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As many of you know, I'm a massive Doctor Who fan. Old, new, I love it all. However, everything pre-2005 I've encountered out of context, as it were; I've skipped around in my viewing, because Classic Who is released on DVD by story rather than by season. So, in order to get the full effect of plot and character development, I've decided to go through the entire series in order, beginning with the first story ("An Unearthly Child").
My rules for this project:
- I'll watch all episodes in order, even those I've already seen.
- Any stories not yet available on DVD, I'll download the VHS rips and watch those. Any that no longer exist in video form (which is unfortunately a decent number of the First Doctor's stories and a massive amount of the Second's, so quite a few early on) I will listen to in audio format and/or watch in reconstruction.
- As I watch, I'll be reading along in the insanely comprehensive About Time series, which basically has everything you might ever possibly need to know about any and all aspects of each Who episode.
- My reactions will basically consist of my thoughts about the story as a whole, a decently short summary, and some minor picspam. I'll be giving a bit more background in this first one, just because I know a lot of folks on my flist may not be all that familiar with Doctor Who in general and/or Classic Who in particular, and this'll give y'all a place to start in case you want to follow this project and find out more about the series!
So, without further ado, back to the beginning!
Doctor Who 01x01, An Unearthly Child
(Just to give you an idea of its time, the first episode aired on Nov. 23, 1963, the day after Kennedy's assassination, one reason that its ratings were kind of crappy; a rerun later in the week got better numbers.)
This first of all Doctor Who stories feels somewhat odd and disjointed, yet in a way that nevertheless (mostly) works; you can tell it's still finding its feet, though. The first episode, which introduces us to the Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, and her two teachers Ian and Barbara (as well as to the bigger-on-the-inside police box known as the TARDIS), is a delightfully mysterious and unsettling mood piece...and then we get three episodes of the Doctor and co. in prehistoric times, faffing about with cavemen trying to rediscover fire. It's perhaps an undistinguished first adventure for the TARDIS crew, but nevertheless it has its moments!
The show begins mystifyingly; after the highly trippy opening credits, it shows us not the Doctor, not his future companions, but a policeman outside a scrapyard. Inside the scrapyard is a police box...

Most of this first episode is told from the viewpoint of two teachers at Coal Hill school, a London comprehensive high school. Specifically, these teachers are Barbara Wright (history) and Ian Chesterton (science):

Both Barbara and Ian are concerned about one of their students, a certain Susan Foreman; Susan is brilliant but odd, able to solve the most complex equation and with an encyclopedic knowledge of history but apparently unaware that England in 1963 does not have a decimal currency and prone to speed-reading and bizarre dancing:

Barbara is concerned for Susan, especially once she discovers that Susan's home address is not a house, but a junkyard, and after her attempts to speak with Susan's grandfather are scuppered because "he doesn't like strangers." So she enlists Ian's help in trying to discover Susan's secrets and to ensure that her home life is okay.
The two teachers follow Susan home from school and see her go inside the junkyard. They follow her inside, only to discover a police box that's warm and throbbing, as if it's alive, and a crotchety old man calling himself the Doctor:

The Doctor is highly uncooperative when Barbara and Ian ask him about Susan, and while they're suspicious there's not much they can do with this irritating old man. However, when they suddenly hear Susan's voice seemingly coming from the police box, Ian and Barbara follow it and find themselves in a strange place seemingly inside the police box, which is clearly bigger on the inside than on the outside:

The Doctor, now that they've seen it, grudgingly explains that he and Susan are exiles from another planet and another time; but they will get back one day, oh yes:

Ian and Barbara refuse to believe such an outlandish story, and Ian especially is convinced that it's some form of prestidigitation or mass hypnosis. The Doctor, insulted by their disbelief and attempting to protect himself and Susan from discover, sets the TARDIS moving through time and space. We get a trippy redo of the opening sequence and music, and the episode ends with the TARDIS' arrival at its destination; Ian and Barbara are unconscious from the journey, the Doctor and Susan are looking at their deserted surroundings on the TARDIS scanner, and a mysterious shadow menaces the TARDIS:

That is the end of the first part, which is everything you might expect from the opener to a series like Doctor Who. It has so many firsts and lasts, and even though it's not entirely connected to those newfangled modern day kids as the new version is (I mean, your viewpoint characters are not only grown-ups, but schoolteachers), it's engagingly paced and genuinely entertaining.
Then it gets weird. In the next episode, the TARDIS crew leave to explore a bit (once sight of their surroundings convinces Ian and Barbara that this is no illusion), and end up being captured by Ice Age cavemen who are seeking to learn the secret of kindling fire. The cavemen in general are very 1,000,000 Years B.C., and we get everything you'd expect, including a stone-knife fight (amusingly revealing the tighty-whities the actors are wearing under their furs in the process) and furry bikinis. Unfortunately the introduction to all this is the weakest link, simply because aside from a few brief moments at the beginning and the very end, we get less of Team TARDIS and more of the cavemen's political machinations, which just don't interest us very much at this point (we don't care about these cavemen, we want to know what happened with Ian and Barbara and co.!). Once the two groups start dealing directly with each other, things get more interesting and watchable.
Anyway, the conflict here is between Za and Kal, two young warriors who are striving for leadership of the tribe. Kal came to the tribe from another one, and has distinguished himself here; Za's father formerly held the secret of fire, but died without passing it on, and as the Ice Age continues on it becomes more and more of an issue. Therefore, the one who can create fire will become the leader of the tribe, and will also get the current leader-pro-tem's daughter, Hur (who definitely prefers Za, and is pretty sneaky herself). Then there's an old woman, who fears that the secret of fire will destroy the tribe. All these tensions come to a head when the Doctor and co., who of course do have the secret of fire, end up as prisoners of the tribe.
Basically Za is the "good guy" and Kal is the "bad guy," insofar as such distinctions are made; while Kal shows no compunctions at killing the old woman once she's outlived her usefulness. Nevertheless, Za is not really an ally of Team TARDIS per se; he is just as happy to imprison them as Kal was, and only through a stratagem involving flaming skulls do our heroes manage to escape to the TARDIS rather than being kept as caveman pets for the rest of their natural lives.
Really, it's just a very strange story in many ways with regards to character development: we even get the Doctor seemingly about to smash a wounded caveman over the head with a rock to finish him off until a horrified Ian stops him, and the Doctor in general is surly and ruthlessly practical in a way that we rarely see later in the series. Similarly, Susan is used well, especially in the first and last episodes, and seems genuinely alien: while she and Barbara both do their share of screaming, it's Susan's nonchalant playing around with fire and human skulls while they're being held captive that gives them the idea of how to make their escape in the end. Ian interestingly has a bit of a tiff with the Doctor over who's the real leader of this team; though by the end they're agreed that it's the Doctor, it seems to be up in the air for a little while. Really the only member of Team TARDIS who doesn't really get a chance to shine is Barbara, who's not really used all that well after the first episode; but she'll get her chance to shine soon enough (in story 3, The Edge of Destruction, and to a lesser extent in the next story, The Daleks.).
The story ends with the Doctor and co. making it back to the TARDIS and leaving the Ice Age for...somewhere else. They don't know entirely where they are, but they're game to explore, especially after they've checked the instruments to ensure that it's safe to leave. As they go off to clean themselves up and get ready to head out, though, the radiation detector goes way up and starts showing serious danger levels...
So overall, as an introduction to the Doctor, the TARDIS, and the first set of companions, it works wonderfully, and I'd recommend the first episode to pretty much anyone; the remaining three caveman eps are good, too, but just be aware that while episode 2 drags on, once the TARDIS crew shows up things get considerably more interesting.
(For more info on the story, you can check out its Wikipedia entry, and if you'd like to watch the story yourself, it can be found on YouTube; here's a link to the first part of the first episode.)
Next time, The Daleks, featuring the arrival of everyone's favorite pepperpots!
My rules for this project:
- I'll watch all episodes in order, even those I've already seen.
- Any stories not yet available on DVD, I'll download the VHS rips and watch those. Any that no longer exist in video form (which is unfortunately a decent number of the First Doctor's stories and a massive amount of the Second's, so quite a few early on) I will listen to in audio format and/or watch in reconstruction.
- As I watch, I'll be reading along in the insanely comprehensive About Time series, which basically has everything you might ever possibly need to know about any and all aspects of each Who episode.
- My reactions will basically consist of my thoughts about the story as a whole, a decently short summary, and some minor picspam. I'll be giving a bit more background in this first one, just because I know a lot of folks on my flist may not be all that familiar with Doctor Who in general and/or Classic Who in particular, and this'll give y'all a place to start in case you want to follow this project and find out more about the series!
So, without further ado, back to the beginning!
Doctor Who 01x01, An Unearthly Child
(Just to give you an idea of its time, the first episode aired on Nov. 23, 1963, the day after Kennedy's assassination, one reason that its ratings were kind of crappy; a rerun later in the week got better numbers.)
This first of all Doctor Who stories feels somewhat odd and disjointed, yet in a way that nevertheless (mostly) works; you can tell it's still finding its feet, though. The first episode, which introduces us to the Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, and her two teachers Ian and Barbara (as well as to the bigger-on-the-inside police box known as the TARDIS), is a delightfully mysterious and unsettling mood piece...and then we get three episodes of the Doctor and co. in prehistoric times, faffing about with cavemen trying to rediscover fire. It's perhaps an undistinguished first adventure for the TARDIS crew, but nevertheless it has its moments!
The show begins mystifyingly; after the highly trippy opening credits, it shows us not the Doctor, not his future companions, but a policeman outside a scrapyard. Inside the scrapyard is a police box...
Most of this first episode is told from the viewpoint of two teachers at Coal Hill school, a London comprehensive high school. Specifically, these teachers are Barbara Wright (history) and Ian Chesterton (science):
Both Barbara and Ian are concerned about one of their students, a certain Susan Foreman; Susan is brilliant but odd, able to solve the most complex equation and with an encyclopedic knowledge of history but apparently unaware that England in 1963 does not have a decimal currency and prone to speed-reading and bizarre dancing:
Barbara is concerned for Susan, especially once she discovers that Susan's home address is not a house, but a junkyard, and after her attempts to speak with Susan's grandfather are scuppered because "he doesn't like strangers." So she enlists Ian's help in trying to discover Susan's secrets and to ensure that her home life is okay.
The two teachers follow Susan home from school and see her go inside the junkyard. They follow her inside, only to discover a police box that's warm and throbbing, as if it's alive, and a crotchety old man calling himself the Doctor:
The Doctor is highly uncooperative when Barbara and Ian ask him about Susan, and while they're suspicious there's not much they can do with this irritating old man. However, when they suddenly hear Susan's voice seemingly coming from the police box, Ian and Barbara follow it and find themselves in a strange place seemingly inside the police box, which is clearly bigger on the inside than on the outside:
The Doctor, now that they've seen it, grudgingly explains that he and Susan are exiles from another planet and another time; but they will get back one day, oh yes:
Ian and Barbara refuse to believe such an outlandish story, and Ian especially is convinced that it's some form of prestidigitation or mass hypnosis. The Doctor, insulted by their disbelief and attempting to protect himself and Susan from discover, sets the TARDIS moving through time and space. We get a trippy redo of the opening sequence and music, and the episode ends with the TARDIS' arrival at its destination; Ian and Barbara are unconscious from the journey, the Doctor and Susan are looking at their deserted surroundings on the TARDIS scanner, and a mysterious shadow menaces the TARDIS:
That is the end of the first part, which is everything you might expect from the opener to a series like Doctor Who. It has so many firsts and lasts, and even though it's not entirely connected to those newfangled modern day kids as the new version is (I mean, your viewpoint characters are not only grown-ups, but schoolteachers), it's engagingly paced and genuinely entertaining.
Then it gets weird. In the next episode, the TARDIS crew leave to explore a bit (once sight of their surroundings convinces Ian and Barbara that this is no illusion), and end up being captured by Ice Age cavemen who are seeking to learn the secret of kindling fire. The cavemen in general are very 1,000,000 Years B.C., and we get everything you'd expect, including a stone-knife fight (amusingly revealing the tighty-whities the actors are wearing under their furs in the process) and furry bikinis. Unfortunately the introduction to all this is the weakest link, simply because aside from a few brief moments at the beginning and the very end, we get less of Team TARDIS and more of the cavemen's political machinations, which just don't interest us very much at this point (we don't care about these cavemen, we want to know what happened with Ian and Barbara and co.!). Once the two groups start dealing directly with each other, things get more interesting and watchable.
Anyway, the conflict here is between Za and Kal, two young warriors who are striving for leadership of the tribe. Kal came to the tribe from another one, and has distinguished himself here; Za's father formerly held the secret of fire, but died without passing it on, and as the Ice Age continues on it becomes more and more of an issue. Therefore, the one who can create fire will become the leader of the tribe, and will also get the current leader-pro-tem's daughter, Hur (who definitely prefers Za, and is pretty sneaky herself). Then there's an old woman, who fears that the secret of fire will destroy the tribe. All these tensions come to a head when the Doctor and co., who of course do have the secret of fire, end up as prisoners of the tribe.
Basically Za is the "good guy" and Kal is the "bad guy," insofar as such distinctions are made; while Kal shows no compunctions at killing the old woman once she's outlived her usefulness. Nevertheless, Za is not really an ally of Team TARDIS per se; he is just as happy to imprison them as Kal was, and only through a stratagem involving flaming skulls do our heroes manage to escape to the TARDIS rather than being kept as caveman pets for the rest of their natural lives.
Really, it's just a very strange story in many ways with regards to character development: we even get the Doctor seemingly about to smash a wounded caveman over the head with a rock to finish him off until a horrified Ian stops him, and the Doctor in general is surly and ruthlessly practical in a way that we rarely see later in the series. Similarly, Susan is used well, especially in the first and last episodes, and seems genuinely alien: while she and Barbara both do their share of screaming, it's Susan's nonchalant playing around with fire and human skulls while they're being held captive that gives them the idea of how to make their escape in the end. Ian interestingly has a bit of a tiff with the Doctor over who's the real leader of this team; though by the end they're agreed that it's the Doctor, it seems to be up in the air for a little while. Really the only member of Team TARDIS who doesn't really get a chance to shine is Barbara, who's not really used all that well after the first episode; but she'll get her chance to shine soon enough (in story 3, The Edge of Destruction, and to a lesser extent in the next story, The Daleks.).
The story ends with the Doctor and co. making it back to the TARDIS and leaving the Ice Age for...somewhere else. They don't know entirely where they are, but they're game to explore, especially after they've checked the instruments to ensure that it's safe to leave. As they go off to clean themselves up and get ready to head out, though, the radiation detector goes way up and starts showing serious danger levels...
So overall, as an introduction to the Doctor, the TARDIS, and the first set of companions, it works wonderfully, and I'd recommend the first episode to pretty much anyone; the remaining three caveman eps are good, too, but just be aware that while episode 2 drags on, once the TARDIS crew shows up things get considerably more interesting.
(For more info on the story, you can check out its Wikipedia entry, and if you'd like to watch the story yourself, it can be found on YouTube; here's a link to the first part of the first episode.)
Next time, The Daleks, featuring the arrival of everyone's favorite pepperpots!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-10 02:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-10 04:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-10 12:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-10 02:31 pm (UTC)But I think in the first episode at least, the Doctor certainly can't really be working quite as that kind of identification/viewpoint figure because he's too mysterious until the very end, and really the same with Susan to a lesser extent.
* This is why it always drives me mad when people argue that only the companions can be identification/viewpoint figures (usually in arguments for why companions should only ever be young people from 20th-/21st-century England).