So says the Doctor during a lovely opening scene in the TARDIS as our intrepid foursome review their past adventures and we hear about the Doctor's encounter with Henry VIII. "Do you know, he threw a parsons nose at me!" "What did you do?" asks Barbara. "Threw it back of course!" is the glorious reply. Here our travellers look relaxed and refreshed; some time has obviously elapsed since their hurried exit from Mexico and the Aztecs. They talk easily and warmly and you have the sense, really for the first time, that they have become friends.
I love new stories and first episodes and I really, really like this opening episode. It has menace and atmosphere and genuinely surprising moments. It's the first story ever to be set on a spaceship (not counting the TARDIS itself in 'Beyond the Sun') and the new setting is well utilised with bulkheads and corridors, vibrating control decks and near misses with the planet below.
This episode is directed by Mervyn Pinfield, the show's Associate Producer who was there because of his technical knowledge. He directs this brilliantly and my absolute favourite scene, amongst many, is when the camera literally follows the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara through the TARDIS doors and into the spaceship beyond. Genius.
The tone of the piece is not technological, as it might have been, but creepy and mysterious as we try to learn what has happened to the crew. And what exactly are the Sensorites? What do they look like, what do they want, and where are they?
The moment where the Sensorite eventually appears, not through an airlock as we might expect, but outside the spaceship's window with no spacesuit or other protection, is a genuinely surprising and frightening moment.
Next episode: The Unwilling Warriors
