3 out of 5

Directed By: Waris Hussein

Aaaand so it began.  Doctor Who got off to a pretty thrilling start – and I do mean start – with the four part serial ‘An Unearthly Child.’  While the progress of the arc, overall, absolutely flounders in its mid-section, there are absolutely enough points of interest and oddities wended throughout to keep you watching, or at the very least to return the following week to see where this is going.  Not having watched any Hartnell episodes since I was too young to really pay attention – and, frankly, not having watched any Who for several years either way – I can’t speak officially to how this reconfigured pilot (according to wiki, this series was shifted up to be the intro eps when the originally intended series was seen as not feasibly shootable) stands next to what’s to come over the next 50 years…  But that’s sort of the point of starting back at the beginning.

The first episode is excellent.  Two teachers are discussing the student Susan Foreman, whose behavior seems to jump between flashes of genius – jumping to a lesson’s conclusion – and complete incompetence, not understanding some knowledge basics.  In the flashbacks of these events, which are cutely staged, Susan drops some totally ‘innocent’ ah ha silly Susan gems like “Oh, that hasn’t happened yet.”  Kids today (ahem 1963), always comparing future events to the present.  To suss out what makes Ms. Foreman tick, our teachers uncreepily follow her home.  This is actually a well scripted scene, the exchange between Ian and Barbara (the teachers) surprisingly natural.  Further investigation brings them to a dead end and a now familiar police box, out of which comes… The Doctor.  Who will refute that his name is Doctor Foreman, or that he’s a doctor of medicine, thus prompting Ian, at one point, to ponder his identity by referring to him as Doctor Who.  Womp.  Into the police box all of them burst, discovering Susan, prompting a discussion of calling the authorities and dot dot dot so Mr. Who does the rash thing and hits the ‘go’ button on the TARDIS.  Time/space displacement happens, and episode 1 ends with a haunting shot of the box in a desolate locale.

…Which ends up being maybe 100,000 BC (an alternate title for the series), and Doc and crew are taken captive by a tribe of prehistoric folks, who are currently in a power struggle between potential leaders.  The first to create fire (or bring fire from ‘The Orb’) gets the crown.  Episodes 2 and 3 spend a bit too much back and forth time on this, the confrontations between our travelers and the locals feeling a bit too forced and removing the edge of episode 1’s sense of discovery in favor of watching cavemen bicker.  Episode 4 picks up with our crew finally getting a handle on how to communicate more effectively, and though the reliance on language in general takes some suspension of disbelief, the writers again do a good job of making it as natural as possible: the cavemen don’t suddenly become logical overnight, and though some small lessons are passed on, things still dissolve to a spear-chucking chase back to the TARDIS.

For the most part, this is shot pretty well.  Director Hussein makes pretty good use of his sparse sets and keeps the camera moving.  Action sequences suffer, having to mostly rely on sound effects and reaction shots, but low budget is a vibe followers would grow used to.  Hartnell is a fascinating doctor, much moreso than I remember… but this is where I can’t be sure if memory serves correctly or not.  Because he’s pretty bitter and rash here, not wanting to do much beyond get outta the Stone Age, whereas the teachers seek to pass on some lessons while they’re around.  And happily, the theme song and TARDIS sound effects are already in place, the former totally notable for its time… as well as the simple graphic used for the titles.

Taken very beginning of Doctor Who was definitely a grabbing, unique experience.  It flounders a bit from that feeling for a couple episodes, but certainly doesn’t completely drop the ball at any point, and closes out its introductory arc with a fun wink that definitely would’ve made 1963 me return the following week.