Wednesday, 4 August 2021

Doctor Who Story #1 "An Unearthly Child" (1963) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How're you all doing today? I'm doing well. It's Wednesday and I'm here to review the very first story of Doctor Who, a four parter called "An Unearthly Child". As I go through my reviews of Doctor Who I'm not going to worry too much about spoilers simply because until I get current stuff from Series 12 and Series 13 (when that airs) many of these seasons are many years old. Especially this story as it will be 58 years old at this point. Which means that for those Whovians who are interested in Classic Who probably have already seen this first story before. Plus as I get into New Who there are most likely going to be story points that I'll want to talk about in each season. So let's get into it and talk about "An Unearthly Child", the first four episodes of Doctor Who.


Doctor Who is not a show I grew up with. In fact, I didn't know it existed until 2004 or early 2005 when it was announced that the BBC was reviving the series after sixteen years. By the time I was old enough to remember watching TV, the original run of the show had ended after 26 years and the reruns stopped soon after. So the show just wasn't available for me to watch. My parents had seen it, at least my dad had at some point in the '70s but wasn't enough of a fan to show it to me when it was on in reruns. And being that I don't recall if the VHS releases the series had in the '80s and '90s were even available at the video store we went to when I was a kid, Rogers Video, Doctor Who passed me by until I saw the 50th Anniversary special The Day of the Doctor. Not to worry I'll be doing a full review of that special when I get to the end of Series 7, which was the end of Matt Smith's run as the Doctor.

1963 was an interesting year in the world of geekdom. Mainly because geekdom as we know it today didn't really exist. Julius Schwartz was busying revitalizing the DC Universe, while Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko were starting the Marvel Universe, neither Star Trek nor Star Wars existed yet, though Star Trek would start airing around the time that William Hartnell left the role of the Doctor and was replaced by Patrick Troughton, effectively ending the First Doctor's adventures and beginning the Second Doctor's run. None of the other franchises that I know and love today didn't exist yet when Doctor Who began airing in 1963. The internet and cell phones also didn't exist yet. So Doctor Who could be considered the first geeky fandom, which is crazy to think about.

The story itself is actually fairly simple. Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright are teachers at Coal Hill School in Shoreditch, London, England who are intrigued by an incredibly bright student named Susan Foreman. When they follow her home they discover that her and her grandfather, who is known only as the Doctor, are time travelers from another place in time and space and live in a spaceship that's disguised as a police telephone box. To prove to Ian and Barbara that it's real, the Doctor takes the ship, known as the TARDIS into the year 100,000 B.C. where they encounter a tribe of cave dwellers. They are captured and must find a way to protect themselves from the erratic inhabitants of the time period. That's it. That's the whole story. There's some story with the cave people, particularly their leader Za and his rival Kal, but it's not super complex. Which is one of the things I like about the story. Because it's the very first Doctor Who story, the lore and continuity isn't there yet. So the plot isn't grand like they would become as the series went on, which makes it a good story to watch as a sample of the classic series.

What astonishes me about this story is how much is similar to modern era Doctor Who. For example, there are four main characters in the show. Two men and two women. In this story it's the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan. In Series 11 it was the Doctor, Ryan, Yaz, and Graham. The only difference is that the gender of the Doctor is different in Series 11 than it is here. The time travel is also similar, because Doctor Who is a time travel show. 

I don't particularly care for the way the Doctor is portrayed here. Don't get me wrong, William Hartnell does a fine job in the role, but I find the First Doctor to be a bit prickly and a little unlikeable here. And I think it's an issue with the First Doctor in general, because I didn't like him all that much in the 2017 Christmas special, Twice Upon a Time where he's played by David Bradley. I think that's just how he's supposed to be. I prefer the more fun portrayals of the Doctor that we get with the modern incarnations as portrayed by Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant (despite the intensity in his expressions), Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi by the time of Twice Upon a Time, and Jodie Whittaker though. But Hartnell falls right into the role though and you can tell he made every effort to make the role believable to the audience, despite the fact that Doctor Who was originally made for children.

Putting aside the story elements for a moment, that's something that I find incredible and probably the most fascinating things about the series this early on. Doctor Who was originally produced as a Television drama for children. Which is a pretty far cry from the more intense, mostly adult but sometimes family friendly, series that it is today. Because it is a children's show at this point in time if it had been on, even in reruns, when I was a kid, it's something that my siblings and I would've seen on PBS or TVO and would've loved from the start. 

I think Ian, Barbara, and Susan are great Companions. In my limited history as a viewer of Doctor Who I've always grown fond of the Companions. Rose is great, Donna is amazing, as is Clara, Rory and Amy are my favourite, and Yaz, Ryan, and Graham are amazing too. Obviously I haven't met ALL of the Companions from the modern era (Captain Jack, Martha, Bill, and Nardole are ones I haven't really been introduced to yet) and none from the classic era aside from Barbara, Susan, and Ian, but I enjoy the Companions as they are the stand-in for the audience for this show. Which in turn has helped me connect to the Doctor as a character alot easier. 

Aside from the Doctor being portrayed as almost antagonistic, there isn't much about this story that I didn't like. Yes, it's a bit slow in places, but this isn't the faster paced series that the show is today and I'm oddly okay with that. The next story, "The Daleks", is three episodes longer than this one, at seven compared to this one's four. But honestly, it doesn't matter to me. It's still pretty decent despite it's low budget and shorter length compared to what the show is now.

Oh one thing that I find amazing is that Verity Lambert, a woman, is essentially the showrunner for the series at this point. According to the Doctor Who Wiki, the British TV industry didn't have the title of Showrunner on Doctor Who until Rusell T. Davies took on the role when he revived the show in 2005, but Lambert's role as producer is essentially that of head writer/executive producer/showrunner, which is fascinating because there's never been a showrunner who is a woman on Doctor Who in the modern era, despite the fact that a woman currently plays the Doctor on the show. So it's interesting that Lambert was showrunner on Doctor Who when it first started in the '60s, where women couldn't be an executive producer/showrunner on a TV show here in North America.

One more thing I didn't mention is that the first episode aired on November 23rd, 1963 and garned low ratings because nobody paid attention to it that night. John F. Kennedy had been assassinated the day before and so everybody was in shock, even over in the U.K., and were listening and watching the news to try to keep up to date on the investigation. Luckily, the BBC rebroadcast the episode the following week and people liked it. 

Overall "An Unearthly Child" is a bizarre start to an almost 60 year old franchise, but it gets my seal of approval as a great start to said franchise. It takes time for us to get to know the main characters, it was exciting for the most part, and the story wasn't too complicated on it's first outing.

And that my friends is it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of The Amazing Spider-Girl #'s 7-12 and then on Friday for my review of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. And next week I'll be returning to the TARDIS to review Story #2, "The Daleks". So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

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