#the sensorites

[intuitive-revelations]

Doctor Who: The Legend of Ruby Sunday / The Sensorites | Orange Skies

"Grandfather and I don't come from Earth. Oh it's ages since we've seen our planet. It's quite like Earth. But at night the sky is a burnt orange, and the leaves on the trees are bright silver."

(She wasn't Susan, obviously, but doesn't make this any less sick. )

[mekanikaltrifle]

[close encounters of the unintentionally silly kind]

[cedarboughs]

I love how the Doctor is always delighted to realize there are plots afoot. Look at that face. He’s discovered deadly shenanigans; just what he lives for.

[i-like-media]

Yeah alright kids in the 60's had every right to be scared of Doctor Who

[unwillingadventurer]

[timeagainreviews]

RIP William Russell

Back in 2015 I had the opportunity to meet William Russell at a convention. When it was my turn I presented him with my copy of the novelisation of “The Sensorites.” As he held it he said “Now, what’s this? Ah! The Sensorites! Very good!” He then proceeded to ask me how to spell my name but he accidentally added a Y to the end. “Oh I’ve ruined it!” he exclaimed. I assured him that he had very much not ruined it. I have this cherished memory of a lovely man. We will miss you.

[wastingmytimehere]

I love the Sensorites because when the doctor got his coat ripped up in the aqueduct they immediately went and presented him with an even sexier coat that they were somehow in possession off despite being a smaller species with seemingly little interest in conventional human fashion.

[doctorwhogirlie]

[dailyclassicwho]

CLASSIC WHO FASHION Barbara Wright ◈ The Sensorites

[6-and-7]

Time Ram - Sensorites and Sensibility

It's Benton's big day out as the Third Doctor gets Rammed into the Hartnell-era story, The Sensorites! It's mayhem, molybdenum, and the Master as Jon Pertwee contends with a foe who wants to Make the Sense-Sphere Great Again! Featuring an acapella score and a brief lesson in economics.

Time Ram art masterpost

Alt. versions under the cut

[therabbitofrassilon]

oh my god I noticed something crazy about doctor whoogle??? /pos

I saw it had a picture every time I searched for something and I was like oh I wonder if it just has a picture for every episode? like a thumbnail of sorts? but then I was like welll the pictures kind of correspond with the line im looking at... hmmmm.....

and then i searched "chan" because of chantho's manner of speech and like yeah it literally has a screenshot for each line. what the heck. oh my god. I don't know how it has this but oh my god

and yes it does this for classic who too.

absolutely amazing. i love you doctor whoogle

[intuitive-revelations]

Rewatched Heaven Sent a couple weeks ago (I was flying back from a research conference in San Francisco, and British Airways had it available to watch, which was a pleasant surprise) and man, I've got to ramble a bit...

Something-something about how the Confession Dial is clearly pulling elements from the Doctor's childhood. This has been said before of course, but when you really pull everything together, it sure does paint a picture.

It's unclear whether this was the original intent for the soul-catching ritual (which is presumably what the dials are used for, making them a sort of Matrix data slice like Nethersphere), or something added by the Time Lords in corrupting it into a torture chamber, but it's there.

From the teleportation chamber loom...

...to the night sky being a 'burnt orange'...

...to the lilies flowers of remembrance for the lost dead...

...to sentient buildings...

...to that internal soup parallel, both alone in the dial and surrounded by their cousins at the barn...

...to the jars of dust.

And speaking of that "tall woman" in a "grey shawl", who is also oddly oversized, as if putting the Doctor in the perspective of a child,

and is explicitly a nightmare from the Doctor's childhood:

a woman who died, but seemingly passed away far quicker than anyone around her expected (and all the implications relating to that and connecting to the identity of the Hybrid)...

Finally, and this is definitely a stretch, but think back to the room numbers. The Doctor has to find room 12.

Fittingly. But if 12 corresponds to the Twelfth Doctor, then what about those other rooms...?

They must also correspond to incarnations, right? It's not like the God Complex - there was only ever one prisoner in the confession dial, after all.

Incarnations, numbering "a bit confused", in a fascimile of the Doctor's childhood home? Huh...

"Illogical house, a construction that makes no sense..."

[kcdahippie]

We love The First Doctor and his cape era

[exhausted-review]

Doctor Who- Project Parameters and getting up to speed.

I'm gonna review all of Doctor Who, one story at a time.

It's gonna take a while.

What follows are the guidelines I'm using for this project, brief reviews for the stories I've watched thus far, and a ranking of the stories as I like them so far.

Hello again. My plan is to watch every story of doctor who that is complete. This does mean I'm going to be missing quite a bit of Doctor Who's first six seasons. The service I'm using does contain some of the animated reconstructions of currently missing episodes, for which I shall watch them, however I do not intend to listen to the audio for all such episodes. Also I'll be keeping primarily to mainline Doctor Who. I'll make detours for things like special episodes and the film from the 1990's, but primarily I'm just watching through it with the question of "What makes a Doctor Who story effective?". Finding out which ones I prefer goes a long way to doing this. If you notice that I skip a number in between stories, it's because there was an incomplete serial in there 1. An Unearthly Child

This particular Story I find interesting. The primitive power struggle storyline does very little to interest me, and the character dynamics between our four protagonists are still early on at this stage. This story is likely going to avoid the absolute dregs of unwatchability on my ranking off the grounds of its first episode, which promises much more than it delivers. Susan's weirdness and technical competency is more or less immediately undermined by her actual role in these storylines, but in its' first episode she remains an enigma, and I really like that for her. I like Barbara and Ian a lot as companions, but it's the Doctor acting in a much more sinister role that really drives this first part of the story forward. He's not just remarkably cold and at times openly hostile to Ian and Barbara, this incarnation is also prone to physical violence in a mode altogether alien for fans of the newer series. I love this. Knowing that you get to see the doctor change from a malevolent figure to a warm and at times heroic presence is really nice, but for this episode he's just a cantankerous old wizard and I love that for him. Rest of the serial is not special. 2. The Daleks

Knocked it right out of the park in 1963 with the second ever episode. The characters of our main cast are still forming, and their dynamic is not yet clear- The Doctor is much more foolish and cruel than he will be, and the companions are captive and mistrusting. But the Daleks haven't changed all that much. Genocidal, violent, and conniving, Doctor Who kicks it off with the introduction of its most infamous villains, and the resulting war story is terrifying and effective. For my liking, it's a bit too long. The section between them convincing the Thals to fight back and the episode's dramatic climax where they fight the daleks as they count down to launching atomic weapons takes a little too long to get where it's going, but the climax itself is quite good. I'm a big fan of this episode.

3. The Edge of Destruction

This is the episode that I think makes Doctor Who into a recognizable shape. The confusion and open hostility of this episode makes for tense and dramatic television, and the Doctor's active malice is countered with suspicion and fine arguments. This is the episode where the doctor stops being actively hostile and starts the long road towards being a warm and friendly figure. And it takes a lot of darkness to get there. The famous scene in which Susan threatens to stab Ian with scissors is a great bit of dramatic tension from a pretty good bottle episode.

5. The Keys of Marinus

This episode is almost good. It reminds me of early star trek in a very good way- the set up of the computer that arbitrates all legal and moral disputes is a great set-up, and at first I had hoped that all the locations they teleport to in search of the five keys of marinus would deliver questions about such a device at each turn. But unfortunately only half of them are really concerned with those themes, and the entire episode ends up leaving a lot to be desired. The Doctor being actively concerned for his human companions and defending Ian in an alien court is a great story beat, but I wish this was fleshed out more. Measure of a Man this is not.

6. The Aztecs

This episode has some of the best dramatic writing in the series to this point and the conflict between Barbara wanting to save the Aztecs from destruction at the hands of the Spanish and the Doctor understanding the necessity of maintaining the timeline is legitimately well written and acted out. Unfortunately, the entire episode kind of falls apart if you don't agree with the historical argument at the center of this episode- that the Aztecs were killed by the Spanish primarily because of the barbarity of the practice of human sacrifice. I happen to think this is an insane historical argument, and that damages it a lot for me. This episode does some right but, ultimately, sometimes shit just sucks and this sucks.

7. The Sensorites

This storyline is regularly more inoffensive than it is bad or good. The story of the more xenophobic sensorites trying to sabotage the good intentions of the Doctor and company is a strong set-up, and I like it all the more because their reasons for mistrusting humans are sound. The actual story is fairly straight-forward and at times a bit dull. I also don't really care for all the psychic power stuff- the worst of which is one of the human crewmen being able to tell whether a person is good or evil by looking at them and constantly saying so. Ultimately, it's a pretty fun space adventure with only a little working against it.

9. Planet of Giants

This serial is short and sweet, and that does a lot for it. A storyline that doesn't have much behind it but only lasts an hour can be much more fun and enjoyable than a story like Keys of Marinus, which stretches out its story to two and a half. Ultimately, I feel like more could happen in this time and in this scenario, but I like this story and find it more inoffensive than anything else. I do really enjoy how much more friendly the dynamic between the Doctor and the teachers is at this point, and I've come to really appreciate Ian and Barbara's presence.

So there's where we stand now. I'm about halfway through the tenth serial: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and I intend to post my thoughts sometime tomorrow, as well as for the serial following. Currently though: I'm really enjoying this foray into really classic Doctor Who. Lot to love at this stage, and yet I would still say that the only truly good story to this point is The Daleks. Excited to see more to come.

[ian-chestert0n]

susan: very smart!

the doctor: beau brummell always said i looked better in a cloak

(beau brummell was a regency socialite and the original dandy 🎩 the doctor has always been a name dropper lol)

(from the sensorites)

[idkaguyorsomething]

the writers for classic who went “hmmm, how can we ensure that susan has something to do in this arc we’re writing 🤔” and their solution was to make a planet of psychic aliens that get easily overstimulated and have face blindness that the main characters need to negotiate with.