Before we begin, don’t ask me how many times I’ve watched this episode, home skillet lost count about three years ago.
When I was a young whatever-I-was, I watched An Unearthly Child for the first time, back in the good old days when everything was still on Vimeo and Daily Motion. I was probably about 12ish. Ish. I discovered that there was more to Doctor Who that the spikey haired David Tennant. When I start getting into something, I go hard. I must know everything. And what-ho! Black and white things?! 35+ Years of content? Hot diggity dog!
I’d like to take this moment to thank my parental units for introducing me to Vincent Price, The Munsters, Hammer Horror, and The Honeymooners or we may not be here today. Because Tina loves themselves black and white stuff.
But enough about the past! Let’s move onto…the past. Shoot.
An Unearthly Child is something very special. The beginning of everything. Produced by the first woman, and of course youngest, producer at the BBC: Verity Lambert and directed by the only Indian director at the BBC: Warris Hussein. A new series. A new idea. Science Fiction!
Everything was riding on this. This would be the worlds first look at the BBC’s attempt at a science fiction series, at something new. I could go on and on about the technicals: the reshoot of the pilot episode, the budget and time constraints, Verity Lambert vs Old White British dudes. But I want to actually get down to the episode itself.
Let’s start with the opening title sequence! It is beyond nifty! It still is, I think, the coolest of the openings! The swoops and pulses of the white ghost like smoke across the black. The older, large clunk camera pointed down it’s own lens. It’s terribly haunting. Setting the right mood.
And of course the theme! Composed by Ron Granier, arranged by the genius Delia Derbyshire. Made in the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop (which is the sweetest name, I don’t know I love saying radiophonic) this theme is a amalgamation of electronic music, the “mod” like style of the 60s, and made of artificial sound. It sounds cool, okay? It sounds really cool. And I will jam out to it till the day I die. Carry me out to that lads, bury me to the pitches of Delia’s magnum opus.
Also the title is just a bit off centre. Enjoy never not noticing that again.
I love the opening of this episode. It sets the mood. Foggy London, dark and light in conflict as a police man walks his beat and quite frankly does a terrible job of it. We lose him in the fog, while the infamous and often absent “middle eight” plays. We can barely make out the words I.M. Foreman 76 Totters Lane, but it’s all forgotten as the doors creak open and the camera takes us inside to a pile of rubbish and forgotten things. A junkyard.
That’s right, a 54 year old iconic science fiction show, literally started in the trash. Why are we surprised?
The camera wobbles and pulls back to reveal the centrepiece, the Chekhov’s Gun–or more like TARDIS. The box is put on focus, the episode credits start up as we hold on what was a normal 20th century object.
Mr Coburn’s name.
The POLICE CALL BOX PULL TO OPEN fades into
BRRRRING BRRRING SCHOOL’S OUT COAL HILL SCHOOL GO HOME.
Of course. One wonders what children are doing in school on a Saturday. Oh yeah. November the 23rd, 1963 is the day in and out of canon. That’s a Saturday. Ooooweeeooo.
But glaring odd plot points aside we get the first, slightly blurry images of the lovely and talented and beautiful Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright. She has the first proper line of the program: “Wait in here, please, Susan, I won’t be long.”
By this point she’d already won my heart.
Random Brits lads are lads. Ladies are ladies. And Barbara Wright comes down the hall to the next classroom. The one of Ian Chesterton.
He won the other part of my heart the moment he smiled.
But enough of me gushing.
Let’s talk about Barbara and Ian. From the very first seconds they’re on screen we see their wonderful dynamic clearly. Barbara knocks, doesn’t bother to wait for him to say “come in” before she just does. And he doesn’t seem too surprised.
Ian: Not gone home yet?
Barbara: Obviously not.
Ian: Ask a silly question.
That, my dears, is proper banter. Friendship in just a few lines. We don’t need their entire backstories laid before us. No 30 minutes of how they met, or their origin story.
Just two teachers who must be close because of the way he teases her, and how she can come to him with all sorts and he will offer his help. How close they stand, and the lightness of their tones shows a deep friendship. Best friends, even. A comfortable exchange. Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright are clearly work friends, close enough that Ian stands rather close to Barbara as if it was natural.
How refreshing it is. Friendship. Simple and sweet.
Let’s go deeper into these two wonderful teachers.
Starting with Barbara. She’s a history teacher rocking a bouffant, pencil skirt and the most amazing resting -done- face the universe has ever seen. She’s gorgeous–striking even. She’s a teacher through and through; stern faced, ice hearted, no-nonsense. The woman deals with teenagers after all. Not to mention she’s a history teacher. History, a subject usually dominated with crusty old men and here she is. An expert who loves her craft.
There is a kindness to Barbara, a passion. We see this kindness just in the fact that her curiosity about Susan is wrapped up in worry. Yes, the child is odd and doesn’t seem to know a bus from a button–but why even worry about a singular student? She bothers. Because that’s just who she is. Chip away at the Ice Queen exterior and you’ll find her warm and loving. As so lovingly put in An Unearthly Child‘s Target novelization, this Ian Chesterton knows well–and he is the only one who dares to tease her.
Barbara Wright is not only a standard strong independent woman. To boil her down to this kind of basic trope would be doing her a disservice. Gentle, but with strong determination and courage. She’s a maternal figure, but isn’t pushed into a strictly motherly role.
She’s just a wonderful character, the type of character I think modern Who needs.
Why? Well besides her biting replies and sarcasm, her warmth and enthusiasm for the things she loves—shown through her giving the book on the French Revolution to Susan–we see her as a proud woman. We see her as stubborn, too, and stern.
Flawed, and well-rounded.
I’ll get to that in a little bit. Onto the dork himself; Ian Chesterton.
Ian is often mistaken as just the typical 60s man. Or just the action hero there to make the mums swoon and the dads to see themselves in since the Doc doesn’t often throw his own punches. But Ian is so much deeper than that.
In his first appearance, we already know he’s a tease and friend to Barbara. Telling her he asked a silly question when he remarked “Not gone home yet?” He’s clearly handsome and charming and easy to talk to. And doesn’t talk down to Barbara. Sure while she’s expressing her concerns, he tries to lighten the mood by joking, but shows clearly he is taking her seriously.
Not to mention he offers to go along with her without her even having to ask. Friendship at the finest. Ian has a much more easier time getting along with his students because of his easy going nature, as he later says “I take things as they come.” (Which he will later contradict once he’s in the TARDIS.) Unlike Barbara, he’s up on things that his students are into, and tries to make them more at ease with his jokes.
Clearly easy to get along with and quick to smile, Ian has charm. Something makes you warm up to him, like you could tell him anything. He’s not just a goofball. He has his own passions and drives. The drive to fight the world he’s in, to make the best out of what can seem like the worst. To try and offer solutions as he is the science man.
He’s also a good man, clearly. Not one with other motives and not one who has to use his manliness to get his way. There is a deep respectfulness in Ian that you must earn and Barbara certainly has.
But both of them are flawed–as people. Ian’s got his whole hero complex. He’s quick to take charge to easy everyone else’s burdens, to rush into danger if it means keeping somebody else safe to the point of self destruction.
Barbara has a distinct sense of justice, of what should be right and her stubbornness can stop her from seeing another’s point of view at first. Pride also getting in her way.
Ian’s strong because he feels he has to be for the people around him. Barbara is cold because she feels like she needs to protect herself from those who wish to undermine her. None of these traits make them bad people. It makes them human. To make someone perfect, to make the simplified to silly means is to waste a character. I could boil Ian down to bravery and smarts. I could make Barbara just strong and independent. But that would strip away Ian’s fears and Barbara’s emotions. It would take away their personalities. Love their flaws, it’s what makes them so good.
Ian and Barbara have their lovely banter complete with smiles and chuckles and Ian’s patented light-hearted nature about an odd girl in their classes.
One Susan Foreman. Barbara lets it be known that the-usually-smart-but-strange-girl’s class and homework seems to be on the decline, and that she went to her address, 76 Totters Lane, to talk to the girl’s guardian–her grandfather.
I must point out that this whole thing of Barbara hoping to tell “this doctor,” lower case d, as Ian assumes at this point, to take interest in the girl as her thinking that there may be some abuse going on at home. Rather it makes more sense that Barbara thinks that this Doctor Foreman doesn’t give a toss about his granddaughters future or education. While an argument can be made for later on when they hear Susan’s voice from a certain box, then their worst fears might be slowly forming.
But it seems nothing is at the end of the lane. Nothing but a junkyard.
After a short discussion, one of which we can assume that is part of many ‘Ian and Barbara Afternoon Chats’ we never got to see, we get another lovely and important exchange.
Ian: -leaning in and smiling- Well we’ll have to find out for ourselves, won’t we?
Barbara: -smiling back- Thank you for the “we.”
And after a rather bad joke and a tried and tested Barbara Wright eye-roll, we meet the girl of discussion. Susan Foreman. Bopping along to a guitar riff that just oozes early 60s charm from her transistor radio. John Smith and the Common Men. And they’ve gone from 19 to 2!
Ian, being Ian, and more “with it,” explains to Barbara, showing that lovely personable side to him. Along with that charm.
Susan doesn’t strike one as odd. Perhaps a bit nervous, certainly bright since she claims she’ll have the book Barbara gives her done by the next day. And very eerily declines Ian’s offer for a ride home, claiming to love the English fog. Not to mention exclaiming how what we can assume is textbook isn’t right. Meaning it’s following-the-student-home-time for our two teachers.
Yes, let’s follow an underage girl home through the foggy streets of London in the dead of night. That won’t be suspicious. Perhaps it wasn’t so strange in the early 1960s. This was before the 1970s, you know, when everyone was a serial killer, so we stayed off the streets.
As we pull into Totter’s Lane, we see that policeman still isn’t doing his job. And we learn more about how out of place Susan is in the world of 1963. Which I think is important for her early characterization. She’s a caricature of the 60s. Playing on stereotypes and learning from social cues as if she’s never seen or experienced such things. Not knowing how the currency works, arguing with teachers about facts and experiments. As Ian put it, she couldn’t be a foreigner, but she’s never felt so….alien.
But she does get the fact that the U.K. would be switching to the decimal system soon. Spooky..ooooOoOooO. And HOLY CLOSE UPS CALM DOWN 60S.
After joking about teenagers meeting up for hook ups in junkyards. (Was that just a thing sixties? Was that a thing you just like…did?) The laughter stops when Barbara gets a bad feeling about this.
Ian drops his flashlight and dismally says he hasn’t got any matches…which if he did this whole serial would be about…..two episodes. But that’s not until next time. And all their searching pays off–if they were looking for a police call box.
Now imagine the oddity in that. In the 1960s these things were common place, speckled all about the city almost as common as the famous red phone booths. Something that should be among the every day hustle and bustle is sat in a junkyard of all places? And apparently vibrations equals alive. And creepy.
The fog plus what looks like broken Disney animatronics seems to finally get to Barbara as she grips Ian’s coat, asking if they can just find a policemen and be done with it. His hand covers hers to offer support when…
ENTER THE LOVE OF MY LIFE.
MR WILLIAM HENRY HARTNELL.
But Babs and Ian are the worst at hide and seek so the Doctor and the companions-to-be finally meet, in less than friendly terms.
Now let’s talk about the Doctor. Okay I’ve done this a lot so I’ll be brief as there’s much more to talk about in episodes 2,3 and 4. But he is still his abrasive self here, but it’s all almost played as a battle of wits and patience here. The coy, chuckling, dismissive Doctor vs .the frustrated, worried, and rather suspicious teachers. He brushes them aside, both with his denials and literally turning his back on them. A girl? In my Police Box? It’s more likely than you think.
And the sass between the Doctor and Ian begins. And it’s fantastic. He’s taking the piss out of their concerns. Bluffing confidence like he always does. But they don’t know why he won’t even help.
The Doctor: Insulting..hmm.
Of course, Susan cocks this up by calling out to her grandfather and BEHOLD IT’S BIGGER ON THE INSIDE
We only hold on Barbara’s face for a moment. But that look of non-comprehension–not even confusion, just shock, says it all before Ian is shoved in too and we see the TARDIS set. Bad Ikea furniture. A fake wall. Circles, so many circles.
It’s beautiful. The design of the first TARDIS is so chrome and other worldly, that I have expect Barbara to say “I don’t think we’re in London anymore, Toto–Ian.” It looks like Nasa, Ray Bradbury and a hospital had the greatest orgy of design ideas.
Susan asks why Mr. Chesterton and Miss Wright are there while the Doctor very gently chides his granddaughter about her attachments to Earth and this century.
And then my second favourite exchange.
Barbara: …is…is this really where you live, Susan?
Susan: Yes?
The Doctor: -offended- And what’s wrong with it?
Like excuse you Barbara you don’t see me barging into your home and critiquing it.
Ian starts having an existential crisis. Unable to believe. Doubting Thomas who wants to understand. TELL HIM, OLD MAN.
…Who goes on ignoring him while Ian slowly but surely breaks down. The Doctor explains the TARDIS’s size through television and laughs over the fact that to him, he’s an idiot. And he’s still very hmph, oh whatever about them what to do now? No, it doesn’t go on wheels. Like he’s dealing with dumb little toddlers.
Time and Relative Dimension in Space was made by Susan. I suppose she won the “Name a Time Capsule” contest on Gallifrey. Because that’s what everyone else uses…
Sorry I keep harping on the “One is from the 60s it’s okay for him to be sexist” bull. Ahem and I quote.
“I tolerate this century, but I don’t enjoy it.”
Just. Leaving that there.
And here’s the lovely part, the very minimal information we are given by the Doctor about why Susan and him are there. Exiles? Cut off? What? Doctor Who?!!? GET IT. IT’S ALMOST LIKE HAVING MYSTERY IN THE SHOW AND NOT HAVING EXPLANATIONS FOR EVERYTHING IS PART OF THE FUN AND THE APPEAL OF THE PROGRAM. HENCE. DOCTOR W H O. WE DON’T KNOW. WE DON’T WANNA BE TOO SPECIFIC. SYDNEY NEWMAN DIDN’T WANT THAT.
Barbara tries to bring Susan to reason, as gentle as she can. While Ian tries to more authoritative approach, and a look from Susan that we don’t see tells him that she’s a hopeless case. As then they try to leave….
Only to be tossed round the set and into time and space. With some wicked camera effects.
Farewell, obvious still of London.
And farewell to you. I shall see you again, yes, I shall. As we talk about the rest of the serial aka the 100,000 B.C. part. Episodes 2, 3, and 4.
Until then…don’t antagonize old men in junkyards!
Tina Marie DeLucia