Welcome to my first entry of Time Stream, my Doctor Who
Rewatch Project. I’ve wanted to do this for years and now’s the time, why not?
Starting from the first story, “An Unearthly Child” (1963), I will watch, in
order, every episode of the Classic series of Doctor Who. For those early
episodes which are still missing from the archives, I’ll use recons, telesnaps,
audios – basically whatever I can to get as full an experience of the story as
possible. Ambitious? Undoubtedly. Nerdy? Absolutely! I’m not the first one to
do this, and I can guarantee I won’t be the last. But in between entries here
dealing with fatherhood, family life and my other nerdy pursuits, I wanted to
let my Who fan flag fly proudly. I’m also differentiating them with the #Time Stream
tag so those of you out there (I’m imagining there are readers here!) without
an interest in Doctor Who will know that nerdiness is running rampant. With
those preliminaries out of the way, it’s time to start this ride…
For several years, and by several I mean decades, I watch
the first episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child on November 23.
Occasionally I may need to go the day before, or stay up till all hours, but
every year on its anniversary, I re-watch one of the finest episodes of
television ever crafted. Last night, I watched it again, but this time, I
watched all four parts of what is sometimes called “100,000 BC” or “The Tribe
of Gum”. “Child” makes up a quarter of the
first story as a whole, but it is so mind-bogglingly different from the three
episodes that follow that they really should be considered two separate
stories, “An Unearthly Child” and “The Cavemen One that Came After.” This was
the first time in simply ages that I watched all four parts, and while a little
creaky, the three parts set in the Stone Age hold up pretty damn well.
I realize that these entries could become, very easily, a love
letter to the program, but I’m under no illusions as to where the seams are
showing. There are stories that I love,
and ones I… like less. But “Child” is one I unabashedly LOVE. The theme tune,
instantly recognizable today, hints at the strangeness and mystery to follow. The
story introduces the four major characters, and then the TARDIS, one of the
most brilliantly simple concepts in TV, and indeed in fiction. Our first look
at the Doctor, in all his tetchiness and irascibility, immediately defines the
character. William Hartnell may have mellowed during his run, but in his first
scene he is, decidedly, “The Doctor”. All this in under 25 minutes, and all
this on the most shoestring of budgets.
And the three episodes that follow, do indeed show the
limitations of an early 60’s television budget. To be fair, I don’t think that
cavemen are an inherently dynamic story idea, but showing them huddled in a
cave for the majority of the next three episodes does them no favors. What
makes Doctor Who work for me, and this is a point I’m sure to come back to in
future entries, is that the ideas are there. They are sometimes let down by
poor execution, but the stories themselves usually have that kernel of “Oh, I
see what they were trying to do!” The direction of all four episodes by Waris
Hussein is quite good, and with the possible exception of some hysterics from
the two female leads that seemed to come and go rather conveniently, the acting
is top notch, even with lines of the “Make Fire!” caliber.
There is no better start to this re-watch than “An Unearthly
Child”. It is difficult to watch it while trying to separate it from the 50+ years
that followed. I think that knowing about everything which was to come for the
Doctor makes this first story, cavemen and all even more enjoyable. Launched without
fanfare on a cold November night, this story, “An Unearthly Child” had all the
right pieces in all of the right places to start an icon on its way. Who could
ask for a better first episode than that?
No comments:
Post a Comment