Slight Spoilers To All Four Episodes
Two schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright become concerned about an enigmatic teenage pupil called Susan Foreman . One evening they follow her home to her address only to find her home is in fact a junkyard that has many derelicts items including a police box . . An elderly man enters the junkyard and the world Ian and Barbara thought they knew will change forever
How does one even begin to review the debut story of DOCTOR WHO ? I wasn't even born when this was broadcast in 1963 and one wonders if anyone who worked on this story had even the smallest notion of what a magical genie had be unleashed from the televisual bottle ? Okay Sydney Newman creator of the show ripped off HG Wells The Time Machine but let's not forgot the cultural effect Wells had on humanity and it's impossible to overstate the cultural legacy DOCTOR WHO has had on British viewers
One thing this episode does very well is shroud the story in mystery . Right from the opening haunting theme tune with its psychedelic opening title sequence the contemporary audience are hooked as to what they might be watching . We see a policeman walking along a dark set and the camera stops on a police box a common sight in the 1960s but this one seems to be emitting a low electronic hum . What does mean . Of course the surprise is lost 50 years later but uncredited writer C.E Webber and the production team know how to grab an audience and one feels genuine sadness that one doesn't have a time machine of ones own to go back through time and see the faces of the audience as Barbara brushes past the Doctor and finds herself not in the interior of a police box but of the Tardis . I watched this as part of a repeat season of Doctor Who on BBC 2 as a die hard fan away back in 1981 and despite knowing what happens next the impact of this scene is nevertheless is stunning
The episode ends on a moody understated cliffhanger of a shadow falling on the exterior of the Tardis which the next episode reveals to be a cave man . Anyone expecting monsters to turn up attacking minor characters and the camera cutting away like in those SF B movies are going to be disappointed because this isn't what the show is about at this point . This is straight drama with a fantasy premise and the sheer lack of post modernism is a refreshing change . Ian Chesterton is very much the matinée idol hunky hero who carries the show along with Barbara Wright and the programme focuses on the duo while the mysterious character known only as The Doctor is a peripheral character similar to how how the dynamic worked in the debut season of NuWho though to be honest not even Eccleston's Doctor portrayed the hard edged anti-heroism of Hartnell . Witness the slightly shocking scene where the time travellers come across a wounded troglodyte and Ian asks the Doctor why he's picking up a rock . You really do get the impression that this Doctor is a man whose great knowledge is only matched by his amorality
Written and acted with total and utter conviction An Unearthyly child is an absolute pleasure to watch . All the four regular cast who probably saw the draft script and thought " hmmm seems a bit of weird show it'll never last but I'll just give a go and be professional " are superb especially William Russell as Ian Chesterton who was cast because Hartnell was considered too old to do any heroic stuff . As good as the opening story is the next story that dovetails from this story is very special indeed
Two schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright become concerned about an enigmatic teenage pupil called Susan Foreman . One evening they follow her home to her address only to find her home is in fact a junkyard that has many derelicts items including a police box . . An elderly man enters the junkyard and the world Ian and Barbara thought they knew will change forever
How does one even begin to review the debut story of DOCTOR WHO ? I wasn't even born when this was broadcast in 1963 and one wonders if anyone who worked on this story had even the smallest notion of what a magical genie had be unleashed from the televisual bottle ? Okay Sydney Newman creator of the show ripped off HG Wells The Time Machine but let's not forgot the cultural effect Wells had on humanity and it's impossible to overstate the cultural legacy DOCTOR WHO has had on British viewers
One thing this episode does very well is shroud the story in mystery . Right from the opening haunting theme tune with its psychedelic opening title sequence the contemporary audience are hooked as to what they might be watching . We see a policeman walking along a dark set and the camera stops on a police box a common sight in the 1960s but this one seems to be emitting a low electronic hum . What does mean . Of course the surprise is lost 50 years later but uncredited writer C.E Webber and the production team know how to grab an audience and one feels genuine sadness that one doesn't have a time machine of ones own to go back through time and see the faces of the audience as Barbara brushes past the Doctor and finds herself not in the interior of a police box but of the Tardis . I watched this as part of a repeat season of Doctor Who on BBC 2 as a die hard fan away back in 1981 and despite knowing what happens next the impact of this scene is nevertheless is stunning
The episode ends on a moody understated cliffhanger of a shadow falling on the exterior of the Tardis which the next episode reveals to be a cave man . Anyone expecting monsters to turn up attacking minor characters and the camera cutting away like in those SF B movies are going to be disappointed because this isn't what the show is about at this point . This is straight drama with a fantasy premise and the sheer lack of post modernism is a refreshing change . Ian Chesterton is very much the matinée idol hunky hero who carries the show along with Barbara Wright and the programme focuses on the duo while the mysterious character known only as The Doctor is a peripheral character similar to how how the dynamic worked in the debut season of NuWho though to be honest not even Eccleston's Doctor portrayed the hard edged anti-heroism of Hartnell . Witness the slightly shocking scene where the time travellers come across a wounded troglodyte and Ian asks the Doctor why he's picking up a rock . You really do get the impression that this Doctor is a man whose great knowledge is only matched by his amorality
Written and acted with total and utter conviction An Unearthyly child is an absolute pleasure to watch . All the four regular cast who probably saw the draft script and thought " hmmm seems a bit of weird show it'll never last but I'll just give a go and be professional " are superb especially William Russell as Ian Chesterton who was cast because Hartnell was considered too old to do any heroic stuff . As good as the opening story is the next story that dovetails from this story is very special indeed