, who may not be the 'good guys' was a bold one. In the 1960s, most science fiction output, such as Dan Dare, Flash Gordon, and even the more sophisticated Quatermass, dealt with evil aliens who wanted to destroy human heroes, and the Daleks had already added another sinister space enemy to the catalogue, so it was a refreshing idea and one even a little ahead of its time. The fact, so often hammered home in these early episodes when we are still getting to know the characters, that the Doctor and Susan are not human enables us to see humanity from a neutral perspective that produces just such surprising revelations about human nature. The hint of friction between the travelling companions - already dealt with to some extent in "Edge of Destruction" is presented at the end of the story as something about which we will hear more later. The style of this production, entirely studio based, with dialogue that seems stilted and slow at times, hasn’t aged well, but this episode is worth looking at for historical value, and the themes explored have plenty of mileage for a modern treatment.
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