031 The Sensorites Part 1: Strangers in Space

EPISODE: The Sensorites Part 1: Strangers in Space
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 031
STORY NUMBER: 007
TRANSMITTED: 20 June 1964
WRITER: Peter R. Newman
DIRECTOR: Mervyn Pinfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: David Whitaker
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who - The First Doctor (The Sensorites , The Time Meddler & The Gunfighters)



The Tardis has landed inside a Spaceship: a first for the series. The crew are dead. The Doctor wishes to leave but suddenly one of the bodies moves. He asks the travellers to grab a piece of equipment that will revive them, because they have in a deep sleep.

Oh dear, that didn't work well. The Doctor can't tell the difference between a deep sleep and dead?

The ship is orbiting the Sense-Sphere, home of the Sensorites, who are controlling their craft and influencing their brains. The ship's crew claim the Sensorites will try and stop the TARDIS crew from leaving - we see a gloved hand reaching for the TARDIS door and as the TARDIS crew smell burning we see the lock being removed. The crew are trapped outside. The ship shakes under the Sensorite control but the Doctor stabilises the ship albeit on a collision course for the Sense Sphere, but saves the ship in the nick of time. The Doctor wonders about the Sensorites behaviour. Only the other member of the crew has met them but he isn't there and they won't say what has happened to him. Barbara & Susan gain access to the rest of the ship seeking water, but another human shuts them out of the control deck. Susan & Barbara are stalked by the human, the missing crewman John, who is in a zombie like state. He collapses before them and tries to talk with them. The Doctor, Ian and the ship crew are trying to cut their way out of the flight deck: they hear a high pitch wine, the Sensorites are near and returning to the ship. The episode ends with a Sensorite looking in through the ship's window.

That didn't work for me. I get the feeling that there's something decent trying to get out but what comes over on the screen doesn't quite work.


Ladies and gentlemen, a big applause for the first appearance of Phil's Video Recorder in our journey. As yet not all existing Doctor Who stories are available on DVD but this is the first time I've need to dig out the VCR. We're actually watching the next THREE stories on video, the only time this will happen, but we'll break to CD half way through because two episodes in the middle of the next story are missing making that our first partially complete story. So for the next Nine episodes it's video. This will be one of the longer runs of consecutive days with the video. At the moment there's two Ten episodes stretches still on DVD (Terror of the Autons & Mind of Evil and Invasion of the Dinosaurs & Death to the Daleks) but that's beaten by a FIFTEEN episode run from Colony in Space through the Daemons and into Day of the Daleks. Note how these are all Pertwee episodes and two of them involve Season Eight! However by the time we get there - we hit Terror of the Autons on August 28th 2011! - it's possible that both Terror and Day of the Daleks will be out on DVD.

The BBC have made the Sensorites available on YouTube - You can find Episode One here.