From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child"

Last time we left the Doctor, he was in his tenth incarnation and he'd just been left by his fifth incarnation just before he saw the bow of the Titanic slam through the TARDIS doors. Got all that? Good. That's real good.

Now, forget it, because that has nothing at all to do with what we're going over today.

An Unearthly Child is actually the very first episode of Doctor Who ever broadcast way back in 1963. It stared Carole Ann Ford as the titular unearthly child, Susan Foreman. It also stared William Russell as Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright played by Jacqueline Hill, and of course the first incarnation of the Doctor (at least that we've seen on screen - thanks, Chris Chibnall) as played by the late, great William Hartnell.

However, if you were to show a modern fan An Unearthly Child, they would find quite a few things different than the show they've known from 2005 onward, and I'm not talking about it being in black and white as Doctor Who was until 1970. No, the original structure of the show saw each episode aired in parts once a week. The week of November 23, 1963 saw An Unearthly Child, Part 1 aired. Then the week of November 30, 1963 would see Part 2 aired, and so on. So, when I tackle these episodes, I'm going to split up each part into a different post, that way you get the full experience of waiting an entire week for-just kidding!

No, when we do classic Who (with only two exceptions, provided I ever actually get to them), I will be putting my recap of all the individual parts into one blog post rather than making you all wait for each individual piece. Ultimately, the clicks just aren't worth it.

And yes, if you're wondering, I am reviewing this for just my supreme love of the show and definitely not one of my What If scenarios I'm going to be writing up later.

Spoiler alert.

An Unearthly Child (1)

"What are you, an alien?"
"Bitch, I might be!"

So, to begin with the begin, we have An Unearthly Child. At the Coal Hill School, which you might find very familiar if you remember Day of the Doctor, school teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright both have some concerns about a pupil of theirs. A girl by the name of Susan Foreman is someone they just can't get a beat on. She seems phenomenally smart beyond her years in some subjects, but in others she seems to speak of or know things that she claims "haven't happened yet". Getting her address - 76 Totter's Lane - the two decide to follow her after she leaves school and find...a junkyard.

Within the junkyard, they find a soon-to-be-familiar big blue box and a crotchety old man who is indeed very unhelpful in trying to find Susan. They are less than pleased and Ian elects to go and find a policeman for help (despite the old man's mockery that they'll only look like fools) before he and Barbara hear Susan apparently from within the big, blue box. Forcing their way in, they become the first humans to see the TARDIS interior and they are understandably quite stunned.

There's a reason the Hartnell TARDIS interior is so beloved. It looks absolutely great. While the Eccleston/Tennant TARDIS has the organic interior, the first Smith TARDIS has the hodge-podge of gizmos and gadgets making up its controls, and the second Smith and Capaldi TARDISes have the roundels and full on library get up in them...the Hartnell TARDIS has that quality that seems to only exist in sci-fi that was around before Star Wars. Everything is white and clinical, looking like a vessel that was made by some sort of higher intelligence in mass production for the express purpose of travel throughout time and space. So it's very fitting of a TARDIS that was only very recently stolen and not broken in by the Doctor as it were.

The old man is of course the Doctor, as well as Susan's grandfather. While Ian and Barbara try to rationalize all this and insist to Susan that it isn't real, she remains adamant that it is and the Doctor mocks the teachers for their inability to grasp the reality of their situation. They are aliens from another world, they insist, cut off from their own world without friends or protection. When the Doctor refuses to let Ian and Barbara go, he presents to Susan an ultimatum - if the teachers are allowed to leave, that means that they have to leave. Susan declares she'd rather remain on Earth in the 20th century than go, and the Doctor relents...only to make the TARDIS take off.

The first trip in the TARDIS is just as painful for its passengers as it is in the new show, being that the Doctor is even less able to pilot it now than in the future (present...past...whatever...). When the TARDIS finally does land, the shadow of a man falls over it in one of the most iconic shots of the entire show.

This is just a really good shot. No joke here.

The Cave of Skulls (2)

So the caveman is-oh, right. The title.

Yeah, the very early Hartnell episodes had a separate title for each episode, kind of like old movie serials. This practice got dropped during the end of the Hartnell era and the beginning of the Troughton Era, and now most episodes go by the name of the first episode for the purposes of cataloging and the like.

At any rate, a caveman named Za needs to make fire. His father apparently knew how to do it, but didn't pass it on because we needed a plot.

"Well, Ian, looks like you put your foot all the way in your mouth, huh?"
"Shut up, Susan!"

Back at the people we actually care about, the four head out as Ian demands proof that they've actually gone back in time. Indeed they have, the Doctor going off to be (deservedly) smug and check samples of rocks and plants to date where they've landed (the TARDIS not having a working chronometer back in the day, I suppose). He gets attacked by a caveman while smoking a pipe and dragged away. His companions go after him.

Meanwhile...okay, look, this story is actually really, really slow and really, really boring. More so than most 1960's Doctor Who episodes and I know how that sounds but for this one you literally only need to watch the first part to get the full grasp of the show's beginning. The rest of it is kind of incidental, save for one small scene that we'll be getting to in a bit.

Anyway, the three companions attempt an assault on the tribe to save the Doctor and get captured. The Doctor, not having matches, can't make fire and so all four of them are going to be locked up in the titular "Cave of Skulls".

The Forest of Fear (3)

The Doctor and company get out of the Cave of Skulls using the bones to cut their bonds. Before they manage to get out, though, the elder attacks them - apparently both wanting the tribe to have and being scared of fire for some reason - and Za goes off in pursuit of them once they escape so that he might get the fire from them. This leads to a chase in which Za gets severely injured and his mate - Hur - end up with the TARDIS crew. And it is here that we have that scene I was talking about in Part 2.

With Za laying heavily injured, the Doctor picks up a rock...and it seems like he's legitimately going to beat him to death so that he doesn't slow them down. Ian stops him and the Doctor insists that he was only going to get him to draw a map to the TARDIS, but...yeah, yeah, the Doctor was about to outright murder someone simply because it would be more convenient.

A far cry from the later "man who never would" or the "coward, any day".

The Doctor is, unfortunately, unable to reach the 'lucky charm' in his pocket.

However, this speaks a lot to the person that he would become in later incarnations. During the Capaldi era, he mentions this time in his life as when he started to realize who he was and who he wanted to be. We have Ian, Barbara, and Susan's influence to thank for at least some of that. Despite most of An Unearthly Child being horrendously boring, this is a big moment in the Doctor's development as a character.

Before they can get to the TARDIS to help Za, however, the tribe surrounds them under the new management of a caveman named Kal who has actually been showing up but I wasn't actually given to care about until just now in the recap.

The Firemaker (4)

So, the group are brought back to the caveman camp. The Doctor manages to convince the tribe that Kal killed the elder, which he did in the previous episode, and he gets run off. Za is made the leader once again...and orders the Doctor, Ian, Susan, and Barbara locked up in the Cave of Skulls until they can make fire or they will be sacrificed.

Seriously! What an asshole!

With luck, they manage to do it. We get the confirmation from Ian that the Doctor is the leader of their "tribe" as he tells Za. Kal also returns, he and Za fight, and Za kills him. This disturbs the Doctor...ignoring the fact that he was going to do the same thing to Za only twenty minutes ago or so. Za shows his gratitude to the travelers by insisting that they won't leave and instead will remain here with the tribe...albeit trapped in the Cave of Skulls.

Seriously! What an asshole!

However, the travelers hit upon the idea of using a bit of trickery to escape, playing four of the skulls upon torches and using them to scare their way out. This works because cavemen are stupid, but not so stupid that they don't go after them. However, the TARDIS crew manages to escape as spears are lobbed at the craft while it dematerializes. The Doctor has no idea where they'll end up next, which turns out to be a jungle made up of twisted and gnarled trees. Susan checks the radiation levels and declares them to be normal...but the detector slowly changes to "Danger" as the four leave to recover from their previous adventure...

Seriously! What an ass-okay, we're done here...

C'mon, there's a much better episode than this one just ahead!

An Unearthly Child is not really that great of an episode beyond the first part. Sorry. The first part is probably the best set up you could imagine for introducing the show and some of its core concepts. Sure, we don't have anything to do with the Time Lords or Gallifrey yet (and neither would even be named until 1969 and 1974, respectively), but we have the formula that has carried the show for nearly sixty years at the time of this writing - the Doctor is an alien with a time machine that is bigger inside than it is outside, he has companions that travel with him, and they more often than not end up in very dangerous situations. Also, occasionally, something explodes.

...I mean, not this time, they didn't have the budget for it. Still, flaming skulls! 60's Who went hardcore.

One thing that will be a big change for fans of the new show is that the Doctor is not actually the main hero here. In fact, at points, he's a hindrance! Given that William Hartnell was already fifty-five when the series began (and remains tied with Peter Capaldi as being the oldest actor to take on the role), it made sense for there to a younger male around to do all the heavy lifting. Ian filled that role quite well, and remains one of the most beloved of the Doctor's companions even to this day. He was easily as stubborn as the First Doctor was, but always tempered that with trying to do the right thing for the group and was not afraid to butt heads with the Doctor over that and other points.

Hartnell is more of an intellectual type. As much as Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor is said to be a tribute to Patrick Troughton's Second, it's not hard to see a little bit of that in Hartnell's portrayal as well. The First Doctor, apart from moments of being a complete jackass, had kind of a grandfatherly air but a keen intellect beneath it all and wasn't above plotting and scheming to achieve his ends. Although in saying that, the First Doctor has nothing on the games of fifth-dimensional chess that the Seventh Doctor seems to constantly be playing.

Susan and Barbara unfortunately don't do too much (this was the Sixties, after all), but they do get somewhat better later on, I'm happy to say.

Somewhat. Remember, it was the Sixties. I mean, Barbara gets to imitate and Aztec goddess in a later episode, so that's something.

The acting from the cavemen is over the top in spots, particularly the elder of the tribe. Also, the barely disguised Britishness of their speech is funny in places when they have to pronounce a word that isn't something a caveman would say. Blame the TARDIS telepathic circuits for that one.

I might review other Hartnell episodes, but this is going to be it for now. Next time, we'll get a little closer to what we know. There will be some familiar sites, in particular the Coal Hill School, but the Doctor will go from being an Edwardian adventurer to being a short little schemer with a question mark umbrella and a tendency to rrrrrrrrroll his Rs. Also a companion who takes out Daleks with a baseball bat, because awesome!

Next time, Remembrance of the Daleks. And, yes, there will be explosions! Lots of them!

Doctor Who is the property of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

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