An Unearthly Child

Story Title: An Unearthly Child
Episode Count: 4 Series: 1 Story No: 1
Doctor: 1st Companions: Ian, Barbara, Susan
Date(s) Watched: Sunday 23rd November 2008 (all four episodes)

So hear we go, the start of a very long marathon, and a rather lukewarm story, I feel. Episode 1 however starts off brilliantly with the camera panning round following the Policeman on a cold foggy night & into the scrap yard, decorated well, and reminding me of a prototype scrap yard for Steptoe & Son. With the camera settling onto the Police Box & the overlapping music gives a wonderfully eerie feel. Ian & Barbara are instantly likeable & give a everyday feel for the viewer, which is a contrast as to what’s to come. Susan’s dancing, when first seen, is funny & I’m not sure if it’s a “dance of it’s time” or if she’s purposely been trippy & alienesc (sp). There does seem to be an odd cut in this scene straight after Susan’s line about “walking in the dark”, which I’m guess is a quick remount?

Susan is actually rather good, in the first episode as she has an eerie ore surrounding her in her scenes. The scenes back in the junkyard are actually quite fuzzy although it does add to the eeriness of the first episode. Hartnell instantly shines in this episode been cheeky & mysterious. Inside the Tardis we get a well played reaction by Russell & Hill and the actual Tardis interior looks huge but not empty, with homely objects adding to the set. As we approach the end of episode 1 we see a nice use of the test “howlaround” clips & a still image of some buildings in London (I’m guessing Chelsea Barracks?). The end is quite nice & eerie as well with the shot of the Tardis, in a wasteland & a shadow slowly approaching, unfortunately the small scale is given away as the shadow moves nearer the Tardis.

By episode 2, we finally get into our first adventure, far into the past when cavemen where one of the first human civilisations. The cave sets are rather good as are several of the actors, including Derek Newark as Za, Alethea Charlton as Hur (pun on her perhaps?) & Jeremy Young as Kal. We have the Doctor explaining the “features” of the Tardis & that certain things are faulty (the fact that the he never knows where he’s going to end up & that it hasn’t changed shape like it did before). Russell & Hill are again on form, as is Hartnell; I especially like the bit where he smokes a pipe, kind of fitting in with his “grumpy old man”, of the time image. Ford unfortunately (and I feel not her fault) changes here to a screaming teenage girl as opposed to the cooler, alienesc girl we saw in episode one. Oddly enough the Doctor is keen to introduce fire to the cave people, even though this is the case of interfering (unless it is implied that the reason man created fire was due to his presence).

By episode 3, I had started to stray a bit, the main plot seem to thin out a bit too quickly, unfortunately. It mainly circled around Za trying to prove he could make fire to stay leader of the tribe & Kal trying to get the Doctor to make fire so he could take over as leader. The forest/jungle scenes & sets looked good but at times jarred with the more baron landscape seen in the first episode. Another nice touch was The Doctor losing his breath, showing that although alien he was similar to us (if you get what I mean by that). The fake boars head looked too fake unfortunately so wasn’t that convincing. However by the end of the third episode it seems to be dragging a bit.

Episode 4 arrives, and unfortunately not much happens, they get captured again, the cavemen argue about fire & everything loops again. I do however like Hartnell’s crafty way of turning the tribe against Kal, especially the mischievous grin on his face. Problem is, that by this point, the dialogue of the cave people is a bit too polished, what I mean by that was that considering that this story was so many years B.C. it was rather odd to have them speaking in full sentences with correct punctuation, etc. No obviously back then they wouldn’t have spoken English in current form but dropping the odd “the” & “a” would have made them sound more primitive (to me at least). The cave of skulls set is rather well made however although when we see the filmic fight scene the cave interior seems to have doubled from the studio set. The naked flame is also rather odd to see was well, especially with all that wood & fur all over the place.

In conclusion, some nice shoots, especially the running scene in the final escape & some nice alternative angles in the Tardis (as opposed to the same fourth wall shot of latter years) and some nice atmospheric music set it up well. Unfortunately after the great episode one & good episode two, it all drags once we get to episode three, really you could have cut and spliced episodes 3 & 4 together IMO, but then surely others will disagree with me on that

Overall Rating: 3.25/5 – Not bad but runs out of plot halfway through episode 3.