Doctor Who Rewind - An Unearthly Child

Six years before I arrived on planet Earth, Doctor Who made his debut on tv. Around tea time on Saturday evening November 23rd 1963, his very first story, An Earthly Child was screened. I've only seen short clips of this era of DW so watching the four episodes that made up this story during the past week was always going to be an interesting experience.

I was excited at the prospect of watching the very first episode and waited till the wife was safely in bed to whip it on the DVD. I turned the lights down low and took a deep breath...

First off you really do feel that you are descending into the dark realms of yesteryear . The swirly psychedelic wave forms moving across the screen combined with that unmistakeable theme tune produced by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, with its pulsating bass line and soaring sonic melody, really help to create an other worldly atmosphere.

Of course the other main component of these early episodes is the fact they are black and white. I found that this only added to the sense of strangeness. It's hard to believe here in 2013 with HDTV and 3DTV, that all tv used to be B&W. It must have been like watching TV through a pair of binoculars whose lenses are smeared with dirt.

We see a Police man waving a torch about outside a junkyard of some kind. What's he looking for? Have there been reports of a strange old man keeping a young school girl held captive in a small blue box? Luckily it's the 1960's and those kind of thoughts were not entertained back then.

The camera leads us through the haze of the darkness and out of the shadows we see it, a blue Police telephone box. I'd love to have had the surprise of finding out with that first audience what lay inside that magical box.

I won't be going into the plots of the stories in much detail here, I'd encourage you to view them yourself. But as an outline, this episode focuses firstly on a strange girl, Susan, who is the concern of her teachers (Barbara and Ian) for knowing things that she frankly shouldn't. They are concerned so much the decide to pay her a visit at her grandfathers residence in the junkyard.

When they, and we eventually meet the old man who calls himself the Doctor their concerns only grow. And I for one don't blame them. The first doctor, portrayed brilliantly by William Hartnell, is the Doctor like we've never seem him before.

He's highly suspicious of their motives. He finds pleasure in mocking and criticising them at every opportunity. There is definitely and air of smugness about him, he feels that they wouldn't possibly understand the complexities of time travel being but puny humans, and would only take advantage of him for their own means.

Suffice to say, he's very easy to dislike, which is a strange sensation coming from an age of nice warm friendly Doctors. But we have to remember that this is a man, or alien, who has been made an outcast by his own people. So it's only understandable that he would be reluctant to trust his newfound friends.

At the finale of the first episode he has managed to hold them captive in the TARDIS against their will and to prevent their escape by activating the console and sending the ship into the swirly wirley time vortex.

What I love about this episode, is that the BBC, did not attempt to show the viewer the transition to the time vortex, to dangle the TARDIS on a bit of string in a blanket background of stars. What we get is reaction shots of the main characters as the ship goes into the unknown. And this works beautifully to build the suspense of the scene.

The TARIS lands on a seemingly deserted planet but out if the edge of the shot comes a shadowy figure. Cue titles and we are left dangling over the very first DW cliff hanger.

The three remaining episodes in this story, The Cave Of Sculls, The Forest of Fear and The Firemaker see the four characters having to form an alliance to overcome being held prisoners by a tribe of nasty hairy grunting caveman who only have one concern in life, who is going to make fire.

There is little story here, and a hell of a lot of testosterone flying about between the male cave dwellers. The Doctor doesn't really redeem himself. He only seems to want to escape by any means. At one point the four disconnected friends try and help a wounded caveman, the Doctor picks up a rock suggesting he's going to brain the poor fellow, he suggests they just leave the savage to die and make with the feet to the TARDIS. In another scene as they run for freedom he seems to trample over Barbara when she falls over. To be honest, he's a bit of a bastard.

While not as good as the first episode, the other three do, in some way bring the four characters together as they fight for their lives. There is also a lively scene (on film if I'm not mistaken) where the two opposing leaders of the tribe try to kill each other in cold blood. It's all very blood thirsty and primordial. And we certainly know that the loser is dead, as the stone he is killed with is the size of a small house.

Summing up I would say I have enjoyed this first Who outing very much, mainly as the first episode was so well put together, despite the inability of large amounts of editing and special effects due to cost. The story is pretty much non existent, but what the heck, this is Doctor Who.

In the next Doctor Who Rewind, I'll be reflecting on the first appearance of non other than the Daleks.