001 - An Unearthly Child

Broadcast:

23^rd November - 14^th December 1963

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Ian, Barbara, Susan

Adversary:

Cavemen

Written by:

Anthony Coburn

Director:

Waris Hussein

Music:

Norman Kay

Script Editor:

David Whitaker

Producer:

Verity Lambert

Average Viewers:

6.3m ([4.4] 6.0, 5.9, 6.9, 6.4)

Summary: Two teachers find that their strange teenage pupil is living in a scrap merchants and her equally unusual grandfather, fearful of the consequences of this discovery, traps them and they end up fighting for their lives when they meet cavemen trying to make fire!

I'll take you right back to the start, this is the very beginning of a TV legend, day one of the longest running Sci-Fi series. Fifty years ago today at a quarter past five, the first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast on BBC Television. To set the scene, Summer Holiday, The Great Escape and The Birds have been big in the cinema and Sean Connery is currently playing James Bond in From Russia With Love. The Great Train Robbery was hot news just a few months ago and The Beatles were producing hip new sounds from Liverpool. Number one singles for the duration of this adventure were "You'll Never Walk Alone" (Gerry And The Pacemakers), "She Loves You" (The Beatles) and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (The Beatles)

Sadly the world had just been shocked by the assassination of American President John F Kennedy on 22^nd November so this new and exciting show was being broadcast to a sombre and subdued audience. There were also power cuts in parts of the country! As a result of these two combined factors, the first episode was repeated the following week just ahead of episode two, to give it a better launch and it gained almost 2 million viewers.

I don't intend to retell the story of An Unearthly Child but the first episode and early into the second is full of moments and details that ripple through the heart of Doctor Who so I will dwell on the details a little

The story begins as the opening titles fade away to a dark and foggy alley way, or it could be a road. The theme music continues for a full 30 seconds into the episode as we follow a policeman who checks the gates to "I.M. Foreman, Scrap Merchants" and as the policeman walks off, happy that all is well, we see the gates curiously swing open and the camera takes us in until we arrive at a large blue box (of course, having been made in black & white, we don't know that it's blue at this stage!) we look up and pull back to discover that it is a Police Box and are left wondering why it is in a junk yard...

Cut to a school interior as the final lesson ends and pupils start to spill out of their classrooms. We learn that teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright are concerned and curious about an unusual pupil, Susan Foreman, who doesn't know about pounds shillings and pence (the monetary system in place at the time), forgetting that the decimal system hasn't started yet (the idea had been mooted but wouldn't actually become a reality in Britain until 1971). She also has wild ideas about science, becoming bored with even advanced classroom experiments and complaining that problems can't be solved with just the three dimension A, B, and C because you need to know D, and E as well... while Ian reasonably accepts that the fourth dimension must be time he asks what the fifth might be, to which Susan simply replies "space"

When Ian and Barbara discover that Susan apparently lives at the junk yard, their curiosity is piqued even more and they venture inside only to find that she has vanished! They encounter the Police Box and find that it is gently humming as if it were alive. At 11 minutes into the episode, we have the first key moment that will be echoed down the years as the series continues - while looking for electrical connections to a power source, Ian walks all the way around the Police Box, subtly establishing that it is a normal sized box. Following a verbal altercation with an old man who turns out to be Susan's grandfather, the teachers realise that Susan is inside the Police Box! Concerned for her welfare, Barbara gives us the second key resonant moment at 14 minutes - she pushes her way into the Police Box and stumbles into the vast, bright console room of the TARDIS and we are given our first introduction to the phrase "bigger on the inside" and its implications as well as what the series will be giving is - journeys through time and space. The old man, whom we will of course come to know as the Doctor, locks the doors and decides it is time for him and Susan to move on, taking the two intruders with them for fear of the consequences if they were to be allowed to leave. We see an aerial shot of London streets on the TARDIS scanner screen as it gradual gets smaller, further away. It's a little confusing, but this is the TARDIS departing and we see the opening titles start again to represent the ripping of space/time and the distortion of travelling through it. It results in a curious, suspenseful and unclear ending and the final shot is the Police Box now standing on a desert-like landscape with a vaguely human shadow approaching - the shows first jaw dropping cliffhanger!

Compared with the original attempt at recording the first episode (which, amazingly, still exists and can be viewed on the DVD) the final broadcast version feels rather slick. The mobility of the camera work feels very modern and all performances are top rate considering the immense stress everyone was under to get it right this time. There is one slight fumble as William Hartnell removes his scarf but it is played so naturally that you barely notice and it actually adds a level of reality (how many times have you or someone you have seen reached for the end of a scarf only to find it has already slipped off your shoulder?) it doesn't throw him off his lines at all. On the original recording (now known as the pilot) all actors stumble with the lines or performance at least once and there is audible background noise from the studio. You will also see the various script and performance changes that Sydney Newman (Head Of Dramas) noted and it's easy to see why he wanted them to do it again.

The second episode starts almost exactly where the first left off, which is lucky since it was broadcast straight after. We see the shadow of a figure approach the TARDIS but rather than being on an alien planet as many viewers suspected (knowing this to be a science fiction series) we soon learn that it is still Earth but a long time ago. From here on, the story focuses on cavemen who are discovering fire, whoever can make it is their leader but there are squabbles because their leader has lost the ability... It is a full three and a half minutes before we see the regular cast, still inside the TARDIS and still arguing about letting the teachers go. Ian exclaims "Just open the doors Doctor Foreman!" eliciting an unscripted reply from William Hartnell "Hmmm? Doctor who?" - a sentiment that would be repeated at 10 minutes when Ian explains to Barbara that Doctor Foreman isn't his name "Doctor who? Perhaps if we knew, this would all make sense"

Curiously, perhaps due to the studio layout, we see the TARDIS doors on the right rather than the left as they had been in episode one (and would continue to be nearly every time to this day) and on leaving, the Doctor discovers something about the TARDIS at 8 minutes: "It's still a Police Box. Why hasn't it changed? Dear, dear. How very disturbing" This is followed by Susan explain to her teachers that it should change its appearance to blend in with its surroundings - something it would only ever do again in Attack Of The Cybermen in 1985, although it has been invisible a couple of times, or just a second out of synch.

Sadly, as the second episode passed the half way mark I started to lose interest in the caveman story and the pace was a little slow, which didn't bode well for the remaining two. However the Doctor soon appears again, having been captured by one of the cavemen while lighting a pipe, he is now trying to explain to the tribe that if they let him go he will show them how to make fire again, but of course they don't trust him. The others arrive on the scene and try to help but they all end up thrown into a cave where they are to stay until they make fire... so ends episode two.

The remainder of the story revolves around escape attempts and trying to educate the cavemen and ultimately of course they make it back to the TARDIS and de-materialise as spears are thrown at them. There is interesting interaction between the regulars who start to become a little more friendly as they have to stick together "Fear makes companions of us all" though Ian and the Doctor continue to bicker. Barbara gives out an almighty howling scream at the sight of a dead boar (which is unfortunately not very clear in black & white and could have left views very puzzled when seen on low picture quality television sets in 1963), the Doctor tries to converse with the cavemen in their curiously eloquent yet simplistic language and there is a good fight scene shot on film which blends quite nicely with the main video recording. There is some quite brutal violence in several places but it is mostly off camera (and famously without sound effects - Waris Hussein had a melon smashing sound ready to use but was over ruled by Verity Lambert)

Finally, in defence of the "wobbly sets" claims, I will be making notes of any such or similar incursions. This time around, there was one line fluff and one slight camera knock. Apart from that everything looked really good. Maybe the great bolder looked a bit like the polystyrene that it was, but it was handled perfectly, not a wobble in site.

I gave this story a score of 69% as it was held back by the dull simplicity of the cavemen plot that dragged a little too much and didn't have enough music to hold interest. The costumes and sets worked in its favour, as did the canon and production values. It would have faired better if it were an episode shorter but then the story would have necessarily been even simpler. All in all, not a bad start to the show and it clearly has potential.