An Unearthly Child
An Unearthly Child (sometimes referred to as 100,000 BC)[2] is the first serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC TV in four weekly parts from 23 November to 14 December 1963. Scripted by Australian writer Anthony Coburn, the serial introduces William Hartnell as the First Doctor and his original companions: Carole Ann Ford as the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan Foreman, with Jacqueline Hill and William Russell as school teachers Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton. The first episode deals with Ian and Barbara's discovery of the Doctor and his time-space ship, the TARDIS, in a junkyard in contemporary London, and the remaining episodes are set amid a power struggle between warring Stone Age factions who have lost the secret of making fire.
"100,000 BC" redirects here. For the year, see Middle Paleolithic.001 – An Unearthly Child
- Anthony Coburn
- C. E. Webber (episode 1)
A
4 episodes, 25 minutes each
23 November 1963
14 December 1963
The show was created to fill a gap between children's and young adult programming. Canadian producer Sydney Newman, recently made Head of Drama at the BBC, was tasked with creating the show, with heavy contributions from Donald Wilson and C. E. Webber. Newman conceived the idea of the TARDIS, as well as the central character of the Doctor. Production was led by Verity Lambert, the BBC drama department's first female producer, and the serial was directed by Waris Hussein. Following several delays, the first episode was recorded in September 1963 on 405-line black and white videotape, but was re-recorded the following month due to several technical and performance errors. Several changes were made to the show's costuming, effects, performances, and scripts throughout production.
The show's launch was overshadowed by the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy the previous day, resulting in a repeat of the first episode the following week. The serial received mixed reviews, and the four episodes attracted an average of six million viewers. Retrospective reviews of the serial are favourable. It later received several print adaptations and home media releases.
Plot[edit]
At Coal Hill School, teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright have concerns about pupil Susan Foreman, who has an alien outlook on England. When the teachers visit her address to investigate, they find a police box and hear Susan's voice inside, as an elderly man arrives and refuses to let the teachers inside the police box. They force their way inside to find Susan in a technologically advanced control room that is larger than the police box exterior. Susan explains that the object is a time and space machine called the TARDIS and the old man is her grandfather, who reveals that he and his granddaughter are exiles from their own planet. Refusing to let Ian and Barbara leave, he sets the TARDIS in flight and the ship goes through time and space to the Stone Age.
Za, the leader of a primitive Paleolithic tribe, attempts to make fire. A young woman called Hur warns him that if he fails to do so, the stranger called Kal will be made leader. After exiting the TARDIS, the unnamed old man, whom Ian and Barbara refer to as "the Doctor", is ambushed by Kal, when he witnesses him light a match. Kal takes the Doctor back to the tribe and threatens to kill him if he does not make fire; Ian, Barbara and Susan intervene, but the group is imprisoned in a large cave. With the help of Old Mother, who believes that fire will bring death to the tribe, they escape from the settlement but are intercepted and recaptured before reaching the TARDIS. Kal says they will be sacrificed if they do not make fire. While Ian tries to start a fire, Kal enters the cave and attacks Za, but is killed. Ian gives a burning torch to Za, who shows it to the tribe and declares himself leader. Susan notices that placing a skull over a burning torch makes it appear alive; when the tribe enters the cave, they are faced with several burning skulls, and are terrified, allowing the group to flee to the TARDIS and escape through time and space to a silent and unknown forest. Unnoticed by the crew as they leave the ship to investigate, the radiation meter rises to "Danger".
Themes and analysis[edit]
Scholar Mark Bould discusses how the serial establishes Doctor Who's socio-political stances in his 2008 essay "Science Fiction Television in the United Kingdom". He writes, "The story represents the separation/reunion, capture/escape, pursuit/evasion that will dominate the next twenty-six years, as well as the programme's consistent advocacy of the BBC's political and social liberalism." He cites Ian and Barbara's attempt to teach a cavewoman kindness, friendship and democracy, writing "a tyrant is not as strong as the whole tribe acting collectively".[41] Scholar John R. Cook reflected in 1999 that the presence of teachers as companions echoes Doctor Who's original educational remit.[42] Malcolm Peltu of New Scientist noted, in 1982, that the serial was set in the Stone Age because the show's original intention was "to bring to life the Earth's history".[43]
Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood argue that the cavemen's focus on fire is meant to stand in for all technology, thus linking the latter three episodes with the questions of generational change raised by the first episode and its focus on suspicion of children, and tying that to a discussion of technological progress, including the nuclear bomb. They also argue that, contrary to the tendency to treat the story as a one-episode introduction to the series followed by "three episodes of running around and escaping" that the piece should be considered as a single, dramatic whole that is "about making four people who barely know one another learn to trust each other".[44]
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15 October 1981