Category: Classic Season 01

.The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara are sprawled across the floor of the TARDIS console room after some kind of accident. The TARDIS itself won’t let them exit, and gives very vague readings as to what may be outside. And something appears to be affecting the minds of its occupants…could that something be the TARDIS itself, trying to warn them of their own impending doom?

written by David Whitaker
directed by Richard Martin and Frank Cox
music not credited

Guest Cast: none

Broadcast from February 8 through 15, 1964

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

The TARDIS lands in the Himalayas in 1289, and promptly breaks down, stranding the Doctor, Ian, Susan and Barbara. Fortunately for them, a caravan is passing through and they are able to secure shelter. Ian and Barbara are impressed to learn that their new benefactor is none other than Marco Polo himself, on his latest passage to Cathay from Venice. But they are less enthused when Marco reveals that he intends to take the Doctor’s “flying caravan” to Peking as a gift for Kublai Khan, who will hopefully be impressed enough to continue to grant Marco safe passage. The Doctor and his companions continue traveling with Marco and his own suspicious companion, the Mongol warlord Tegana. Susan befriends a young girl named Ping-Cho, who is being transported to meet her future husband in an arranged marriage. The Doctor doesn’t give up hope that he will have an opportunity to recover the TARDIS, but he may have to travel with Marco for months to sieze it.

written by John Lucarotti
directed by Waris Hussein and John Crockett
music by Tristram Cary

Guest Cast: Mark Eden (Marco Polo), Derren Nesbitt (Tegana), Zienia Merton (Ping-Cho), Leslie Bates (the man at Lop), Jimmy Gardner (Chenchu), Charles Wade (Malik), Philip Voss (Acomat), Philip Crest (Bandit), Paul Carson (Ling-Tau), Gabor Baraker (Wang-Lo), Tutte Lemkow (Kuiju), Peter Lawrence (Vizier), Martin Miller (Kublai Khan), Basil Tang (Foreman), Claire Davenport (Empress), O. Ikeda (Yeng)

Broadcast from February 22 through April 4, 1964

Notes: Guest star Zienia Merton would later become a semi-regular cast member on the 1970s ITV science fiction series Space: 1999, as Moonbase Alpha crewmember Sandra Benes. The master tapes of this episode were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s, and no video copies exist, though it has been released as a narrated, audio-only story on CD.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

The TARDIS lands on the planet Marinus, a world whose seas are filled with acid and whose beaches are sand fused into glass. They investigate a fantastic building, but at the same time something else is investigating the TARDIS – a tall creature in what appears to be a black skinsuit. Inside the building, more of these creatures are encountered, and Ian saves a man who’s being threatened by one of the beings. The man, Arbitan, tells the Doctor and his friends the story of the Conscience, a machine that was built to be the perfect impartial judge and evolved into a device that eliminated crime from Arbitan’s society by controlling the thoughts of the population. But when a rebel group aided by the Voords arrived, four of the Conscience’s five keys were hidden to prevent the Voord from ruling over Marinus with its mind control. Arbitan enlists the Doctor’s help to search for the missing keys, and to make sure he has the time travelers’ help, he prevents them from reaching the TARDIS. They undertake a lengthy quest across Marinus, through lawless frozen wastelands, enduring moving vegetation, and visiting a ruined city whose inhabitants use hypnotic means to trick visitors into seeing an opulent palace. They even find a counterfeit Conscience key. But when they return with the four keys, they find Arbitan dead and the Voords in control.

written by Terry Nation
directed by John Gorrie
music by Norman Kay

Guest Cast: George Couloris (Arbitan), Martin Cort, Peter Stenson, Gordon Wales (Voords), Robin Phillips (Altos), Katharine Schofield (Sabetha), Heron Carvic (voice of Morpho), Edmund Warwick (Darrius), Francis de Wolff (Vasor), Michael Allaby (Larn), Alan James, Anthony Verner, Peter Stenson, Michael Allaby (Ice Soldiers), Henley Thomas (Tarron), Raf de la Torre (Senior Judge), Alan James, Peter Stenson (Judges), Fiona Walker (Kala), Martin Cort (Aydan), Donald Pickering (Eyesen), Stephen Dartnell (Yartek), Dougie Dean (Eprin)

Notes: This episode marks the first time that the TARDIS is actually seen materializing on screen. William Hartnell was absent from episodes 3 and 4 to take a brief vacation, so those episodes focus instead on Ian and Barbara’s adventures.

Broadcast from April 11 through May 16, 1964

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

The TARDIS lands in the ancient empire of the Aztecs, a culture that has always fascinated Barbara for its mix of scientific and technological achievement and brutal savagery. Exploring with Susan in tow, Barbara quickly discovers that the Aztecs aren’t in the past tense here – the time machine has brought its passengers to the height of that civilization, a time when being caught in the temple vaults is punishable by death. When the Aztecs do discover the two women there, Barbara takes advantage of her and Susan’s “futuristic” appearance by explaining that they are the embodiment of the god Yetaxa and his handmaiden. Quickly installed as a god in the temple, Barbara decides to push history along a different course, declaring the Aztecs’ bloody human sacrifices will no longer be needed – over the Doctor’s protests.

written by John Lucarotti
directed by John Crockett
music by Richard Rodney Bennett

Guest Cast: Keith Pyott (Autloc), John Ringham (Tlotoxl), Ian Cullen (Ixta), Margot van der Burgh (Cameca), Tom Booth (Victim), David Anderson (Captain), Walter Randall (Tonila), Andre Boulay (The Perfect Victim)

Broadcast from May 23 through June 13, 1964

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

In the distant future, the TARDIS lands aboard a human spacecraft whose crew claims that they are under siege by creatures called the Sensorites, who can influence their thoughts. Captain Maitland warns the Doctor and his friends to leave immediately and assures the time travelers that they can do nothing for the ship’s crew, but by the time they return to the TARDIS, it’s too late – the lock has been removed and the doors cannot be opened. The Doctor resolves to help the human crew fight the influence of the Sensorites. The ship is boarded by spacewalking Sensorites, who are able to exert mental control over Maitland and his crew, though the Doctor and his companions are able to fight off that control, and they begin to show the humans how to do the same. But the Sensorites quickly detect that someone aboard has powerful telepathic abilities of their own, and they use that mind-link to open peaceful negotiations – through Susan. The Doctor and his friends, and the ship’s human crew, are invited to visit the Sensorites’ home planet, Sense-Sphere, where the Sensorites reveal their fear of humanity visiting their world to exploit it for the molybdenum on its surface. Worse yet, a previous human expedition to Sense-Sphere has come and gone, but many of its crew died after leaving the planet. When Ian falls ill, the Doctor discovers that the water is poisoned – and Ian is only the latest victim. But are the Sensorites – who claim that they are peaceful – behind the plot? Time is running out for the Doctor to find out.

written by Peter R. Newman
directed by Mervyn Pinfield (episodes 1-4) & Frank Cox (episodes 5-6)
music by Norman Kay

Guest Cast: Stephen Dartnell (John), Ilona Rogers (Carol), Lorne Cossette (Captain Maitland), Ken Tyllson, Joe Grieg, Peter Glaze, Arthur Newell (Sensorites), Eric Francise, Bartlett Mullins (Elders), John Bailey (Commander), Martyn Huntley, Giles Phibbs (Survivors)

Notes: Again due to actress Jacqueline Hill being on vacation, the character of Barbara is absent for much of The Sensorites. This episode leaves no doubt that the Doctor and Susan are from a world other than Earth; her description of orange skies and trees full of silver leaves was taken on board in numerous later novels, and was finally depicted – briefly – in the 2007 episode The Last Of The Time Lords. (Previous episodes that visited Gallifrey – which wasn’t named until 1974 – usually didn’t adhere to that description, likely for budgetary reasons.)

Broadcast from June 20 through August 1, 1964

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green