Doctor Whosday: Telepathetic Politics

In reviewing stories from the 60s, as I have been both here and on Marvel Mondays, certain themes come up again and again. One of the biggest is the contrast between democracy and communism. The freedom and individuality of the West is championed, while the collective juggernaut of the East is castigated.

"The Sensorites" begins much the same way. The brave, British astronauts from Democratic Earth are menaced by the Sensorites, insidious aliens who, while cowardly, have the ability to control the minds of humans. They have a collective society where each Sensorite is given their task, and they are in a cold war with the astronauts, refusing to let them leave peacefully yet also not killing them, yet. They are the communist threat.

And yet, in a bold move for 1964, "The Sensorites" takes a very different, and in many ways more modern, turn. And that is to be commended. But is it enough to overcome the weaknesses of the story? That is a good question.

The TARDIS Wiki has a straight synopsis of this story without mentioning communism or the atmosphere of the sixties, so if that's what you want, check it out. In this review I want to ask a question: How far does a brilliant idea make up for poor execution?

Although in 1964 it would be Space-Khrushchev.

And for the sixties, The Sensorites is very clever. Oh, it's certainly not the first time the "peace is better than war" story has been done, but it was still a contrast to the jingoistic tone that was still prevalent in the era.

There are many parallels between the Sensorites and communists. They operate as a collective. Each Sensorite is effectively identical, save for their differing tasks, or castes. Everyone works toward the common good, without thought to personal ambition. Despite this, they are an autocracy with all power invested in the First Elder. Yet unlike cold-war-era communism, where the power of a communist dictator often led to tyranny, here the First Elder is wise and good, and leads his people to prosperity. In many ways, this is an ideal communist society.

Which is not to say that the Sensorites are perfect. There are many digs at the stereotypical communist character. At heart the Sensorites are cowards, using fear to control the minds of their enemies, but being terrified of simple things like the dark or loud noises. They fear the dark because they have very poor night vision, perhaps a metaphor for communist shortsightedness. Then there is their nearly-identical nature, which allows one evil Sensorite to cause all sorts of havoc simply by adopting the garb of a higher official, thus illustrating the dangers of a collective society.

Shouldn't that be SPACE race against death?

Finally, the central plot of the story is the strange disease sweeping through the Sensorites, a disease which turns out to be a poison spread in the water supply. But the elders do not get sick, because the elders enjoy crystal water from the mountains. This is reminiscent of the decadence of Soviet leaders while their peasants suffered in poverty.

In the end, though, it is not communism that is the evil, but rather paranoia. And that paranoia is all-pervasive. The main villain is the City Administrator, a Sensorite who blames humans for bringing the disease, and thus wishes to kill all the humans. But while his paranoia and hatred causes him to use excessive methods, it turns out he is not wrong. Three human survivors of a previous spaceship crash have gone insane, and obsessively think of themselves at war with the Sensorites. They are the ones that have been poisoning the water supply.

Pictured: The Sensorites. Probably.

Nor is this paranoia and hatred merely the domain of the wicked. The serial shows how insidious it is. Ian nearly bludgeons a Sensorite the first time they meet, until Barbara points out that, despite their threatening manner and somewhat terrifying silence, they have made no violent actions. The humans have discovered the Sensorite homeworld is rich in Unobtanium... er... I mean Molybdenum, a very rare mineral, and they cannot help but desire to mine and exploit that mineral wealth. The Sensorites, for their part, telepathically sense this desire and allow the fear of exploitation to taint their dealings with mankind.

In the climax of the serial the insane shipwrecked captain hurls himself at the Sensorite military leader, who shoots him down... but it is revealed that he chose to stun him, instead of kill him.

"I could have killed him," the soldier says. "I wanted to. But that would not be the way, would it?"

Unfortunately the lesson would not be learned until
this moment, when the Cold War ended.

And that is the most triumphant part of this serial. Ultimately it is not a story about good guys and bad guys. It is a story about those who surrender to fear and hatred, and those who resist that fear and hatred. Resisting fear frees humans from Sensorite control. And resisting hatred ends conflicts instead of continuing them. And in 1964, in the middle of the Cold War, that was a very powerful message to teach.

And yet, despite the excellence of that message, I cannot give this serial a pass. Because my above synopsis might have been glowing, but the actual execution was laughable.

Throughout the story our characters seem to be using as little brain power as possible. This begins in the very first scene, where the Doctor and his Companions at first believe that the crew of the spaceship on which they have landed are dead, only for one to revive. After telling Ian to use the resuscitating device on his shipmate Carol, Ian says with great gravity, "I'm sorry. Carol's dead."

Well so was the guy a second ago! Clearly they have a resuscitating device, that was fairly obvious. Get with it, Ian!

Apparently dismantling complex machinery is silent.

The Sensorites manage to sneak onto the ship and remove the locking mechanism from the TARDIS (which fuses the lock shut) while the TARDIS is in the same room with our heroes. And no one notices.

In the very first episode our heroes discover that very strong thoughts, thought in sync, can cause Sensorites to collapse. In the second episode they learn that loud noise has a similar effect. And yet consistently throughout the serial, when these techniques would have been extremely useful, they are completely forgotten.

At the end of Episode 2 the Sensorites demand that Susan come with them as a hostage, and they will let everyone else live. At this point, the Sensorites have no leverage. They have proven themselves reluctant, perhaps even unwilling, to do violence. They can easily be defeated by tandem thoughts, loud noises, and darkness. There is no reason whatsoever for anyone to take their threats seriously. But Susan practically flings herself at them, demanding to be taken hostage, and when the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara talk the Sensorites out of it she gets angry because she feels the Doctor is being over-protective.

"I have opinions too!" she whines. Yes, Susan, we know, but your opinions are all incredibly stupid, like getting yourself captured for no good reason!

All Time Lords go through this phase. Just wait
until the Sixth Doctor.

For that matter, with all the telepathy around Susan shows off her own enhanced ESP, causing the Doctor to comment that once they get back to their home planet (still nameless at this point in the show) they might have to see about getting her trained. But, as so often happens with Susan, her telepathy seems to manifest itself with a whole lot of wide-eyed crazy, making me wonder if she's going to pull out the scissors.

When they meet, peacefully, with the Sensorite First Elder to discuss matters, he is appalled to find they have been offered water from the public aqueduct, and he demands the water be taken away and replaced with the crystal water the elders drink. Ian makes a big deal of being very thirsty, and drinks some of the aqueduct water anyway. When he then collapses, poisoned, the Doctor and company start naming every possible thing that might have caused the symptoms, dismissing them one by one, to the point where you just want to scream, "It's the water! It is so obviously the water! The one thing he had that you did not was the water!"

Introductions at a casual party are a
nightmare for Sensorites.

The Sensorites are so naive that the evil City Administrator has to be told (accidentally) by astronaut Carol that, were he to put on the Second Elder's badge of office, no one could tell the difference. The City Administrator constantly makes plans without bothering to get any information, which constantly results in his plans failing. One of the astronauts has gone crazy from the Sensorite telepathy, and the First Elder has him in psychiatric care to repair his mind. When he twigs on to the fact that the City Administrator is evil (since enhanced psychic sensitivity apparently works like a detect evil spell in this serial), the City Administrator admits it and brags about it, despite knowing that the astronaut is recovering from his trauma and will be able to expose him (which he later does).

For that matter, while the City Administrator starts out by trying to disintegrate the humans, after the Second Elder breaks the firing key on the disintegrator gun his plans become more and more haphazard, resulting in him being  more dickish than villainous. He kidnaps Carol and has her write a letter saying she has gone back to the ship... just to be a dick and lie to them for no good reason, apparently. Indeed, this turns out to be his undoing since Barbara and Susan have just come from the ship, and know that she had not passed that way.

Who wouldn't be terrified of feet like that?

As for the Sensorites themselves, in the first two episodes they are terrifying, controlling minds, summoning power over the spaceship, and driving humans insane. Then, for the rest of the story, they show none of these abilities. In fact, they need to press a telepathy disc to their forehead just to send thoughts to each other, and none of them are able to telepathically sense the deception in the City Administrator or his minions.

Time and again the heroes succeed only because the villains are behaving just as buffoonishly as they.

Then there is the pacing. This is a six episode story, and that is about an episode too many. There are long, padded scenes of Ian and Barbara sneaking through the spaceship trying to find the Sensorites, of the group sneaking through the aqueduct, and of general walking around.

And the plot holes! The Sensorites have been scared away from the aqueduct because it is dark, and there is something that roars like a horrible monster. The Doctor enters the aqueduct and is attacked, his coat torn to shreds as if by a wild animal. Later, they go into the aqueduct and find three crazy human castaways of a previous spaceship expedition. Are there also monsters and wild beasts? Were the humans somehow mimicking wild beasts to frighten the Sensorites? We are never told.

For that matter, the Unobtanium? The stuff that caused the Sensorites to attack the human ship in the first place? There is no resolution there. It is never mentioned at the end of the story. The Sensorites let the humans go without ever considering the problem. They originally assumed that once humans found out about the Unobtanium, they would send a fleet to mine the planet dry, which is why they refused to let the astronauts leave. Is that no longer a concern for them? Do they have some assurances? Who knows? The story just assumes we've forgotten about the Unobtanium, and lets it go.

So I want to like this story. I want to like the principles behind it, and the ultimately peaceful and hopeful message that counteracts the nationalist warmongering of the cold war. But I just cannot. It's too poorly done, and too silly.

If there's one word I would use to describe "The Sensorites" it would be: Telepathetic.

Oh yes. And there was a lot of camera mugging.