TV Club: Doctor Who, “An Unearthly Child”

It’s November 23, 1963. The future, for the next few years, is going to be more chaotic and world-expanding than most people can imagine, although some sense of that is surely dawning, as people watch news coverage of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in stunned disbelief; it just happened yesterday. (And over on Mad Men, Roger Sterling’s daughter’s wedding has just been ruined by this news.) Amid this flurry, Doctor Who began its marathon run through time and space, eventually becoming the longest-running science-fiction series in TV history.

Over the course of these columns, we’ll explore a wide range of the show’s history covering the first eight incarnations of the mysterious Time Lord. It’s a lot to take in, and if you need an overview of all this before we start, read the Primer I wrote last year and then meet us back here.

OK, everyone ready? We’re going to start, naturally enough, at the beginning. What we’re about to watch is a four-part serial, originally broadcast in 25-minute segments over the course of a month—the format that the show would follow for almost the entirety of its original run. It’s really two completely separate stories, with the first episode establishing the overall premise and introducing the four main characters and their timeship, the TARDIS, and the next three (often referred to separately under the title “100,000 B.C.”) constituting the travelers’ first proper adventure. Along with the next story, “The Daleks,” (which I’ll cover later on), pretty much everything that will define the series is established here. The first episode is, I think, brilliantly done; the next three together could be about a half-hour shorter but get the job done.

Originally published June 5, 2011 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.

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