Who Review: An Unearthly Child
London, 1963. A junkyard in Totters Lane. Through the large wooden doors, among the bric-a-brac and discarded furniture, sits a police telephone box. These blue wooden boxes were commonplace in the early-to-mid twentieth century. The average box was just large enough to house a desk and stool where an officer could fill out paperwork, take a lunch break, or hold a miscreant until support arrived. It also had a hatch in the front containing a telephone that the public could use to call for help. The blue light on top would flash when constables needed to contact the station. There’s something different about this box, however, aside from its strange location. It seems to be alive. Perhaps it’s connected to the mysterious child at Coal Hill School, Susan Foreman. She seems like a perfectly normal teenager, but, like the police box, something is amiss. Her knowledge of science far surpasses that of her science teacher, Ian Chesterton, and her history teacher, Barbara Wright, is perturbed by the way she keeps correcting the textbooks. Yet Ian and Barbara know so little about her, who her parents are, or where she comes from. Overcome with curiosity, they decide to follow her home from school. A decision that will change their lives forever…
SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those who haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!
And so it was, 60 years ago today, the world was introduced to Doctor Who. The formula it established of the time-traveling Doctor who takes companions (often humans from Earth) on adventures through time and space in his ship, the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) has held true ever since. The genius of the show, mixing the mundane with the alien (e.g., a spacecraft that looks like a police telephone box) and opening potential storylines up to the breadth of time and space, not only sparked the imaginations of both writers and viewers but proved a winning formula for decades to come. Many other innovations would follow to periodically breathe new life into the show: gadgets like the sonic screwdriver, recurring enemies such as the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master, and that peculiar Time Lord death-cheat known as regeneration.
But all that was in the future on Saturday, November 23, 1963. Thirteen episodes had been commissioned, and the show’s production team was trying hard not to hope and plan too far beyond that.
Watching this story 60 years on, the first episode holds up very well, I think. William Russell who plays Ian Chesterton, is by far the best actor. Not to say the others are bad–by no means, but Russell in particular owns his character and performs with conviction. This may be billed as a children’s show, but he takes it seriously and lives the part. Jacqueline Hill playing Barbara Wright is a close second in terms of acting chops, again putting herself in the shoes of her character and not playing down to the audience.
In the first of the four episodes, we are introduced to the show’s premise, and this is done very well. The pacing is on point, the writing is strong–not too much telling, plenty of showing–and the dialogue is believable. There’s even a daring future prediction from Susan where she talks about decimalization happening in the near future. Certainly, the subject was much discussed at the time, but the UK actually converted to decimal currency in 1973, only ten years later. I find Ian and Barbara’s reactions when they stumble inside the TARDIS, seeing the dimensional difference between the small outside and the vastly larger inside, believable. Ian’s scientific mind is challenged by what, according to his categories, is a physical impossibility, and he initially refuses to accept the evidence of his own eyes. When Susan further explains that the TARDIS travels in time and space, Ian is convinced this must all be a delusion.
Susan is frustrated by her teachers. She thought, as educated adults, they would be more willing, and perhaps excited, to have their minds stretched and their assumptions challenged. She didn’t think they would be so closed-minded. The Doctor explains their reaction to Susan in terms that could only have come from Britain in the 1960s, one of the few times the episode shows its age. He relates their response to the way the Native Americans (the “red Indians”) responded to the first steam train, how their “savage minds” didn’t understand it, so they were afraid.
The first episode ends with Ian trying to open the doors to leave the TARDIS and accidentally launching the ship to 10,000 BC. The second episode is where the adventure begins with Ian, Barbara, Susan, and the Doctor exploring a prehistoric environment. Their–or rather, the Doctor’s–curiosity gets them in trouble with the local tribe, and together they must use their wits to escape back to the TARDIS. The central plot involves a power struggle between Za and Kal for the leadership of their caveman tribe. According to the rules or traditions, the leader is the one who is able to make fire. Kal sees the Doctor using a match and, thinking he’s making fire from his fingers, captures him and demands that he teach him how to work this trick. In their attempt to find and rescue the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are also captured. Of course, they all manage to escape in the end, but not without the constant threat of death, and a harrowing experience in a cave of skulls.
The first episode is far and away the best of the four. From episode two, the show plays to its initial mandate of being primarily educational, with plenty of science and history in the dialogue to keep parents and teachers happy–though given the cavemen understand and speak English, not too much emphasis was placed on historical accuracy (the concept of the TARDIS translating speech was not a part of the show at this point).
We already established in the first episode that the Doctor is a bit crotchety and intolerant, but by episode three these qualities begin to shine. Not only is he unhelpful, he attempts to murder an injured caveman for fear that he’s slowing everyone down, and tries to persuade Susan that they should ditch Ian and Barbara and escape in the TARDIS without them. In fact, of the TARDIS crew, Ian is more Doctor-like than the Doctor! He’s heroic, quick-witted, and smart enough to see how his classroom knowledge can be used to help them. The Doctor becomes the anti-hero of the show, tagging along more because he’s their ride than because he’s actually any use to the team. He mellows a bit in episode four, but by then his character has been established. Thankfully, though, the hard-headed grumpy old man persona didn’t last. Future stories will see him grow fond of his companions and be more cooperative, though never without that sharp irascible edge.
Susan, unfortunately, is a typical 1960s British whiney teenager, which is a little annoying considering she’s supposed to be from another world. One might have thought they would continue the theme of her “other-worldliness” from episode one into the rest of the story, but either it didn’t cross their minds, or they weren’t sure how to pull that off while still making her relatable to the kids in the audience. The first episode leads us to believe this isn’t her first adventure with her Grandfather, so her naivety is a little surprising.
The Doctor claims he doesn’t have a code to make the TARDIS work properly, so as they set off from prehistoric Earth he can only hope they’ll end up back at the junkyard in 1963…
To sum up, this story is worth watching for episode one, and the fact that it’s the story that established what became a British institution. When it first aired, no one in their right mind would have dreamed the show would still be going sixty years later. And yet, here we are!
Have you seen this Doctor Who story? What are your thoughts if you have? Feel free to comment below.
