"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Sunday, May 3, 2020

Doctor Who: Series 1, Episodes 1-4 – “An Unearthly Child” (1963)


The one that started it all.  It’s fairly widely-agreed that the pilot is excellent and the serial that follows is forgettable at best, a dud at worst.  I agree with that to a point – the caveman adventure doesn’t have nearly the same intrigue and wonder of that first episode – although I do think there are positives to be found there.

Ian and Barbara, teachers at Coal Hill School, share curiosity and concern over an unusual pupil.  Susan has tremendous knowledge beyond that of any normal 15-year-old child, but the most everyday things will trip her up in the oddest way, and she seems to be hiding a secret about her home life.  When Ian and Barbara follow her home one night, they’re amazed to discover, not a house, but a police box in a junkyard.  Their digging unearths impossibilities they could have never imagined, and Susan’s grandfather, the First Doctor, is convinced they’ll tell someone about the TARDIS.  Desperately, he takes off with the teachers still inside, and the four emerge in the era of early humans, where they get caught-up in a struggle between two would-be leaders of a struggling tribe.

Yeah, that first episode is all but magical.  Watching it, I try to imagine what it would be like seeing it for the first time in 1963 and not knowing what was going to happen.  The introductions to Ian, Barbara, and Susan are all spot-on, with Ian and Barbara quickly establishing themselves as clever, brave, and a little reckless, and Susan makes for a great window into the Doctor’s fantastical life.  The shot of Ian and Barbara stepping into the TARDIS is everything it should be.

And yes, the caveman stuff isn’t half as good as that, but for me, it isn’t bad, just so-so.  In a way, the idea of the “firemaker” and important, secret knowledge that’s only held by one man in the tribe parallels the Doctor’s attitude toward Ian and Barbara.  He takes them because he doesn’t want them telling anyone the truth about him and Susan.  There’s a practical/safety motivation for that, sure, but it also feeds into his Time Lord imperiousness, viewing these humans as primitives incapable of handling the wonders of time/space travel.  It’s also the Doctor’s jumping-off point for becoming a different sort of time/space traveler, as I’ve said – Ian and Barbara, with Susan’s help, are able to outnumber him and start showing him the value of getting involved in the lives of those they meet.

While Ian, Barbara, and Susan are all wonderfully well-done in the pilot, only Ian gets much of a chance to shine in the rest of the serial.  He begins his transition to science teacher action hero quite nicely here, using his brains and his strength in equal turn.  Susan and Barbara, though, tend to get stuck with more of the panicking and crying.  Barbara does get one real standout moment, refusing to go along when the Doctor insists that they leave the injured Za to his fate, but I wish we could have seen more of that.  She’s such a great character, and painting her in that light for her first trip feels a little lazy (she gets a bit of a pass because, unlike most companions, she’s taken on her first TARDIS adventure against her will, but still, I don’t like that Ian rolls so much better with the punches than she does here.)  And the Doctor himself?  The first time I saw this episode, after only knowing Nine, Ten, and Eleven, it was startling to see a brusquer, less caring Doctor.  That said, we already start to see hints of his softening, his mischievous “twinkle,” as An Adventure in Space and Time would say.  For his character (like with Barbara’s, maybe,) he’s still only at the start of his journey.

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