The Unwilling Warriors (The Sensorites Episode 2)

The one where Susan discovers she can communicate with the Sensorites telepathically...

The Unwilling Warriors was scheduled to go out at the regular Doctor Who time of 5.15pm, but this was Wimbledon fortnight, and in Britain, everything stops for tennis! Saturday, June 27th, 1964 was the middle weekend, the halfway point, of the annual Grand Slam, and action on court had overrun, so Doctor Who was delayed by around 25 minutes that evening, being broadcast at approximately 5.40pm so that Summer Grandstand could follow the action. Even in the 21st century, sporting occasions can be Doctor Who's worst enemy, and so it was the same back in 1964, as we'll see at the end of this review...

Where were we? Ah yes, the spooky whiskered creature peering in through the window, which to be honest isn't reprised quite as well because the Sensorite isn't raising his arms to the glass, as if trying to get in. He just stands there like a goon (or a Telegoon, perhaps?). You have to smile though, when Ian says: "Doctor, that thing's still out there", and the Doctor dismisses it with: "Oh, ignore it!"

The Sensorites have boarded the spaceship and are talking to fractured John "inside his mind", as Susan puts it. It seems the Sensorites are encouraging John to frighten Susan and Barbara, which on the face of it is a pretty benign threat, but when you think about it is also quite sinister. Don't kill them, just frighten them! As last week, Stephen Dartnell is convincingly sympathetic as poor John, muttering: "No, don't force me... you can't... I won't do it!" The way director Mervyn Pinfield has Dartnell look directly into camera when speaking to the Sensorites, his face stricken with conflict and fear, is also most effective.

When we see the Sensorites properly, of course, some might think they're a bit of a let-down. They step into shot, but due to the clumsy design of their plate-like feet, they step on each other - possibly the most cloddish debut a Doctor Who monster ever made! Nevertheless, the face masks are quite creepy, bordered with wispy white hair but otherwise bald, mouthless and noseless. Like prototype versions of Mondasian Cybermen, their faces are devoid of human expression except for their huge, dilated eyes. It's just a shame Daphne Dare's fleece-type tracksuit design makes them look so inoffensive.

Barbara and Susan use their mental steel to defy the Sensorites' attack on John, an idea which comes to Susan after remembering a previous, unseen adventure she and her grandfather had on the planet Esto, where the plants were psychic. To my knowledge, this Estonian adventure has never been told in spin-off fiction, although Esto was mentioned in Jonathan Morris's 2004 novel The Tomorrow Windows. Babs and Susan fend off the Sensorites' psychic assault, but of course, Susan collapses.

There's a delightful line from Maitland, referring to John, who says: "Did you know his hair was almost white?", to which the Doctor replies: "There's nothing wrong with that!" Lovely writing: Peter R Newman didn't have to put that in there, it adds nothing to the plot, but it's a great observational moment for the Doctor, just like the scene a little later where Ian tries to explain a spectrograph readout to Susan, who dismisses it ("Of course!") because, remember - Susan is an unearthly child, with knowledge far beyond that of her 20th century school contemporaries. Full marks to Newman for slipping that in. Mr Nation: see me after class...

Then there's the scene where lovely Carol seems to lose all tact and says to Susan and Barbara: "You're very strange people!" However, this leads to the magnificent eye-widening reaction from Jacqueline Hill as she shoots a "ooh, get her!" look at Susan. And just to add to her charmless assault on Susan and Barbara, Carol adds: "You came from nowhere and you seem to be going nowhere." Charming! Says the girl who's quite content to orbit an alien planet in deep sleep for the rest of her days!

The point where the script could really have wobbled off its hinges is with the discovery that the Sensorites are trying to defend their planet's molybdenum from the humans. You'd think any attempt to pronounce molybdenum would defeat poor old William Hartnell, but no, he gets it right, and in fact proceeds to reel off a series of melting points for iron and molybdenum without hassle (and he's correct, give or take a degree). Sadly, as soon as he's got the complicated temperatures out, the rest of his lines are lost, and he mops up with a cursory, "...so that gives you some idea." Poor Hartnell, you've gotta love him. Despite his health issues, he tried so damn hard and most often saved himself with a lovely bit of ad-libbed eccentricity. You can often see the cogs in his head whirring ten to the dozen, trying to keep up, and I love that about him. Hartnell was a force of nature - I mean, just look at him standing hand on hip, waiting for his next scene in the background, as Ian and Barbara move off to look for the Sensorites at 11m 56s.

The Unwilling Warriors can be a terribly ponderous episode, and Ian and Barbara's exploration of the ship's corridors is directed through treacle by Pinfield. For more than two entire minutes (a long time when nothing's really happening on screen), they move sloooooooowly through the various sets before finally bumping into two Sensorites. But what do they do? They don't say hello or try to communicate with them, they just go back the way they came - sloooooooowly! Nobody speaks at all, and while it might be slightly creepy that the Sensorites simply advance upon Ian implacably, it all seems rather silly, especially as earlier the Doctor thought it best to try and speak with them. Ian threatens the creatures with a giant spanner, but as Barbara adroitly points out: "Have they actually attacked you?"

The Sensorites then contact Susan telepathically and call for a parlay (and we get another delightful delivery from Hartnell: "They must agree not to harm us. If they try to harm us then I shall... fight them!", said with such haughty defiance!).

In fact, Hartnell is fantastic in his face-off with the Sensorites, gripping his lapels and thrusting his glowering face toward the cowering creatures. "I don't make threats, but I do keep promises," he says, threateningly. "I promise you I'll cause you more trouble than you bargained for if you don't return my property!" No, that's definitely a threat, Doctor.

The episode ends with the Sensorites insisting that Susan goes down to the Sense-Sphere with them, "otherwise we'll all be killed". It just doesn't ring true that these evidently gentle creatures would murder everybody, so the cliffhanger has little impact, sadly.

After showing Doctor Who late this week, the BBC really overstepped the line by taking the show off entirely for the next week, to accommodate - you guessed it - sport! It was the only time in Doctor Who's history that a break in transmission happened mid-story. On Saturday, July 4th, 1964, the Wimbledon Women's Singles Final was held, with rivals Margaret Smith of Australia playing Brazil's Maria Beuno for the twelfth time. Bueno defeated Smith 6-4; 7-9; 6-3, winning the trophy for the third and final time (you can see Pathe's colour footage here, if you're interested!). This was all shown in an extended Summer Grandstand which ran until 7pm that Saturday, after having already covered the Third Test Match between England and Australia at Headingley. There really was no escape from sport that day, as BBC2 had also covered the Henley Royal Regatta and showed Match of the Day that evening!

Children of all ages would have to wait TWO WEEKS to find out what the Sensorites would do with Susan on the planet below, and exactly what the Sense-Sphere looked like...!

First broadcast: June 27th, 1964

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Rubbish tracksuits aside, the Sensorites are quite well-realised creatures. They have unusual, featureless faces and are gradually emerging as sympathetic "monsters" but which retain an element of threat.
The Bad: Those two minutes with Ian and Barbara exploring the ship slooooooooowly are interminably dull.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Hidden Danger...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Strangers in Space (episode 1); Hidden Danger (episode 3); A Race Against Death (episode 4); Kidnap (episode 5); A Desperate Venture (episode 6)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-sensorites.html

The Sensorites is available on DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Sensorites-William-Hartnell-x/dp/B006H4R9HA