Production Code A
First Transmitted:
Cast
Crew
Plot outline from Wikipedia Schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright become concerned about one of their pupils, Susan Foreman. She seems to have a very alien outlook on 1963 England and though her knowledge of some issues is very advanced, she has other curious gaps in her basic understanding or extends concepts beyond their normal parameters. Following her home, Ian and Barbara discover that she appears to live in a junkyard with her grandfather. In fact, Susan and her grandfather, the Doctor, are aliens, who travel through time and space in the TARDIS, a time machine disguised as a police box that is much larger on the inside than it is on the outside. When Ian and Barbara stumble into the TARDIS, the Doctor, who appears to be a wanderer and a fugitive, decides that it is too dangerous to remain in 1963 London and so dematerialises the TARDIS with himself, Susan and the two schoolteachers on board. The four travel to back to the Stone Age as very uneasy companions, Ian and Barbara blaming the Doctor for having kidnapped them from contemporary society. They also have difficulty believing they have actually travelled in time, but the remoteness of their situation and the vileness of the civilisation they encounter convinces them that they have indeed been taken far back into the past. The Doctor is concerned too because the exterior of the TARDIS does not seem to have changed when the ship rematerialised – Susan explains that the ship is supposed to change its appearance to blend in with its surrounding, but for some reason it has remained in the shape of a police box. They soon become involved in the power struggles of a stone age tribe (known in an early working title of the serial as the Tribe of Gum), where leader Za is being mocked for not being able to produce fire, which his father, the previous leader, was able to do. Kal, an interloper from another tribe, only heightens the tension when he offers himself as an alternative leader who could make fire. His evidence is the Doctor, whom he saw trying to light his pipe, but the old man has dropped his matches and is unable to help. As a punishment the four time travellers are incarcerated in the hideous Cave of Skulls, containing remnants of executed people and sacrifices, and promised a similar fate for refusing to co-operate. They are freed by Old Mother, the naïve widow of the last tribal leader, who believes that they could make fire but does not want them to do so, as she considers it a bad omen. The four travellers then flee into a paleolithic forest pursued by Za and his partner Hur. When Za and Hur catch up with them the tribal leader is attacked by a wild beast and seriously injured. The Doctor is so desperate to leave that he contemplates killing the caveman, but is stopped by Ian. They build a makeshift stretcher to help convey Za back to the tribal settlement, hoping by doing so to prove their good intentions. However, in their absence Kal has killed Old Mother and blamed it on Za. The four travellers are returned to the Cave of Skulls, this time with Old Mother’s body for company, but Za recovers and offers them safety. In return, Ian is eventually able to make fire for Za using friction for a spark. Za has further confirmed the leadership of the tribe by killing the usurper Kal and, with fire at his disposal, is undisputed leader. In this security he decrees that the travellers will merge with his tribe rather than leave and orders them confined to the Cave indefinitely. Susan eventually devises a plan to scare and distract the tribespeople enough to allow them to flee. Four skulls are placed on top of burning torches, and this ghoulish vision is enough to allow them to escape back into the forest. This time the four travellers make it back inside the TARDIS before the tribe can capture them and, once they are ensconced, the ship dematerialises once more.
Analysis by Cuisle With the classic line “Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?” often parodied as “'Have you ever thought what it's like to be Bolton Wanderers in the fourth division?” the first episode of the BBC’s effort to inform, education and entertain the whole family through the medium of science fiction got off to an inauspicious start. As any student of 20th century history knows, the air date of November 23rd, 1963, was the day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The day’s broadcasts had been thrown into chaos by the extra news bulletins that had been running since the day before, and this unimportant little show only just scraped into the revised evening’s schedule. Contrary to popular belief, it was broadcast on time, but it was almost pulled because of the crisis in America. Some people later wrote in to Radio Times to complain that it was insensitive to put a programme like that on at such a time. The ratings were poorer than expected, possibly because of those real life events, and it was reshown the following Friday in order to let people catch up. But nevertheless, Doctor Who happened and the rest is history. But by the standards of the classic 70s episodes when it became the favourite of the colour TV generation, it is far from a gripping or sophisticated plot. It does not even compare particularly well with, for example, the earlier episodes of Star Trek, which began three years later in the USA. Its budget, of course, was very limited, and it was made entirely on a studio sound stage. The necessity to have an educational element in each show is generally regarded as hampering the flow of the plotlines in some of the earlier episodes – which generally alternated between history and pure science-fiction. But it is a beginning to a series which was destined to span three decades and to move with the times, in terms of film techniques and special effects, plot construction and concepts of taste and fashion. As the first episode, and therefore just as historic as the great political events taking place at the same time, it is treasured by Doctor Who fans and TV historians alike. The first episode, An Unearthly Child, stands as a classic piece of TV. It is a nicely self-contained story very much from the point of view of Ian and Barbara, the two school teachers who try to find out why one of their students is acting so strangely. What we learn about The Doctor, Susan and the TARDIS from this episode is the foundation stone for the next forty-five years, but even if it had been a one off drama, it could have stood the test of time. A strange old man talks with misty eyes of being a wanderer in time and space, of being from a society so much more advanced that planet Earth in the 1960s, and of the danger of allowing Humans from that time knowledge of his technology. Of course he has no choice. He has to kidnap them. The follow up episodes, loosely called The Tribe of Gumm, are a little more problematic. Verity Lambert admitted it was not her favourite story. It contrasts hugely with the first episode in terms of acting quality and plot. While An Unearthly Child could have easily extended to an hour long play involving the central characters and that argument about historical causality and footprints in time, the story of the tribe’s search for fire could have been done much better in two tightly paced episodes instead of being rather drawn out. It gets rather dull at times. Although it does raise a fascinating aspect of The Doctor’s mentality at the time when he considers killing the injured tribesman because he would slow them down. Never again do we see The Doctor having such disregard for life. Indeed, The Doctor as we know him now, in his latter incarnations would be disgusted by such an idea. The transformation of a very bad-tempered and self-centred man into somebody loved and trusted by children everywhere begins AFTER this storyline.
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