It might've been my comment you were thinking of, about the companions' shift in perspective. Anyway, we can genuinely refer to Ian and Barbara as "companions" by this point. It's fascinating in the Hartnell years to see certain things taking shape, while other things are still up in the air. An example of the latter appears in this episode, when the Doctor refers to "we humans".

I've always enjoyed this story: the Sensorites are quite well rounded characters--both in design and execution--and much more than just one-dimensional 'monsters of the week'. Susan gets to contribute something more than her screams for once and Hartnell is on top form, really projecting the Doctor's self-confidence (or arrogance?) with merely a glance or twitch of the eyebrow. As mentioned, the Doctor and companions have really welded into a team by now. It is no spoiler, of course, to say that at some points companions leave and it is always with some sadness, just as when the Doctor regenerates (spoiler... technically!) but the ability to change cast is one of the things that ensured the shows survival over so many years. It is fair to say that just about every pretext, whether happy or sad, has been employed over the years to account for the loss of a companion.

Apparently this story is the one where most "marathon" watchers of the entire series give up... so keep going!

hi after enjoying your elvis content i decided to cruise your playlist & was pleasantly surprised to find classic who william hartnell is one of my very favorites so yay...elvis & doctor who how fun! thanks :)

This story is interesting as it introduces telepathy as a particular gift of the Drs race and Susan having that gift strongly. we have seen hints in previous stories of her being able to pick up on hidden events. A a bit of food for thought could it be possible that if you had strong enough telepathy that you could become terrified of the evil from a mind hence the times susan descends into screaming ?

What I like about this story is Susan gets something useful to do for once and its also the start of her growing up a blt too. Pity they never expanded on more of her telepathy in other stories...Ian and Barbara have adapted to life in the TARDIS,but I think their desire to get back home was always in the background.

Interesting you should mention Star Trek, as I've long thought of this story as a proto-version of same, especially The Cage, with which it shares similar themes and character aspects. Ultimately different stories but there is a shared concept, in my opinion.

The episode sound was a bit quiet on this one so I couldn't discern the dialogue as well as before.

I will say that death is not completely off the table for the companion role, but you definitely don’t have to worry about these three. THANK YOU for that defense of Kirk, by the way. I have always been very irritated by the common perception of him as a womanizer - he’s not going around looking for women every week, and the romantic situations we do see him in are generally either a) strategic so he can protect his crew in some way or another (and in a number of these cases the woman was coming onto him first and he only then uses this), or b) completely genuine affection, accompanied by totally gentlemanly behavior. This isn’t a man who’s just sleeping around all the time and doesn’t actually care about any of these women. And I’m glad you brought that up in comparison to how people tend to think of the companions, because yeah, I do see that a lot with Classic Who and with the 60s in particular, this idea that they only ever screamed or twisted their ankles and didn’t particularly contribute. I find the 60s companions to be incredibly proactive characters, they’re always doing something that helps move the plot, often without any aid from the Doctor because characters tend to get separated. Just because someone screams sometimes, like a person would when faced with the kind of stuff they have to face, doesn’t mean they’re somehow useless and not doing anything. There are New Who companions who have screamed far more than many of the Classic ones and they never get the same kind of reaction. I think the theater acting style of scream that was still in use during the original run just registers differently to a modern audience and makes them find the characters over-dramatic and silly or something.