1.1: An Unearthly Child

In which the sinister Doctor Who kidnaps two school teachers, then tries to murder some cavemen.

Broadcast: November-December 1963

Watched: March 2019

1. An Unearthly Child

“But it was a police telephone box! I walked all around it!”

The theme music is still playing as the unidentified copper wanders aimlessly through the junkyard. It feels telling that we see the police box before we meet any of the characters (even if the idea of a police box in a junkyard no longer feels quite so shocking, because we don't see a piece of street furniture that doesn’t belong there, we see, er, the TARDIS). It also feels telling that spooky music is integral to Who from the very beginning.

Something else that's true from the beginning - Ian and Barbara are very definitely a “we” (which is a polite way of saying there is absolutely no way they're not banging). We can tell Ian is down with the kids because he likes pop music. In the same vein, they show us “normal teenager” Susan, bopping along to the radio, before they give us “weird science genius” Susan. She also seems to be looking for a home (“I won't leave the 20th century. I'd rather leave the TARDIS and you”).

The Doctor doesn't appear at all until minute 11. When he does he's by far the most charismatic character, immediately twisting the narrative around himself.

The episode's key moment, though, is the bit where Ian and Barbara enter the TARDIS for the first time. Until then, the episode has been (literally) very dark, all taking place at night. Suddenly, unexpectedly, everything is bright and white. 

When the TARDIS takes off on its first journey, it's violent and trippy, knocking Ian and Barbara out. The camera zooms out from London - an effect nicely mirrored/reversed in Rose - and suddenly we're in the effect from the opening credits all over again.

And then... the shadow of a caveman falls. A bit like the shadow of the less exciting bit of this story. 

Anyway, the first episode's great. 

Last thought: the enormous writing used in the credits shows how small TVs were. Which probably helped a lot with the special effects budget.

2. The Cave of Skulls

“It's still a police box. Why hasn't it changed?”

Seven minutes in, the TARDIS door opens, we're in another world and Ian's doubts look ridiculous: 32 minutes into Doctor Who and time travel is real. (It takes longer, over 40, in the relaunch.)

Before that though... oh good, three and a half minutes of some cavemen before the regulars even arrive. Why is everyone watching Za fail to make fire? He's clearly  been doing this for ages. Why are they all sat in a circle? Come to that, why are these idiot cavemen living in a desert? Go somewhere with vegetation you twats.

The cavemen do sort of work as an interesting mirror on the regulars. Sinister Kal is a wanderer from elsewhere promising knowledge - a parallel for the Doctor. (Also, this makes me think of westerns, a bit?) There's also a Prometheus thing going on, with fire as knowledge as power. 

More than that, the tribe clearly murders outsiders on principle. There's a lot of stuff reflecting Doctor's hostile attitudes from the previous episode back on him. It brings the regulars closer together by making them all high tech visitors from another world.

But… blimey this is an odd choice of a first trip isn't it? 

Other thoughts (a trick I will lean on more and more regularly as these notes continue, to give me an excuse to switch to unrelated bullet points):

• “...Dr Foreman.” “Eh? Doctor who? What's he talking about?” Also, at one point Ian says, “That's not his name...  Perhaps if we knew his name we might have a clue to all this.” There's something interesting going on conflating names, identities and where people fit into the world.

• The TARDIS has a “yearometer”. Cool. It’s playing up. Less cool.

3. The Forest of Fear

The skeletons casually lying around the place are somehow creepier than the skulls. The fact there's a forest on the edge of the desert is a bit weird.

Za is an idiot who needs everything pointing out and also a wife beater. Although he does understand the need to build alliances which is more than you can say for Theresa May. [NOTE: I did warn you that these notes date from early 2019, sorry.]

I've only seen this once before but I remember it being much smarter than this. My main memory was “Kal is not stronger than the whole tribe” and some vague idea it was about different sources of authority...but there's not been any of that yet, the two leaders are barely differentiated and the cavemen are all morons.

More parallels between regulars and cavemen: the Doctor and Ian arguing about who the leader is.  Old Mother is an inversion of the Doctor... she's terrified of science and progress, which he represents from the start even though he's a dick about it.

For all that, though, the portrayal of cavemen as idiots rather than people who just don't have technology doesn't fit well with the idea that the humans are just as civilised as the Time travellers.

Ooh, a capture escape loop! And some running! (The Doctor can't run far. He doesn't just look old, at this point he is old.) No corridors yet though.

It is not massively obvious what Barbara is screaming at. Tiny TVs must have made some of this quite hard to follow. The use of camera movement and sound effects to create a beast must be the cheapest special effect they ever did.

Barbara might be too nice for her own good. By contrast, the Doctor is a total [word redacted for the benefit of email filters].

4. The Firemaker

“It's burning!” says Susan, inaccurately. 

Something this story does do well... the stone age is brutal. People get banished or killed when no longer useful. It’s totally, horribly utilitarian.

Love that the Doctor's main trick here is to incite mob violence; Ian's is to do a spooky burning skulls thing. These cavemen are morons. 

Showing the hunt by having everyone run within a foot of the camera is also a bit of a cheat. Does feel suspiciously like they spent all the budget for this one on the TARDIS set. Then again it looks great, so fair enough.

Anyway. There is, if you squint, a “where does authority come from, strength or wisdom” thing here. But the belief that I've maintained for a decade that this was Hobbes vs Locke with cavemen was a bit OTT. And this fight scene goes on forever. This was not as good as I remembered, which is… not an auspicious start.

Hilariously, the law of large numbers means that someone somewhere stopped bothering after this because they only watched it for the cavemen. 

Housekeeping

I might end up posting several of these a week, in the hope of getting through the lot by the 60th anniversary next year. That’s obviously a lot, so I’m considering just sticking them online and emailing a digest of links once a week or something. Thoughts welcome. 

Next time, confusingly: Rose. But next time in this thread: The Daleks.