The Sensorites by: Nigel Robinson

 

The Sensorites was written by Nigel Robinson, based on the story of the same name by Peter R. Newman.  It was the 120^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

This is an interesting novelization all things considered.  The Sensorites is a story which isn’t held in high regard in the fandom, generally being put in the same group of Hartnell stories as The Space Museum and The Web Planet, serials with great first episodes that then fall apart.  Now, I actually disagree with this assessment of all three serials, and think at the heart of The Sensorites is a really interesting cultural examination with some undercurrents of World War II.  The novelization was done by Nigel Robinson in his first book for Doctor Who and as one of the few writers of the Target novelizations to not have a connection to the television series.  Robinson actually approaches it with an interesting perspective, not changing things, but bringing some more depth to the proceedings in some areas yet making others more shallow.  For instance, the Sensorites themselves aren’t made any more distinct than they were on television which is already one big issue with the story as the actors under the masks giving different portrayals, in prose there is no difference.  Every Sensorite line has to have a dialogue tag or else you won’t get a sense of which Sensorite is speaking.  The serial already had the plot point of the Sensorites switching sashes in an evil plot to confuse the TARDIS team, but here it is further lampshaded with the idea that all of the human characters look alike to the Sensorites.  The Sensorites, of course, don’t actually have names or a sense of identity outside of their role in society which makes this weirder for the book.

 

While this is a detriment to a story that already had a big issue of falling apart in the final episode, Robinson does actually improve on the foreshadowing of the human beings already on the Sense-Sphere and the entire plotline with those astronauts works much better here.  There’s more in the text explaining who these people are and why they were here which was barely there in the original serial due to being confined to the final episode.  The foreshadowing is also ramped up with more references on the Sense-Sphere and the previous humans they encountered, as well as quite a lot more on the lower castes (though not much in depth).  Perhaps where Robinson succeeds the most, however, is in the use of Susan Foreman.  The Sensorites was always a stronger outing for Susan, but here there’s this added layer of perspective as Robinson includes some of her inner thoughts.  She feels like she has agency in what happens on the Sense-Sphere in saving these people and her altercations with her Grandfather also affect them both, they hadn’t fought before this moment and that is an interesting little element that should have been explored in the television show.  Now, The Sensorites is still a story that has some issues, the pace is still off even in book form, and it does end rather abruptly (even more so here as the lead in for The Reign of Terror is cut).  It still has the absurdities of the murder plots and the poison plots to contend with, but perhaps gives just a bit more character to the story.

 

Overall, The Sensorites stands out as an interesting adaptation of a television story that manages to improve some things while other’s get lost by the wayside.  While it’s a story that I have quite the fondness for, there are still many flaws that aren’t glazed over in an adaptation, partially due to Robinson not being the original writer or even working on the era.  A great effort and a great writing style, but it doesn’t quite give enough of the alien characters personality or smooth off the pacing that comes when transferring a longer story to novel form.  6/10.