The story opens with a bit of a puzzler, carrying on from the conclusion to the previous story. The Doctor states that the TARDIS has landed, and yet it is still moving. Ian suggests it has landed on top of something, whilst Barbara offers that they may have landed inside something. She is correct, as they have materialised inside a spaceship. The puzzle is that the Doctor seems confused by the readings in the first place. This suggests that he hasn't been travelling in the ship for all that long - bearing in mind how often the TARDIS will arrive on spacecraft from now on. We know that the Doctor and Susan have had a number of adventures prior to the arrival of Ian and Barbara, at least two of which took place on alien planets - Esto and Quinnis. However, all the other references seem to be Earthbound - be it descriptions of previous TARDIS disguises, or historical figures who they have met - Henry VIII, Pyrrho, Gilbert & Sullivan. It does seem odd that the TARDIS has never landed inside a moving object during all their travels to date.
The Doctor and his companions emerge from the TARDIS to have a look around. They find two crew members, who appear to be dead. The Doctor works out that they must have only just died, from their watches. Hartnell fluffs his line here, describing the watches as the "non-winding time".
Captain Maitland suddenly stirs to life, and indicates that someone should fetch him something from a nearby shelf. Ian picks up a gizmo and asks if he means this, and Maitland indicates "yes", only for Ian to ignore him, put it back and pick up another item, which Maitland also indicates is the right thing. How could Ian have known to ignore the first item and pick the second?
Whilst the Doctor and his companions deal with the crew, we see an alien hand do something to the TARDIS lock. We've seen the distance between the TARDIS and where everyone is standing, and it's only a few feet. They even smell the burning as the lock is removed, yet no-one looks and sees the Sensorite in the middle of the control room stealing the lock.
A short time later we'll discover that there aren't even supposed to be any Sensorites on the spaceship at this time. Their travel pods make a high pitched whining sound, but we don't hear the lock-stealing Sensorite leave.
At one point a camera bumps into the desk.
Barbara and Susan are then sent to fetch some water, and walk right past the big "WATER" sign in the control room - wandering instead off down a corridor. Susan seems confused by the locking mechanism, even though it is exactly the same as the ones they operated in the Dalek city.
Much is made of opening the large circular doors. Maitland spends ages trying to open one with a cutting tool, only for Ian to lose patience and simply push it up. Why couldn't they have just done this in the first place? You could also see the marks on the door before Maitland started cutting it. The other spaceship crewman, John, has a special way of unlocking the doors - but it is just the same as everyone else, waving your hand in front of the sensor.
The cast must have been annoyed that the rare mineral to be found on the Sense-Sphere is Molybdenum - as everyone struggles to pronounce it, especially Hartnell. He attempts the word twice then just says "mineral" instead.
A quick reminder that Doctor Who was never meant to be watched in one sitting, as we do with the DVDs these days. The audience was never expected to remember specific images from the previous week's episode. In some cases, the cliffhanger reprise was played in from the ending of the last episode, but on many occasions the scene was re-enacted at the start of the new one. This has lead to many discrepancies - such as the Sensorite looking in through the window at the end of the first installment and the replay for the start of the second. He looks totally different, and isn't even holding the same stance.
Our first proper look at the aliens is in a corridor, and unfortunately the director elects to show us their feet first. They have big flat circular feet - and one of the Sensorites is standing on the foot of his colleague. Rather diminishes their threat.
Most of the above takes place in just the first episode, and the start of the second. When I first started these posts I said that I wouldn't catalogue every boom-mike shadow, but I would mention when the actual boom was in shot. Once the action moves down to the Sense-Sphere we get a couple of occasions when this happens, in the sequence when the Doctor and his companions first meet the First Elder.
Something most commentators mention about this story is the unlikelihood that the Sensorites really can't tell each other apart without their badges of office. All the Sensorites we meet look and sound different.
The Sensorites are supposed to be a peaceful people, who trust each other implicitly - yet they have a death ray set-up covering their palace - including rooms in the First Elder's personal chambers. It is said that no-one ever goes into the room where the ray is controlled from these days, but it seems folly to have left it operational all this time.
The First Elder continues to maintain that no Sensorite could possibly be working against them, even when all the evidence points to just that. The City Administrator signals his villainy from the start, and no-one seems to think it suspicious that the killer of the Second Elder manages to escape when in his personal custody.
Not so much a fluff from Hartnell, as an outright mistake: the piece of uniform found in the tunnels. Ian picks up a scrap of cloth which has the letters "- INEER" on it - obviously part of a flash reading "ENGINEER". Despite it being in front of his nose, Hartnell spells out "- INNER".
A proper Hartnell fluff: "I rather fancy that's settled that little bit of solution".
Another fluff which doesn't come from Hartnell: "I heard them over... over... talking" from one of the Sensorites.
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