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 "Who
is he? Doctor who?" - Ian Chesterton
The most important task for
the first episode of a television series is to introduce
the premise and the characters in a way that makes it
clear to the audience what the show is about and leaves
them wanting to come back the next week. At that, "An Unearthly Child (100,000
B.C)" (more
commonly, but apparently incorrectly, known by the title
of its first part, "An Unearthly Child") is
a success: by the time it's over, we know that the series
will center around the adventures of the alien time
traveler known as the Doctor, his granddaughter Susan,
and their two unwilling human companions Ian Chesterton
and Barbara Wright, and they're all interesting enough
that we want to see more of them.
The Doctor
as portrayed in "An
Unearthly Child (100,000 B.C)" is not a particularly likeable or pleasant
individual most of the time, more concerned with himself
than with Ian and Barbara or the cavemen. He's
willing to promise either fire or the lack thereof in
order to bargain for his freedom, seemingly indifferent
to how his decision might affect the tribe. Such a reaction
is understandable coming from his frightened companions
(who also seem willing to play both sides), and of course
this is not Star
Trek and there
is no Prime Directive, but one might expect the Doctor
to have a little more consideration for the consequences
of his actions. At one point it almost seems that
he's about to kill or at least further incapacitate
the wounded Za with a sharp rock rather than allow the
others' concern for him to delay their escape. (When
challenged by Ian, he claims that he had picked up the
rock only so that Za could draw a map back to the TARDIS
for them, but William Hartnell plays the scene so that
we're not sure whether to believe him.) Still, he has
his redeeming moments. By warning the tribe that he'll
never give them fire if Ian is killed, he acknowledges
that he's responsible for Ian's and Barbara's well-being
now that he's brought them along on his travels, and
his incitement of the tribe against Kal seems borne
out of genuine dislike of his brutal tendencies.
Fortunately, Ian, Barbara, and Susan make for more
accessible protagonists, and the conflict between the
Doctor's selfishness and their more compassionate approach
is refreshing for those of us who might find this early
version of the Doctor a little hard to swallow. Ian
and Barbara certainly do not want to be here, and Susan
would prefer to have stayed in 1963 as well, but they
can't bring themselves to just walk away when they find
Za wounded by a confrontation with a wild animal. This
humanitarian tendency is particularly strong in Barbara,
who rightly takes offense when Ian, despite his willingness
to help, makes a wisecrack that seems to compare Za
to a stray animal. The only area where the script goes
wrong with the companions is in having Barbara get so
hysterical when they're out in the woods. Such a reaction
might be understandable under the circumstances, but
the fact that the equally inexperienced Ian is so much
more composed makes it seem a bit dated and sexist.
The more noticeable shortcoming of "An Unearthly Child (100,000
B.C)" is
its handling of the cavemen and their situation. To
put it simply, Doctor
Who can, and
would, do a lot better than this when it comes to telling
a strong self-contained story. One might argue that
these cavemen represent the story of a society in transition,
and the character of the old woman who thinks fire will
destroy the tribe adds a little complexity to the situation,
as she gives a human face to the fear that inevitably
accompanies technological progress. But aside from her
role, the conflicts are mostly driven by a simple battle
for power between Za and Kal: these cavemen do not possess
enough depth or energy for the audience to get very
invested in their situation, and there's no sense of
potential human progress to accompany the advance in
technology. (To illustrate my point, suppose that, instead
of a tribe in which no one knows how to make fire, we'd
been given one in which a number of different members,
and not just the leader, had learned how to make fire
and thus posed a challenge to the tribe's system of
one-man rule. Wouldn't that have been more interesting
and relevant, and more engaging on a human level?)
Moreover, it isn't clear to me that Za or anyone
else actually learns how to make fire without the help
of the TARDIS crew. I'd say it's fairly likely that,
before long, these people would be stuck right back
where they were at the beginning of the story. The protagonists
do not really effect any change for better or worse
here (aside from maybe saving Za's life and exposing
Kal's brutality, but others would probably soon fill
both their places), and the script wraps things up by
having them simply escape and go back to the TARDIS.
The result is that the story doesn't really go anywhere,
and the main characters' role amounts to a brief disruption
in what seems to be an essentially static situation.
That said, there are no obvious plot holes, the
story moves along at a reasonable pace, and it does
at least provide an effective catalyst for some interesting
interaction between the TARDIS crew. Although "An Unearthly Child (100,000
B.C)" does
not represent the best that Doctor Who has to offer, it's an adequate introduction
that at least occasionally shows hints of the imaginative
and clever storytelling that we would eventually come
to expect from the series.
Other notes:
- The question of whether
or not the Doctor is really Susan's "grandfather"
is one that, as far as I know, has never been completely
resolved. Obviously, this will be something to watch
for in future Hartnell episodes. My impression, though
I can't swear to this, is that this was not part of
the original concept for Susan's character; rather,
the producers were worried that some might read unsavory
implications into the idea of a 15-year-old girl and
an old man traveling together and thought this would
eliminate any such concerns.
- For some reason,
the idea that Susan invented the term TARDIS doesn't
seem quite right. I can't place a specific example,
but I'm pretty sure that other Time Lord characters
will use the term later in the series. I suppose one
could rationalize it by saying that she came up with
the term before she and the Doctor left Gallifrey and
that it was then adopted by the others. (Of course,
the mythos surrounding Gallifrey and the Doctor's departure
had not yet been developed, so it's not surprising that
there might be some incongruities.)
- Even
in the very first episode, Doctor Who doesn't seem much like a kids' educational
show. I realize that television was probably different
in Britain in 1963, but I doubt that many kids' shows
would feature a lead character as enigmatic and stubborn
as the Doctor, especially in this early incarnation.
Rating:
» Review
by The Meddling
Monk,
Copyright 2005.
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