A is for An Unearthly Child

Now as my brother made me painfully aware of, no self-respecting librarian would ever alphabetize An Unearthly Child under the letter A.  However, I'm thumbing my nose in his direction simply because there is no better place to start speaking about Doctor Who

An Unearthly Child is the first glimpse the entire world was given in to the Who Universe. The first episode was broadcast the day after the assassination of President Kennedy in November of 1963.  Overshadowed by the very real tragedy, the new series did manage to spark the viewing interests of many.  As it would turn out, this rather slow, limited in science-fiction piece would turn out to be a show much different to so much that was shown on the BBC.

The first glimpse we get into the first story of Doctor Who is a lone nightshift policeman walking into a junkyard. We are overpowered by decay and neglect, and yet pulsing above the scenery is this strange hum of power, seeming to be emanating from a London police call box.

Back in the day, police used these boxes to temporarily lock up prisoners and call for back up to cart the miscreant to the station.  But in this case...

::grins::   More on that later.

I think the most amazing thing about An Unearthly Child is the fact that is practically two stories in one. The first half hour is merely an introduction to characters and the main idea that will permeate through the next 50 years.  ....travel.

Yes, i left out the word "time" and for good reason. No matter the fact that it is time travel. It is quite simply travel. The Doctor and company, never once stay situated and settle. Sure, sometimes they can be held prisoner, sometimes for years on end.  Yes, certainly we know the Doctor owns several houses. But, the Doctor is not a static entity, he is all about movement. Sometimes he moves on too soon...

The second three pieces of this story are I suppose what you might call: the danger.  There is danger everywhere the Doctor goes, and in this story the danger is very purposefully segregated to the final three parts, where the travelers are whisked back in time to attempt to survive in a tribe of cavemen (led by a superb performance by Derek Newark) eager to relearn the secrets of fire.

But, to be honest, despite the fact that the action and adventure take place in the final three parts. That first episode...is key.

The introductory episode to Doctor Who could not have gone more perfectly in my opnion. If you do get the chance to see the pilot, by all means do but that pales in comparison to the second (and packaged) run through.

You get a sense of the alienness of the Doctor and his (adopted) grand-daughter Susan.  You get the feeling of isolation both from the two Time Lords and from the two school teachers.  Then, of course you get the wonderment, most evident in the eyes of Ian Chesterton.  He refuses to believe, and yet WANTS to believe; and finally when he accepts it he is so overwhelmed that it almost takes him off his feet.

All in all a brilliant opening to a fantastic journey....

The other key point in this story is the junkyard itself.  76 Totters Lane, presumably owned by a scrap merchant by the name of I.M. Foreman.  The Doctor learns much later in life that his time machine (the blue police box, his TARDIS: Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) was drawn to this junkyard.

The junkyard is in reality another TARDIS, for these miraculous machines can change shape!!  Blending in with their surroundings to further disguise their alien nature to the populace of that world.

The junkyard features more times through the course of the series. It is a fixed space time event, sort of the echo trail of the previous TARDIS landing.

The owner of that TARDIS took the name I.M. Foreman intending it as a play on words, in reality intending to mean "I am for Man!"

To those of you that are new to Doctor Who, or even not so new but babes of the new series.  I do urge you to break past the fact that....this the beginning of the Time Lord's journey was conceived in pre-CGI times, pre-COLOR times and understand that all story telling is limited by the media available.  Some of the classic stories are appalling to look at, and yet, the story told is 9 times out of 10 extraordinary.

Do give An Unearthly Child a shot....  For even though in this day and age we have audios and comics that have delved even earlier in the First Doctor and Susan's history, without this one lone piece of television, we would not even be Whovians....