I have two impressions of fandom’s attitude to ‘The Sensorites’. Firstly, not than many fans have seen it, since it has not yet been released on video (although it has been repeated on UK Gold). Secondly, it is considered to be dull and is notorious for having probably more fluffed lines than any other Hartnell Doctor Who story. I consider the first of these points to be shame, and I disagree with the second (well, except for the fluffed lines). In short, I rather like ‘The Sensorites’.

The best part about ‘The Sensorites’ is episode one, which is marvelously creepy and tense, as the TARDIS materializes aboard a seemingly dead ship, then meet the terrified, captive crew, and are subsequently trapped with them when the Sensorites steal the TARDIS lock. The creatures themselves remain unseen until the end of the episode one, and when they do appear their very alien appearance adds to their impact. They continue to be a silent, ominous threat until in episode two we start to learn more about them. John is also crucial to the creepiness of episode one, as he lurches, zombie-like after Barbara and Susan, his face terrifyingly blank; as with the Sensorites however, we soon learn that he is not as scary as he might first appear, and becomes a figure of sympathy as he breaks down in Barbara’s arms and then defies the Sensorites when they try to force them to make him frighten the women. This character development is crucial to the success of ‘The Sensorites’, as the suspense in episode one gives way to a fascinating study of the timid aliens. Just as they misjudged Carol and Maitland, and later the Doctor and his friends, so we initially misjudge them based on their actions and appearance; once their actions prove to be motivated by fear, they too become sympathetic as we learn of the human-caused plague that is killing their people. Often, when fans discuss “people monsters” (to quote Terrance Dicks) they tend to think of Malcolm Hulke creatiosn such as the Silurians and the Draconians. The Sensorites are the earliest example in Doctor Who, with the gentle and trusting First Elder, the suspicious but ultimately noble Second Elder, and the xenophobic and power-mad City Administrator. Even the City Administrator, the villain of the piece, is motivated by fear, although this later gives way to power lust. The lesser characters are also well presented, including the honourable Chief Warrior who is impressed by human bravery, the curious and philosophical scientists who is keen to learn from the alien visitors, and the City Administrators sadistic accomplice. In addition to their individuality, the Sensorites are also memorable for their alien differences – they are terrified of sound and darkness, both factors that make them as vulnerable as the TARDIS crew, John, carol and Maitland. The Sensorites’ telepathy is also well handled, initially adding to their seeming menace, as it enables them to influence human minds. The large bald head masks used to create the distinctive appearance of the Sensorites are very effective, and with the excellent city sets, the Sense-Sphere is an impressive attempt at creating an alien world. This is further enhanced by what tidbits we are given about their society, with references to the caste system and family groups (in fact, the most question that remains unanswered, is how they reproduce, since they are all seemingly male). And Peter Glaze makes a surprisingly good villain. 

As always, the TARDIS crew impress. The Doctor really takes centre stage here, and has the most important role in a story for arguably the first time in the show’s history – whereas previously, Ian and Barbara have shared the limelight with the Doctor, here is responsible for solving almost all of their problems, and the problems of the Sensorites – he quickly takes charge on board Maitland’s ship, showing Maitland and Carol that they are strong enough to resist the Sensorites, and he solves the Sensorites’ poisoning problem, venturing into the aqueduct alone and without trepidation, and constantly seeming delighted at the challenges presented to him here. As the show progresses, the emphasis shifts from the Doctor’s companions to the Doctor himself, but IMO this is the first time that he really takes centre stage. 

Susan also fares particularly well here, and is vital to the process of befriending the Sensorites; this is not only because of her ability to communicate telepathically with them, but also her willingness to trust them. Her first ever argument with the Doctor shows how she is changing and it is nice to see her do more than just scream hysterically without, well, screaming hysterically. Barbara is largely sidelined after the first two episodes, in order to give Jacqueline Hill a holiday, but Ian continues to play the role of hero, unhesitatingly going to the Doctor’s aid in the aqueduct despite having just got up off his sick bed after being near-fatally poisoned. 

The human supporting cast is adequate, although only Stephen Dartnell (Previously Yartek) as John really impresses, with his broken and pathetic performance in episodes one and two. Maitland and Carol are fairly dull, but this is largely because of their characters rather than a product of bad acting. The mentally ill but greedy and murderous humans living in the aqueduct are well-played and convincingly unhinged, and it is the first time that we have human villains in a Doctor Who story set on an alien planet. 

‘The Sensorites’ isn’t perfect by any means; the often derided concept of the City Administrator impersonating the Second Elder by wearing his sash is misinterpreted I think, since it seems to the intention that the Administrator only poses as the Second Elder to Sensorites who haven’t met either of them, which is apparently the case with the Chief Warrior. Unfortunately, he meets the scientist in the same disguise, and the scientist meets both Second Elder and City Administrator a few scenes earlier; this would mean at least that they look enough alike to fool a very casual acquaintance, but since there are differences between the Sensorite masks worn by the actors, I think this is a genuine mistake. I’ll also admit that ‘The Sensorites’ isn’t very action packed once the story moves to the Sense-Sphere. Overall however, ‘The Sensorites’ is a successful early attempt at a character-driven examination of an alien culture, and in my opinion at least it is certainly not dull.

Originally recorded as the penultimate serial of the first season, Planet of Giants was held over to open the show's second season, beginning a tradition that would run throughout the sixties. This story had been in the pipeline ever since the series inception a year earlier, but due to the extensive visual effects requirement the serial  originally penned by C.E. Webber  was shelved. Louis Marks ended up reworking Webber's miniscule idea into the three-part ecological thriller that eventually aired in October and November 1964, and I have to say it is one of my favourite William Hartnell stories. Whether its long incubation contributed to the story's brilliance or not I don't know, but it seems that a year's hands on experience producing Doctor Who certainly imbued Verity Lambert and her production team with the confidence they needed to attempt such an ambitious project.

For a low-budget TV serial that aired in 1964, the production quality of Planet of Giants is out of this world. Monochrome may be forgiving, but even so director Richard Martin has managed to pull off some wonderful visual effects here - the clever use of scale models and camera trickery really helps to convey the difference in size between the real world and our miniaturised travellers, and best of all it doesn't look cheap and nasty like the C.S.O. catastrophes that would plague seventies Who!

Even more important than the visuals though is the story. Louis Marks' first Doctor Who script manages to find just the right balance between drama, spectacle and that ol chestnut, education. Ian and Barbara are at their schoolteacher best, educating the audience about pesticides and such like. The пїЅbaddieпїЅ, Forester, is the first real twentieth century villain that the Doctor and his companions ever come up against. HeпїЅs just a man; someone who is out to make a buck and damn the environment. In a sense, he is a much more disturbing protagonist than a Dalek or a Voord because heпїЅs closer to home. This element of familiarity is one of пїЅPlanet of GiantsпїЅ greatest strengths, and is something that would become a staple of Doctor Who in later years, particularly in the mostly-Earthbound Jon Pertwee era and also in the next serial, пїЅThe Dalek Invasion of Earth.пїЅ This story takes everyday things like a man in a suit, an insect, a cat and a plughole and turns them into the stuff of nightmares.

However, пїЅPlanet of GiantsпїЅ does have one rather major flaw, although it isnпїЅt one that can be blamed on the writer, cast or crew. For some reason, Donald Wilson, then Head of the BBC Script Department, decided to cut the serial down from four episodes to three two weeks before it aired. Obviously this resulted in the hasty editing of the final two episodes into the aptly named single episode, пїЅCrisis,пїЅ and sadly a lot of the remaining material is a bit nonsensical, especially at the beginning of the third episode. How do the Doctor and Susan escape the water coming down the plughole, ey?

Regardless of its problems, пїЅPlanet of GiantsпїЅ remains to this day one of my favourite first Doctor serials. The performances are all top-drawer to match an inspired production, and its brevity aside I canпїЅt think of a bad word to say about it. Think Honey I Shrunk The KidsпїЅ but in black and whiteпїЅ and good.

“The Celestial Toymaker” is one of the first Doctor’s most recognised stories, a curious feat considering that William Hartnell is hardly in it and that only one out of the four episodes exists today. Perhaps this story is so well remembered because it is well and truly “out there”; a highly experimental “sideways” story which seems to have paid off. Michael Gough has to be given a tremendous amount of credit for his fantastic performance as the Toymaker. He spends half the story playing a game against a silent, disembodied hand and yet he still manages to impress!

However, despite the imagination of the story and the brilliance of the Toymaker himself, I don’t think that this serial quite deserves its lofty reputation. The ‘Trilogic Game’ (which so much of the story revolves around) completely lacks suspense; as the audience is ignorant of the rules the only suspense comes from how few moves are left, meaning that Steven and Dodo’s race against time to win the Toymaker’s games (and thus get the TARDIS back) has to really hold the audience’s attention, and in my case at least, it doesn’t. On the whole, with the notable exceptions of “The Myth Makers” and “The Daleks’ Master Plan” I am not a fan of Season Four, and this has a lot to do with the Doctor’s rather dull and predictable companions. Steven may have his moments, but at heart he’s just a rather generic male character merely thrown into the mix to handle the physical side of things; not a patch on the far more interesting Ian Chesterton. As for Dodo, she’s just plain stupid. Time after time in this story she falls for the Toymaker’s tricks, befriending his minions and almost getting herself killed in the process. Nevertheless, some of the games are entertaining to watch – particularly the game against Peter Stephens’ grotesquely superb ‘schoolboy’ Cyril in “The Final Test”, the serial’s orphaned episode.

“…then your battle will never end?”

All things considered, “The Celestial Toymaker” was ahead of its time and even as it exists today (as three audio-only episodes and one complete episode) is still an enjoyable piece of entertainment. With more involvement from William Hartnell (who goes missing part way through episode one and doesn’t show up until six minutes into “The Final Test”) it could have been so much better; if his sparring with the Toymaker in the final episode could have been spread across the whole story it would have really given the early episodes that little bit of steel that they are lacking. At least the resolution of the serial is brilliantly executed, in a way mirroring Rassilon’s riddle in “The Five Doctors” – “To win is to lose, and he who wins shall lose” – perhaps explaining why only the first Doctor knew what to do in that story! The sequel that never materialised (at least on TV) is also wonderfully set up; it is a real tragedy that we never got to see Michael Gough vs Colin Baker…

This is a fun little story. The basic plot about a ruthless businessman who commits crimes to protect his profits isn’t terribly engaging, but the twist of having the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan at an inch tall is. It’s fascinating and rather amusing to watch them struggling to survive the perils of a garden walkway and a laboratory sink. Perhaps more than any other Doctor Who story, this one taps into the imagination of childhood, where ordinary objects become extraordinary and perilous.

The production values are excellent. For the tiny budget that was available to the production crew, they turned out some pretty good giant ants and a reasonably convincing giant fly (and the thumping drumbeats that accompany Barbara’s discovery of the fly are the perfect accompaniment to that scene). The briefcase looks good, as does the giant match and pile of seeds. The phone is decent, though the phone cord isn’t too convincing. The lab sink and plunger are the best of the lot. 

The guest characters are not terribly inventive, but they work to keep the story moving. Forrester, the ruthless businessman who will lie and kill to try and avoid financial ruin is a character of pure clichй. But the story needs a villain to drive the plot, and with the size reduction of the crew being the primary focus, there’s really no time to develop more complex characters, so Farrow works in the context of the story. Smithers is a bit more interesting. He’s supposedly driven by concern for humanity, yet he’s fairly blasй about the death of Farrow, the government official sent to oversee the DN6 project. In the end he realizes just how destructive DN6 really is and the indications are that he would ultimately have abandoned the project. He’s not a sympathetic character though, just more realistic about consequences than the driven Forrester. Farrow is little more than a conscientious official doing his job, but he does come across as sympathetic, and his murder is a brutal thing, if creatively handled by the production team as an explosion heard by the tiny TARDIS crew.

The four regulars do their usual excellent acting job. They seem to be having fun with the script and the concept, and it had to be easier to act against giant props than it would have been to act against a bluescreen. Ian impresses as always with his adaptability and resourcefulness, and Barbara’s selflessness in wanting to stay and do something to stop the murderers rather than get back to the TARDIS immediately to cure her condition is admirable. I’m not quite sure why she’s so reluctant to tell Ian that she got insecticide on her hand though. And it’s nice to see the Doctor and Susan get one last outing together before Susan leaves the ship in the next story. She really is a lot more likeable than I’d remembered.

There is something that’s often overlooked about this story. The Doctor actually succeeds in returning Ian and Barbara to 20th century Earth, in the right year! “The War Machines” isn’t the first story set in present day surroundings, “Planet of Giants” is. Not that it does Ian and Barbara much good at an inch tall!

Overall, as I said in the beginning, this is a fun story. Nothing deep or weighty, just pure imagination. A good start to the season.

Watching Donald Cotton’s “The Gunfighters” is simply put, a test of endurance. How many times can you stand listening to the same refrain, over and over again? Across the four episodes of this story, Tristram Cary’s "Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" bookends almost every scene in the whole damn story! If you do as I foolishly did, and sit down to watch all four episodes in one sitting, I swear by the end of it you will feel your grip on sanity sliding. At least back in 1966 when it first aired, the assault on the eardrums was spread out over a month!

It is hard to believe that the same season that spawned the intergalactic blockbuster, “The Daleks’ Master Plan,” futuristic stories like “Galaxy 4” and “The Ark” and even mind-bending serials like “The Celestial Toymaker” could farm out something like this – a tongue in cheek pastiche Western, telling of events culminating in the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona back in 1881. If nothing else, it proves the flexibility of the series’ format! To be fair, it’s not all bad. Well… in terms of the story it is absolute pants, but it is good for a laugh and at the end of the day, that’s exactly what Cotton was aiming for when he wrote it.

“The Gunfighters” sees Steven and Dodo dress up as cowboys, put on Yankee accents and even take to singing in saloons! Even the Doctor dons a Stetson! Remarkably, even Dodo isn’t as annoying as usual – in fact, with retrospect, this is probably her least offensive outing; for once her inherent stupidity and feeble-mindedness fits in well with the comic theme. She even looks a bit better than usual with her hair extensions! 

The plot itself revolves around the Doctor being mistaken for Doc Holliday, and that’s about it really! The shoot out in episode four (which is the last episode to have an individual episode title until “Rose” 39 years later!) looks quite good on screen, there’s a busty singer thrown into the mix to help things along, and William Hartnell gives one hell of a performance considering what he had to work with. In all honesty though, unless you’re a hardcore completist you should probably write this one off. There are worse Doctor Who serials out there, but you’ll struggle to find one with a weaker plot and you certainly won’t find one with as annoying a jingle!

'Planet of Giants' is a fairly forgotten story, this imbalance only redressed by its recent video release. Prior to seeing it for the first time some months ago, my only knowledge of it came from the Target Novelisation, which IMO is one of Dicks' two worst novelisations (the other being 'The Space Pirates'). Consequently, I'd decided it was crap – actually seeing it forced me to re-evaluate it. 

The most obvious feature of 'Planet of Giants' is of course the miniaturization of the TARDIS crew. In essence, this is pure gimmick, for which the rest of the story is thus tailored. Nevertheless, it is an effective gimmick, well realized thanks to the superb "giant" sets, especially the sink in Smithers' lab and the telephone, both of which are realistic and convincing. The fly is especially impressive for 1964, particularly when compared to the feeble realization of another giant fly years later in 'The Green Death'. The challenges presented by their diminutive size thus preoccupies the Doctor and his companions throughout, making for an interesting story, as they face danger not from Voords and Sensorites or historical villains, but from cats, flies, and insecticide. Not only the TARDIS crew, but also the actors themselves, rises to these challenges, convincing the viewer that the characters really have been shrunk. To add an extra dimension to this plot, we have the DN6 subplot, with the inch-tall travelers struggling to bring to justice Forrester and Smithers for the murder of Farrow. One of the main criticisms often leveled against 'Planet of Giants' is that it has a sparse plot, and whilst this is certainly true, it is I think entirely justifiably; coupling a miniscule story with a Dalek invasion or a complex historical plot would have been a logistical nightmare for the production team and certainly outside the confines of a mere three-parter. The DN6 subplot is basic, but effective – it presents a threat to the Doctor and his companions and gives them a goal, whilst limiting the story to (more or less) a single house and garden. Forrester, Smithers and Farrow are played with conviction, despite not really having much to do. Of the three, Smithers is the most interesting, as he is at least motivated by a overall desire to do benefit mankind, forcing him to struggle with is conscience in the wake of Farrow's death, and eventually accept that DN6 is too deadly to ever be marketed. The obviously conscientious Farrow is quickly dispatched, but again a three dimensional character based on what little we see of him. Forrester is the least successful, coming across as little more than a stereotypical ruthless businessman, but it is this ruthlessness that drives the plot due to his murder of Farrow and he thus fills an important role. The other two characters, Burt and Hilda Rowse, are again well acted during their brief appearances and again their brief scenes are crucial to the plot. Hilda is particularly annoying for me, since I loathe the kind of curtain-twitching busybody neighbour that she represents, but it is her nosiness that leads to Forrester being brought to well-deserved justice. The fact that a character only present in two scenes can still manage to frustrate me in this way is a sign of effective, if functional, characterisation. 

The main problem with 'Planet of Giants' is that it lacks a sense of any real danger. Despite being small enough to be at considerable risk from virtually everything that they encounter, the story fails to really convey a sense that the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara are in real peril, the Doctor in particular seeming to enjoy himself rather too much throughout. Even when climbing the drainpipe and almost being drowned in the sink, he gives the impression that he is merely out on a stroll, which robs the miniscule sub-plot of momentum – after the initial impact of the gimmick, the story is a bit too leisurely to be truly involving. Even when Barbara is poisoned by DN6, there is little sense of danger, despite the decent acting from both Russell and Hill. Her illness is established and gets progressively worse, but is suddenly sidelined in episode three, with both Barbara and the Doctor insisting that they have to bring Farrow's murder to the attention of the authorities, despite the enormous risks inherent in delaying their return to the TARDIS and whilst Barbara just flutters a hand now and again and looks vaguely tired. In short, the TARDIS crew should feel and seem more vulnerable. I've already mentioned that the difficulties inherent in the realization of the regulars' diminished circumstances dictate the limitations of the overall plot, but the story could still have been made more gripping within that plot. Had Ian and Barbara been, for example, been found and trapped by Smithers, it would have fitted easily into the overall story and added an extra dimension of excitement, as their rescue would have presented greater challenges to the Doctor. Instead, the impression is given that the Doctor and friends could have defeated Forrester and Smithers in their sleep, and this is not helped by the swift and (so far as we know) easy return to the TARDIS in episode three. And Susan, who I've barely mentioned here, gets nothing whatsoever to do, except stand around for the Doctor to explain things to, and bury her face pathetically in Barbara's shoulder when asked to give her opinion on a moral dilemma. 

Overall, 'Planet of Giants' is slim pickings, but not an entirely unsuccessful experiment. The gimmick works, and just about keeps the attention despite the increasingly flagging drama as the story progresses. It isn't the strongest season opener, but it isn't the weakest either (stand up 'Time and the Rani') and is basically a whimsical and (for Doctor Who at least) original chapter in the series.