Previously … Hidden Danger

Although slightly tempted to rename this “Slow Plod Against Death”, this episode is effectively the stepping stone between parts of the story – concluding the “city” part of the story and moving into the “dark tunnels and monsters” part of the story.  Changing locations and adjusting the story is the only real way to make these longer stories work.

The positives include the Doctor doing his experiments (the montage of him with his test tubes back to Susan caring for Ian worked particularly well).  How nice to have something for Susan to do that doesn’t involve screaming.  Would have liked it a little more if she’d had to run back-and-forth between Ian and the Doctor’s lab, but that wasn’t possible due to needing a way to intercept the antidote later.

One has to feel sorry for the First Elder.  He, and the second Elder, (who we learn rule over the whole planet) chose to reside in a city that has a traitorous administrator.

Excellent set design on the pipes in the cave.  After the boring simplicity of the rooms in the city, the pipes in the cave are a welcome relief.  Caves seem to be a speciality of the design team in this first season.

The argument between the Doctor and the Elders at the beginning of the episode was great, with Hartnell being particularly commanding and Susan being the perfect buffer/foil between them.

The episode ends at a real cliffhanger.  Of course we know now that there are no monsters there, but it’s easy to put yourself in the mindset of watching it for the first time.  Playing on the Sensorites fear of darkness and loud noises is a pay-off for learning their weaknesses earlier in the story (although it does make you wonder how they put the pipes in there in the first place if they can’t see in the dark).

The negatives include the Sensorites writing in English (got to feel sorry for the actors having to write with gloves on!) – this happened before with Susan writing to the Thals.  I guess for now we’ll have to put this down to that old chestnut – the TARDIS doing the translating.

It’s hard to believe that the City Administrator hadn’t previously thought of swapping sashes to impersonate one of the Elders – after all, he did previously bemoan the lack of such symbols of office on the strangers.

The series is still maintaining that the Doctor and Susan are human (as the Doctor said in a previous episode “we humans”), as seen by the way the Doctor didn’t even consider Ian’s susceptibility to the illness as him being human while the Doctor and Susan themselves were not.

Not really a negative, but I did love the way William Hartnell read the symptoms off his own notepad as though he was reading part of the script.  He’s not the only one here who struggled with his lines though.  I sometimes do wish that he’d been around to play the Doctor when more editing could have been done.  I mean, you don’t see him having these difficulties in Carry On Sergeant.

Despite the great set design in the caves, it is rather apparent that the Doctor’s torch isn’t quite as bright as it should be – with a little external help being required.

Next time … Kidnap