In 1963, the newly promoted head of BBC drama, Sydney Newman, asked his producers to come up with a concept for family viewing in the half hour early Saturday evening slot between the two already firmly established programmes, Grandstand and Juke Box Jury. With the space race in full throttle, science fiction was an increasingly popular TV genre, and so the endless possibilities were narrowed down to that. And since the edicts of Lord Reith, first Director-General of the BBC, to “inform, education, and entertain” in THAT order was still reasonably fresh in the minds of BBC executives, the remit was to have some kind of educational element in the programme. After mulling over several ideas, Newman finally approved of a science-fiction/educational programme featuring a time-traveller who could alternate between historical scenes which could inform and educate, and futuristic fantasy which would entertain.

Verity Lambert, a young, but respected and experienced producer, was put in charge of the project. She has famously said on many occasions that she was warned not to have any “B.E.M.’s” in the show – “bug-eyed monsters” and to lean towards the educational angle of the concept, but the second storyline introduced the most famous “B.E.M.’s” of all time, the Daleks. What had been described as a time-travelling Sherlock Holmes had his arch-nemesis – his Moriarty, and the rest was history.

CAST
Carole Ann Ford Susan Foreman
William Hartnell Doctor Who
Jacqueline Hill Barbara Wright
William Russell Ian Chesterton

CREW
Waris Hussein Director
Anthony Coburn Writer
Robert Sleigh Film Cameraman
John Griffiths Film Editor
John House Film Editor
Jack Clayton Studio Sound
Mervyn Pinfield Associate Producer
Douglas Camfield Production Assistant
Verity Lambert Producer
David Whitaker Story Editor
Ron Grainer Title Music
and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, arranged by Delia Derbyshire
Brian Hodgson Special Sounds
Peter Brachacki Designer
Barry Newbery Designer
Maureen Heneghan Costumes
Elizabeth Blattner Make-Up
Norman Kay Incidental Music
Visual Effects Department of the BBC Visual Effects
Sam Barclay Studio Lighting
Catherine Childs Assistant Floor Manager

Plot
Schoolteachers Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, worried by the strange behaviour of bright but unusual pupil, Susan Foreman, visit her home address - a junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane, East London. There they meet her grandfather, known simply as the Doctor. At first he puts them off, but eventually they discover that Susan’s ‘home’ is – on the outside at least - a police telephone box. On the inside, it is a spacecraft. The Doctor and Susan are aliens who travel through time and space in the TARDIS. While they are still taking all this in, the Doctor, afraid of their secret becoming known, starts the TARDIS up, kidnapping the two teachers and taking them away on their first adventure….. The TARDIS arriving, as the episode ends, on a Paleolithic landscape, over which falls the shadow of a man……

Analysis by Cuisle

The plot is familiar enough. It is the Unearthly Child, of course, but the unaired pilot was a much rougher version than that broadcast on the immortal evening of November 23rd, 1963. Among many changes was the sound of the TARDIS materialising and dematerialising. In this first version it was just bleeps and noises. For the real broadcast episode, which also had some new dialogue, though the plot was about the same, the familiar sound effect had been created.

For years it was assumed that the pilot was lost. Why would it have been kept, after all? But in 1991 it was unearthed and broadcast as part of “The Lime Grove Story” marking the closure of the BBC's Lime Grove studios where all the earlier episodes of Doctor Who were recorded. This was later released on the VHS compilation The Hartnell Years, and in 2005, the Doctor Who: The Beginning DVD set included two versions of the unaired episode - the unedited studio recording including all takes of the second part of the show, and a digitally enhanced version that removes some of the bloopers and enhances the sound and picture clarity. Fans, generally, of course, prefer the uncut version. Well, we would, wouldn't we!