Friday, 26 August 2022

The Art of... The Sensorites

 
The Sensorites was novelised by the Target Doctor Who range editor Nigel Robinson in July 1987, its original writer having died back in February 1975.
The cover features the Doctor (from a photograph taken on set for The Daleks' Master Plan), a Sensorite portrait plus a generic spaceship, all set against a bright red planet / outer space background. 
There is also a large flowering plant bottom right, which might have confused some people. I'm assuming that this is Deadly Nightshade. Whilst this plant is mentioned once or twice in the second half of the story, it really isn't all that prominent (it's what the human astronauts do with it that matters) and we never actually see it in any of the episodes. In fact, the astronauts themselves go out of their way not to use the name in front of the Doctor and Ian in the final episode. It certainly has no visual role to play, so not sure why it's so up front on this cover.
The person who might know is artist Nick Spender.


The story arrived on VHS towards the end of the range. In the UK and in Australia it was available only in a box-set with two other William Hartnell stories (The Time Meddler and The Gunfighters) - the last complete adventures of his era still to be released. The First Doctor Special Edition Box Set arrived in the UK in November 2002. 
In the US it was part of a much bigger set - the "End of the Universe" collection - which completed the VHS range for American fans with 11 separate tapes, the earliest of which was The Sensorites. This was released in October 2003.

At this point covers were of the photomontage variety. Part of the image is reproduced on the spine - in this case the Doctor, rather than the Sensorite. The same Sensorite portrait from the VHS cover adorned the side of the First Doctor box set.


Once again, the US version of the DVD has what I think to be the superior cover, with the main image unconstrained by the grey roundel band across the top. 
The Sensorite / Susan imagery derives from the cliff-hanger to the second episode, where she agrees to accompany two of the aliens down to their planet. Rather than use a single image from this scene, however, designer Lee Binding has edited two together - but they are not to scale. The Sensorite appears to be much bigger than they really are. Compare with the similar images on the soundtracks below. 
The Hartnell image, holding up his monocle, comes from this story - a group image of the TARDIS crew facing the two Sensorites on the spaceship bridge.


The original soundtrack was released on CD in July 2008. Narration was by William Russell, who also contributed a bonus interview feature. The cover is principally that image from the cliff-hanger to the second episode, as with the DVD cover. The designer has opted for a rather garish acid green-yellow colour scheme, however. 


When the soundtrack received a vinyl release in July 2022, the designer used some of the same imagery as the CD / DVD but went for a colour palette closer to what you would have seen had you been in the studio in June 1964. We know from colour photographs that the Sensorite uniforms are a blue-grey colour, and their masks orange. 
The cover is split in two halves - the Sensorites with Susan against a spaceship bridge backdrop take up the right hand side of the cover, with a couple of portraits of the aliens against the backdrop of the First Elder's chambers left and centre. The likeness of Susan is dreadful.
Ray Cusick's arch / circle motifs appear on other parts of the internal artwork, along with an image of the TARDIS.
The discs themselves were described as "Sense-Sphere marble" in design.


There are some audiobooks which use an alternative cover to the one used for the first edition of the Target publication - but this isn't one of them. Released in May 2012, like the story's soundtrack it is narrated by William Russell. One difference from the novelisation artwork is that the red background has been toned down a little.

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