Episode 32: The Unwilling Warriors

Synopsis:

Ian spots movement at the window of the spaceship, and sees a bizarre creature staring in at them...

John is able to tell Barbara and Susan that he can sense the aliens nearby, and wish him to hurt them. He continues to resist. They decide to help him by combining their thoughts, focussing on the phrase "We defy you!". When they do this, the two Sensorites who have come aboard recoil, clutching their heads in pain.

Fed up with how slow the cutting tool is, Ian forces the door open and goes to find them.

Later, as John rests in his cabin, Captain Maitland asks the Doctor why the aliens are acting against them. Ian mentions that John muttered something about "the dreams of avarice" before falling asleep. They realise that he had discovered some great mineral wealth on the Sense-Sphere, and this is what the Sensorites are determined to protect. On scrutinising a spectrograph, the Doctor identifies high concentrations of the mineral molybdenum. This can withstand very high temperatures and is essential for spacecraft construction.

The Sensorites continue to prowl around the ship but John helps to lock them out of the bridge.

Barbara suggests that the aliens may be just as frightened as they are.

The Doctor is surprised to see his grand-daughter communicate telepathically with the Sensorites. They wish to talk with them, and the Doctor agrees. They tell them that they are all to be taken down to the planet where an area has been set aside for them, and where they are expected to live. They are not to be allowed to leave. The Doctor demands the return of the TARDIS lock but this is refused.

They withdraw, and the Doctor points out that the eyes of the Sensorites were fully dilated, meaning that they would be unable to see in the dark.

Susan begins to communicate telepathically with the aliens again. She opens the door, and the two Sensorites are outside waiting for her.

Susan announces that if she doesn't go with them to their planet, everyone will die. The door closes behind them...

Next episode: Hidden Danger

Data:

Written by: Peter R Newman

Recorded: Friday 5th June 1964 - Television Centre Studio 3 (TC3)

First broadcast: 5:40pm, Saturday 27th June 1964

Ratings: 6.9 million / AI 59

Designer: Raymond P Cusick

Director: Mervyn Pinfield

Additional Cast: Ken Tyllsen (1st Sensorite), Joe Greig (2nd Sensorite)

Critique:

So just who are the Unwilling Warriors of the title? It might refer to Ian and Barbara, who are forced to go on the defensive after searching for the Sensorite interlopers. 

If it refers to the Sensorites themselves then it's jumping the gun somewhat. We don't find out that they are essentially a peace loving race - who only appear to act aggressively when they feel threatened - until future episodes. For this instalment they remain a seemingly belligerent unknown force who have attacked the astronauts, trapping them in space and driving one of them insane. They insist that the astronauts and the TARDIS crew remain their captives forever, and say they will kill everyone if they don't agree to this. Barbara does start to suggest that the aliens may not be all that they seem, but in the series so far the only friendly aliens we've seen have been the ones that look like us.

Watching the episodes back to back on VHS or on DVD it is very noticeable that it is a different Sensorite who appears to Ian at the window. Extra Anthony Rogers had featured in the previous week's cliff-hanger, uncredited, as 1st Sensorite to save hiring Ken Tyllsen for such a brief appearance.

Our first proper glimpse of the Sensorites is not a promising one. Mervyn Pinfield opts for a shot of their feet, intending to then pan up to the rest of the creatures, but unfortunately one of the Sensorites is standing on the other's foot! The costumes have been given large, flat, circular feet, which will prove almost as cumbersome as the flippers of the Voord, with the cast members tripping over them.

The costume comprises a close-fitting, high collared, blue-grey body suit made from jersey material. The collar hides the neck join with the mask. 

These particular Sensorites have three black bands on their forearms, which we'll later discover denotes their status as Warriors (though oddly here they say they may need to call in their Warriors if the humans resist them).

The mask is an orange colour, with a bulbous cranium. The mouth is hidden by a beard. The ears were affixed separately, with the beard helping to obscure the join. At one point the actor's ear is briefly visible.

They possess small discs attached to a cable, which act as their telepathic communicators, and they are armed with loop-shaped weapons, of an organic art noveau design.

Carole Ann Ford was pleased with this story as she got to demonstrate telepathic abilities. This was the sort of thing she had been promised for her character, but which the writers were failing to deliver. The Doctor seems surprised by this ability, and there's no hint that he himself has these powers. At one point he does tell Ian that he can read his mind, but in this instance he's referring to being able to second-guess him and read his expression, rather than pure mind-reading. (If he really could read minds, The Edge of Destruction would have been a non-starter of a story).

It was inevitable that telepathy would feature in the series at some pont early on. Before Doctor Who was created, the report prepared for Donald Wilson's Script Department on Science Fiction had settled on telepaths as a potential story area to develop, along with time travel.

Ian attempts to explain to Susan what a spectrograph is, and she just cuts him off. This is a reminder that her advanced scientific knowledge was one of the things that got the teachers involved with the Doctor in the first place.

The Sense-Sphere is said to be rich in molybdenum. Hartnell struggles with the word.

He struggles further with his description of the element. After quoting the melting temperatures of it and iron he says: "So you know that, er, will give you some sort of idea".

Molybdenum (chemical symbol Mo) is a metallic element which has the atomic number 42. The name derives from molybdos, which is Greek for "lead" as its ores were often mistaken for those of that metal. It was isolated as a unique element in 1781.

The Doctor is one degree out with the melting point - it should be 2623 rather than 2622 Celsius. (He's out by a degree on iron as well).

"Beyond the dreams of avarice" as a phrase has two potential sources - Dr Samuel Johnson, as quoted by his biographer Boswell, or his contemporary, the playwright Edward Moore, in his play The Gamester (1753).

Oddly, the Sense-Sphere is also said to have a "larger than usual land mass". This presupposes that most planets have oceans, which isn't the case, and that where they do have oceans the continents aren't very big. It must be that Earth space missions are limiting themselves to planets which have oceans - so more likely to be habitable.

We have one new mention of a pre-Totter's Lane adventure and an unseen alien planet, when Susan tells Barbara about a visit to Esto. Here the plants made a screeching sound if you got in between them and interrupted their communications. This is no doubt the place Susan was referring to in The Screaming Jungle - unless the TARDIS has actually visited three different planets with noisy vegetation.

There's a lovely moment when Maitland mentions that John's hair has turned quite white, and the Doctor retorts: "Nothing wrong with that!".

Trivia:

• This episode was broadcast 25 minutes later than scheduled due to an overrun of Grandstand - the BBC's weekly sports magazine programme. Doctor Who had been designed specifically to hold the adult audience from the afternoon sports and carry it over to the early evening light entertainment programming.
• The late start may have been partly responsible for this episode losing one million viewers on the previous one. The hotter summer weather was also having an impact.
• Viewers were unaware at the time, but there would be a one week break following the broadcast of this episode. This was due to Grandstand again - covering the Wimbledon tennis championships and an England-Australia test match from Headingley.
• Ken Tyllsen and Joe Greig will play other Sensorites through the course of the story. For this episode only they are credited as "1st" and "2nd". In future instalments it will be "First" and "Second".
• Every publicity photograph of the fully made-up Sensorites you'll come across was taken during rehearsals for this episode, on the spaceship set.
• After one of these photographs had appeared in the Daily Mail, Mervyn Pinfield claimed that parents were more likely to be disturbed by them than their children. Verity Lambert told the Telegraph that she had received no letters of complaint about the series, and William Hartnell backed up Pinfield's claim, stating that they took their responsibility towards children very seriously and would never do anything harmful. He also took the time to praise his colleagues as "a lovely company" without the slightest friction between them.
• Failing to read the publicity material they had been sent, the Mirror claimed that Ilona Rogers was playing "Spacegirl Venus" in this episode.
• The series featured in the Sunday Times the day after broadcast, alongside movie monsters in general, with comments by Terry Nation. The piece was entitled "FADS: Psychology of the Monster Cult".