Doctor Who/An Unearthly Child

An Unearthly Child
001
Airdate	November 23, 1963
Production Number	A
Written by	Anthony Coburn
Directed by	Waris Hussein
— N/A	002 → The Daleks
Doctor Who — Season One

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An Unearthly Child is the first serial of the first season of Doctor Who, and the first serial overall.

Guest Stars: Derek Newark (Za), Jeremy Young (Kal), Alethea Charlton (Hur), Eileen Way (Old Mother), Howard Lang (Horg)

Plot Overview

Part 1 - An Unearthly Child

Two teachers (Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright) are concerned about a gifted student, Susan Foreman, whose grades have recently begun to slip. She is very bright and usually gets the highest marks. In some areas she knows more than her teachers, yet in others she lacks basic, everyday knowlege such as knowing how many shillings are in a pound.

Miss Wright went to Susan's home to talk to her grandfather, but found only a junkyard at the address. She asks Mr. Chesterton if he would please help her find out what's going on. Is this poor girl is living alone in a junkyard?

Together the two of them stake out the entrance to the junkyard. Later after Susan enters, they follow, but Susan is nowhere to be found. There is only an old police box and alot of junk.

They hear someone coming and hide briefly. An old man enters. They tell him they are Susan's teachers, and they are looking for her. He feigns complete ignorance, and strongly suggests that they leave.

But when they hear Susan's voice coming from within the police box, the two teachers, fearing some sort of treachery, force their way inside. To their astonishment there is an impossibly large, well lit, modern room contained within the volume of the police box.

In short order they learn that Susan does indeed live here with the her grandfather, the old man. The police box is called the TARDIS, a term Susan coined herself. It is capable of travelling through both time and space -- it can go anywhere at any time in history. Susan is not from Earth. She was born on a planet far, far away.

She pleads for her grandfather to release her teachers, but if he released them, they would talk. So he activates the TARDIS, and after a bit of a rough ride, the TARDIS leaves the junkyard, and ends up on a barren sand dune in prehistoric times.

Part 2 - The Cave of Skulls

Mr Chesterton has trouble believing that they've travelled through time. However once the group has gone outside, he is forced to reconsider. After all, seeing is believing.

While gathering samples, the Doctor is captured by a tribe of cave people. This particular tribe is having leadership troubles. It seems that knowing how to start a fire goes hand in hand with being the leader. Trouble is that the previous leader didn't pass on his firemaking knowledge before he died.

The tribe is fearful and primitive. The Doctor's life is always in danger due to the tribe's constant power squabbles. Certain members of the tribe believe that he can make fire, and they are willing to protect him so that he can teach them the secret of fire. Others are willing to kill him for the very same reason. Susan, Ian, and Barbara are captured as well, when they attempt to rescue the doctor. They are all held prisoner, sealed in the Cave of Skulls.

Part 3 - The Forest of Fear

An old woman from the tribe shows the captives another way out of the cave. She does not want fire brought to the tribe. They escape into the dark, nighttime forest, but are forced to take cover, when they hear someone following them. It is Za, a man from the tribe, and his woman, Hur. He would have them teach him the secret of fire.

While the Doctor and his companions look on from their hiding place in the brush, Za is attacked by a ferocious predator. He is able to fend off the beast, burying his axe in its head, but he is gravely wounded in the encounter.

Ian and the others come out of hiding in order to help Za, placing him on a makeshift stretcher, and tending his wounds as best they can. They head for the TARDIS, only to find that the rest of the tribe is already there, waiting for them.

Part 4 - The Firemaker

The Doctor and his companions are recaptured, and taken back to the Cave of Skulls, but not before the Doctor has a chance to play detective in front of the entire tribe. He is able to show that Kal killed the old woman who helped them escape. The tribe drives Kal out, banishing him.

Back in the cave, Ian and the others show Za how to make fire. Even so, Za still has no intention of letting them go free, so Susan and Ian formulate a ruse using flaming skulls to make the tribe's people believe they are dead.

The ruse works. They sneak out of the cave unnoticed. Unnoticed that is, until one of the skulls falls over. Then the chase is on. The Doctor and the others barely make it back to the TARDIS in time. They dematerialize just as the tribe's people are approaching the police box.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• When the Doctor first looks back on the TARDIS on the prehistoric sand dune, he notices that the camouflage feature is stuck in the guise of a police box. It should have changed, but it didn't. He finds this "disturbing".
• The Doctor has trouble navigating the TARDIS properly.
• When the group has escaped from the tribesmen, the Doctor tells Ian that he can't take them home. He doesn't have the proper calibration data.

Characters

• We meet the Doctor's "first" three companions: Susan, Barbara, and Ian.
• By his own admission the Doctor is not a doctor of medicine.
• Susan and her grandfather, the Doctor, are cut off from their own planet without friends or protection.
• Susan was 15 years old (or claimed to be) in this episode.

Trivia

The Show

• Susan's school was the Coal Hill School.
• Susan was listening to John Smith and the Common Men when Mr. Chesterton and Miss Wright pop in.
• Susan claimed her address was 76 Totter's Lane (the address of the scrapyard).

Behind the Scenes

• Originally, Susan and the Doctor were not relatives. Apparently one of the writers for the show was not comfortable with the implications of a teenage girl traveling with an old man, and made the Doctor Susan's grandfather.

Quotes

• The Doctor to a doubtful Ian, "If you could touch the alien sand, and hear the cry of strange birds, and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?"
• The tribe has obviously been without fire for some time. One of the tribesmen says, "I remember how the meat and the fire joined together."

Reviews

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