An Unearthly Child

Warning: All reviews contain some spoilers

Everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end, or so great Greek minds tell me. The Doctor's auspicious beginning starts in what appears to be a warehouse of junk. Susan is a child prodigy who excels at science, 'corrects' mistakes in her history book, and acts a bit out of sorts. Ian and Barbara, her teachers, in meddling naivety decide to poke into her business and speak with her grandfather. They follow her to the warehouse and ultimately follow her and her irascible grandfather into a police box, only to be whisked away to 10,000 BC. Seems The Doctor and his daughter are time travelers and now Ian and Barbara have unwittingly cast their lot with the curmudgeon.

The first episode was decent. It had my attention and reminded me a of the old Twilight Zone episodes in its pace and content. The difference being that Rod Serling would have Ian and Barbara meet some ironic fate, like stop themselves from being born or travel in the future to see their own deaths, or end as infants from some time glitch, all with a glib narration between puffs on his Winston's.

I really enjoyed the Doctor as a character. He's a bit of an anti hero before anti-heroes became popular. A cranky old bastard who snips at Ian, mumbles to himself, and doesn't suffer ignorance even when it comes to the mysteries of time travel. He almost bashes a wounded man with a stone to save his own hide (though he denies it) and is altogether uncooperative. He reminds me a bit of Dr. Smith from Lost in Space - though perhaps not as comic. Now that I think of it, Lost in Space would end with a cliff hanger too, perhaps it owes more to the Doctor than is first evident...

In the other three episodes the story dragged a bit. I suppose if you are starting a new series about time travel on a tight budget, take them to the stone age, give the actors some loin clothes and paint some Styrofoam to look like rocks.

One glaring thing I noticed about the 'cave-men' is how well spoken they were. These low-brows may not be able to make fire, but hell if they can't wax poetic about what they lack. Maybe its my biased ears hearing a proper English accent, but I felt like I was watching a Shakespearean play... "Forsooth, Ugluk! Dashed be the hopes of a hundred man's prayers! Without fire we do not eat, without meat we shall all perish. Woe be the life of a cave man!" [Ogog exits] I'm paraphrasing... but not much.

For a first foray it's not a bad introduction. We establish what parts each will play. Ian Chesterton gets to be the dashing hero, Barbara the emotional one, and Susan flips-flops as the liaison between the Doctor and his stowaways at some points, and the helpless damsel in distress at other times.

I'm surprised at how much of my current Who knowledge was brought out right in the first arc. We have our police box, we've established that the Doctor is an alien, and we know his time machine is called a TARDIS (Time and relative dimension in space). No hot jungle-girl and no scarf, but I suppose I have a few Doctors to wait out before we get to that.

The format reminds me of the old Flash Gordon serials, which I suppose is what the creators were shooting for. Each week our heroes will be stuck in some new situation and loyal viewers must tune in next week to see what implausible confabulation causes them to escape eminent destruction. Snarky as I sound, I'm looking forward to it.