N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
The Sensorites is a rather odd – or should that be rather Ood – story to judge, sometimes being quite spooky (the first Sensorite appearance at the spaceship window, for example), sometimes dragging out the action much too long (both on the spaceship and once our hopeful travellers are on the Sense Sphere), often feeling a bit silly (Susan actually crosses her fingers at one point!), but then at other times being quite poetic. I’ve never known quite what to make of it.
“To see all the time is not a good thing.”
Chief Scientist, Kidnap
It does, though, contain some wonderful dialogue – both intentional and of the fluffed variety.
For example, when the Chief Scientist wistfully responds to Carol’s realisation that Sensorites have no eyelids – ‘To see all the time is not a good thing’ – I wonder is he also saying that, for a Sensorite, ignorance is bliss? If so, it’s ironic that whilst Sensorites have the physical potential to see all things at all times, at the same time they can place such blind trust in someone that they would fail to see treachery. (On the other hand, I can’t help but think that, with no eyelids and presumably no means of blinking, Sensorites would be a really good ally to have when Weeping Angels abound!)
In a perhaps better-known example, it would seem Susan’s description of the ‘burnt orange’ skies of her then-unnamed home planet has lived long in the memories of Doctor Who‘s visual designers, influencing them to this day in their depiction of Gallifrey.
Speaking of ‘burnt orange’, and even though the story is in black-and-white, when she returns to the action in the final episode, it’s clear that Barbara has made use of the spaceship’s tanning facilities whilst the others are on the Sense Sphere. Did she catch the sun in Aztec Mexico and want to top up, I wonder?
I’m being facetious, of course (knowing thanks to the many excellent reference books that have been written about Doctor Who that actually Jacqueline Hill had just returned from two weeks’ holiday), but it’s hard to resist a bit of fun after watching a serial in which the Doctor and his companions are guilty of such degrees of loquacity that the Administrator has ‘heard them over-over-talking’ near an Aquaduck!
So yes, there is much to chuckle at but also much to admire in The Sensorites, although I have to admit I’m no wiser regarding how I feel about this story of the inhabitants of the Sense Sphere than on my first visit twenty or so years ago. In that much at least, you could say it has indeed been a non-winding time.
