Two schoolteachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, become concerned by the unusual behavior of their fifteen-year-old student, Susan Foreman. When they follow her home, they meet her mysterious grandfather, the Doctor, and find themselves unwilling passengers on his time ship, the TARDIS.
Starring: William Hartnell as The Doctor, William Russell as Ian Chesterton, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright and Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman.
In 1963, BBC brought us for the first time what would be the longest science fiction series ever. Named just
Doctor Who, the show follows an alien in a form of an old man, named just "The Doctor" and his granddaughter, Susan Foreman. Both who came from the planet "Gallifrey" from a very distant future in their spaceship named the TARDIS(Time and Relative Dimension in Space), which could travel in both time and space, as the name already says.
What I need to talk about first is the fantastic acting of William Hartnell as our first Doctor. While we are familiar with such guys as David Tennant, Tom Baker or Matt Smith playing comic versions of the character, Hartnell sure brought probably one of the best performances for the Doctor. Hartnell was maybe not a happy or enthusiastic Doctor as Baker was, or crazy and the young style that Smith is, but he sure had his moments of fun and laughs.
On "An Unearthly Child" we are seeing the Doctor for the first time, he is not somebody who likes humans as his companions yet, or somebody who is always making fun while on danger. Instead, he is a dark and sinister version of the Doctor, different from every other incarnation we have seen.
When Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, two schoolteachers of Susan Foreman, are
suspicious of how she reacts when asked to take private lessons, they go after an address Susan gave to Barbara, but instead they find an abandoned junkyard. While there, we get our first look ever at the TARDIS, parked right in the corner of that place, with the two characters not aware of anything.
While they were both looking for Susan, an old man suddenly appears and the two young schoolteachers start to argue with him. Ian and Barbara suspects that the old man may be hidding something from them, while he asks both to leave the place and says that he knows nothing about a girl who should be there. Susan eventually hears that discussion and asks if it is her "grandpa" who is out there. Barbara and Ian hear her voice coming from the inside of the blue police box and when they try to get in, with the old man trying to stop them, they accidentally get into the TARDIS and everything begins.
With William Hartnell having a more dark and secretive style of acting, William Russell plays a character that likes to challenge and argue with our beloved Doctor played by Hartnell. For most surprising as it may seem, William Russell's character takes the leadership of the group when they land on the Prehistory and face cavemen.
The character Ian Chesterton confronts The Doctor the whole time, blaming him for where they are, and of course, we see on his acting how good he shows the surprise of being traveled back in time. Both him and Barbara find themselves travelling back in time for the first time in their lives. This of course won't bring only happiness or surprise for them. When they first arrive at the place and get out of the TARDIS, they are both still mad at The Doctor, and our Doctor of course brought them into a time travel machine so they couldn't reveal such a secret as the TARDIS capacity.
Now that they've all landed in such a timeline, The Doctor decides to explore the place. Ian and Barbara are fascinated with the place, not believing in their own eyes and with Susan trying to convince them to go and see
the place. But they have no idea that dangerous cavemen are expecting them. The Doctor keeps exploring the place but then finds himself captured by the cavemen.
For such a time as the 60's, the people responsible for creating the scenario for the series did a great job. The place has a "ghost town" feeling, and it's also worth commenting that the way they used the camera to show the characters reactions to what happens, and to also show us the place, is just an impressive work for it's time.
Now, it's fantastic to see the way the Doctor of William Hartnell interacts with characters from different timelines or planets. With the cavemen, Hartnell brings such a way to convince them to let him free by teaching how to make fire to them, while that, The Doctor also likes to study these people in a very peculiar way. He asks questions for them, trying to know how their situation is, and how he can help them, but at the same time, how to help himself with this, so he learns about the whole fire situation, and that whoever knows how to make fire is supposed to be the leader of their group.
Russell may play the kind of character that likes to challenge The Doctor, but Jacqueline Hill plays a woman that has to follow whatever the Doctor says but at the same time gets conflicted to follow Ian and to help Susan with her own conflicts. Her character is not the type of a strong character, or the one who follows everything one of the male character says, but instead she is the one who is more scared with everything that is happening, and also has to keep the emotional order in this group. Hill plays a smooth character, not bringing a great satisfaction for the viewers as The Doctor does, but she helps to build the series very drama well.
At some point the group is captured for the first time by the cavemen and we get to see the true position of each one on the group, Ian takes the leadership while confronting The Doctor, who as the one who brought them there and also as the older in the group, who prefers to lead them. Barbara as I said before, is the most scared on the group, with Ian trying to always comfort her. Susan is also scared, but not as Barbara, as we see that she is already used to this kind of danger.
After escaping the cave where they were being hold as prisoners, the group find themselves running away from a caveman and a cavewoman, eventually the man is hurt by the animal and we see the group trying to convince the cavewoman that they're good people by trying to help the man. We see by this interaction of the group with the woman how well the series in it's beginning dealt with the interactions between human beings from different timelines. We can see that the script, was well written, and the episodes were well done, in such a time like the 60's.
Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman is probably the weakest part at these episodes, while she plays a fifteen-year-old girl, at the same time she doesn't bring the same charisma that both William Hartnell and William Russell does. Foreman plays a character that is always desperate, looking for comfort in every
character that is on the group, from her grandfather to Barbara, it may be a good idea having her as a scared teenager, but comes to us that it may be better if she as a Gallifrey kid, could be more courageous and strong.
Even though we have a brilliant acting from William Hartnell, which brings us a more dark and serious interpretation of The Doctor, or an interesting acting from William Russell who shows us a character that is up to confront our main character, lead the group and be courageous in such an adventure as this, the weak part of the show first arc comes from Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford, whose both has an already expected reaction to each event that may happen in the episode, not to forget what I said before, that Ann Ford should bring a charisma like Hartnell does, and also to tell the truth, her acting is not so impressive.
With all that in mind,
Doctor Who: "An Unearthly Child" is worth a watch, is an amazing look at how the Doctor was before meeting so much faces in his future, or getting himself at so much confusion. Also is good to see a Doctor that is more close to the human beings.