Written by Peter R. Newman | Directed by Mervyn Pinfield | Produced by Verity Lambert | Original air date 07/11/64
The Sensorites are ineffective warriors. One says, within earshot of Ian, that he's afraid of them, even though they are unarmed. Maybe keep that to yourself, Sensorite, you'll be in a better bargaining position. The Doctor is very angry in the first half of this episode - always on the verge of shouting down someone who crosses him. He storms out of one scene, ranting, "Dictated to by petty thieves and my own grandchild!" He's so angry, he doesn't make any sense, saying, "In all the years my granddaughter and I have been traveling, we have never had an argument - and now you have caused one!" which is nonsense - we've seen him argue with Susan several times.
As an aside - and I grant you, I shouldn't these lines too seriously, as they already contain a blatant lie - but he implies he's been traveling with Susan for years, but she's apparently sixteen. If that's the case, that means the Doctor was traveling around with a very young girl for a while, a situation I can't see a pre-An Unearthly Child Doctor handling very well (hopefully the Henry VIII trip was sometime recent, and he didn't put her in danger when she was twelve or something!). It also makes for a continuity clash when we see something like Clara talking to the Doctor and Susan in Name of the Doctor, when Susan is clearly the same age as she is now. I digress, though - just an interesting thought, not something I'm upset or worried about.
Sadly for us, it's Jacqueline Hill's turn for a vacation, so she stays on the ship for a few episodes while everyone else goes down to the Sense-sphere. The First Elder, before the TARDIS crew arrives, gives us our serial thesis statement: "It is a failure of all beings that they judge through their own eyes," which, sadly, is still very relevant these days. Speaking of relevance to today, the City Administrator is extremely xenophobic on sight of the TARDIS crew and friends. He tries to have them killed without authority from his superiors, thinking them just being on the planet is a danger to their species. Luckily, he's stopped for now, but will probably keep trying to kill our heroes until this serial is over (hint: he will).
I originally thought it was kind of dumb that Peter R. Newman makes it so obvious that the water is what made Ian sick, that he should have made it a little less obvious. He's not trying to trick the audience with it, though - the scene is written in such a way to just provide a nice cliffhanger for us, not to try to make us figure out what happened. The problem is in the next episode, where our heroes take a little too long to figure out what happened, but that at least makes a little sense, because they don't dwell on the fact that Ian alone drank different water.
It's interesting to note the Sense-sphere has several different castes, which is interesting (and little remarked upon in the rest of the serial). Apparently there is the leader caste, warrior caste, and the Sensorites. The Sensorites, apparently, are the worker class - they "work and play," we're told, while the leaders think and lead and the warriors fight. We're never shown a clear distinction between these levels of society - unless the Sensorites still on the spaceship are warriors, and our heroes are sitting with "leaders?" The script never makes it clear, and it's strange for it. I'm not sure what Peter R. Newman was going for with it - some sort of comment on Communism, considering the time in which this was made? If so, he doesn't take a hard stance on it, and his opinion on the Sensorite's caste system is ambiguous.
"Doctor Who" puns: 2 | Tomorrow: "A Race Against Death"
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