An Unearthly Child

Dear Gary,

I wish I could talk to you about this first, this original, this premier story.  I wish I could tell you about the evolution of my thinking; how I first came to this story late in my Doctor Who knowledge, after repeated viewings of the Tom Baker years, and I only deemed this worthy for historical perspective.  I found the adventure itself to be boring and plodding, and I usually ended up sleeping through most of it.  However I now find this story fascinating.  It sets out basic conflicts that resound throughout the Doctor’s timeline.  Science vs Superstition.  Progress vs Tradition.  Brains vs Braun. Yet as most things to do with Doctor Who, none of this is simply Black vs White. It is infinitely more complex than that; it is all muddled up in the Doctor’s time swirl and spit back out again in shining shards of an interwoven tapestry, much like our own human history.

But the historical perspective is still important and compelling. After all, this is where it all begins.

An Unearthly Child. The title speaks of Susan, but Susan is only good as exposition. This first episode of this first story revolves around Susan because she brings all our elements together. Barbara and Ian, Susan’s teachers. The Doctor, Susan’s grandfather. The TARDIS, Susan’s home and transport. The three elements that give Susan meaning and life and importance.  All here in this first episode, and beyond she is just window dressing.

Susan brings the Doctor to Earth, to England, in the 20^th Century (1963 to be exact).  Five months they have been there as we learn. Five months Susan has attended the Coal Hill School. Five months she has studied under Barbara and Ian and peaked their interest.  She is a mystery to them, and it is a mystery that draws us in to the Doctor’s world. But it remains a mystery to us, the Doctor and Susan and the TARDIS, in this first story.  All we know is that they are exiles from another world, another time.  Wanderers. Adventurers. Nothing more.  There is time ahead to flesh out their story. For now this is all we know. (In the original version of the pilot episode it is said that they are from the 49^th century, but this is scratched for ‘another time,’ and rightly so.)

Just as a side note here, Gary, on time. Of course centuries and dates and time measurement as we know it is all Earth-centric.  The Doctor and Susan, being from another time, another place, wouldn’t measure time in Earth years; yet the Doctor in his life to come will often do just that.  I can only assume it is for the benefit of his human companions.

Now let’s turn to the TARDIS.  Susan claims in this first episode to have named the TARDIS based on the initials—Time And Relative Dimension In Space.  Now there can only be three explanations for such a startling claim. 

1. Susan is lying, perhaps to impress her teachers Barbara and Ian, or perhaps she is a compulsive liar.
2.  Susan has come to believe that she really did name the TARDIS. We don’t know how old she is (15-17 in earth years, but--as we come to learn--for a Time Lord, who knows how old she really is) and we don’t know how old she was when she first left her home planet.  Perhaps during her travels with her grandfather she just naturally came to believe that she did indeed name the TARDIS, and perhaps her grandfather indulged her in this belief.
3. Susan really did coin the name, but this would have to have been back on Gallifrey (which we do not yet know is her home planet) and it came into general use. 

Personally I am going with number two.  Which, I wonder, would you go with?

“It’s alive!” Dr Frankenstein of his monster; Ian of the TARDIS. It’s alive. The TARDIS. Later, Susan warns Ian not to touch the TARDIS console-"it’s live," she says.  Is the TARDIS a living presence? Yet another mystery. We do learn of the TARDIS that it is equipped with a yearometer (which, surprise, isn’t working properly) and a scanner screen, and it can check for radiation levels on a planet. It is in this first story, too, that the TARDIS breaks such that it remains in the shape of a police box.  “Why hasn’t it changed?” wonders The Doctor when they first arrive at their new destination. It is the chameleon circuit, as we later learn, that has broken down. But for now all we know is that the TARDIS should have changed appearance upon arrival in a different place but has not.  It is the iconic blue box for now and for always (let’s hope). The TARDIS can be unreliable we learn (“I do wish this would stop letting me down”).  Does it have a mind of its own?

Why, I used to wonder, did the Doctor decide to kidnap Barbara and Ian? There are two versions.  In the original pilot that did not air, the Doctor is worried that the two have learned too much and pose a danger to history. But the final version puts a human spin on it—the Doctor simply wants to keep his granddaughter with him.  Susan threatens to leave him behind in order to stay on Earth. If he lets Barbara and Ian leave he must lose his granddaughter. So he takes off to parts unknown with Barbara and Ian as unwilling passengers. Thank you, Susan.

The Doctor. THE Doctor.  When does he become known as THE Doctor? Susan apparently has listed her grandfather as a doctor on her enrollment form for the Coal Hill School.  She also has listed her name as Susan Forman, which we see immediately is taken from the name on the junkyard where the TARDIS has parked itself.  Ian and Barbara therefore know Susan’s grandfather as Dr. Foreman. However, early on Ian cottons to the fact that Foreman isn’t really his name. "That’s not his name—Dr. Who?" They just naturally fall into calling him Doctor, dropping the fictitious surname. The Doctor himself remarks at Ian calling him Dr. Foreman and ponders, “Eh? Dr. Who?” The question is, was he the Doctor before this? Or is this the origination of that appellation? My guess is that he was the Doctor previous, and that is why Susan lists him as a doctor on her enrollment form, although, as the Doctor points out himself, he is not a doctor of medicine.

But enough about the historical perspective.  Let’s get to the story, to the conflicts, to Za vs Kal, to Ian vs the Doctor, to fire vs . . . the old woman. It all boils down to a struggle for leadership, for power.  Za, the heir apparent vs Kal the newcomer, the interloper. Ian the young and strong vs the Doctor—the experienced brain.  And it all starts  . . . with Barbara. As Ian and Barbara stumble into the TARDIS, Ian the science teacher cannot accept the superior reality of the Doctor’s science.  It is Barbara the history teacher who first comes to accept this reality—through faith.  While Ian maintains it all is an illusion, a trick, Barbara tells Ian she just can’t help it—she believes them.  It is the perfect marriage of faith and reason, whereas the Doctor and Ian play out their own version of a scientific civil war.

It’s amusing to see the Doctor deflect every question Ian poses.  He’s not worthy of answers; he wouldn’t understand.  It’s not the why that matters but what is going to happen—ah . . . that is Doctor Who in a nutshell.  Actions not only speak louder than questions—they trample the questions under foot.

And then there is fire. The Doctor and his merry band come down from the sky to this primitive tribe that is in search of fire. Fire—not the symbol of progress but the symbol of power.  The old woman sees it.  Fire will bring death she claims. It is not the progress that fire brings but the power struggle between Kal and Za that will bring death. Both concede that the one who can bring fire to the tribe will be leader. Za spends all day waiting for Orb to send down fire to his, Za’s, hands.  Kal spends his days in the practical pursuit of game for the tribe to eat and skins for them to wear. It is not clear how Kal expects to bring fire to the tribe, until he happens to see the Doctor strike a match.  Now Kal looks to the magic of the stranger vs the magic of Orb, both Kal and Za relying on the realm of superstition for their power. The Doctor, though, has not come to shed light and reason to these primitives. He is simply trying to escape. The Eternal Struggles, if they struggle, struggle outside of Man. Man is simply struggling for survival and for his own self interest, ever the selfish gene.

Or is it? Selfish I mean.  For just when Barbara is well on her way to the safety of the TARDIS she stops to help the injured Za.  Her compassion taking over from her reason. Ian and Susan, too, put the welfare of Za over their own interests.  The Doctor, only, sulks. “He’s always like this if he doesn’t get his own way,” offers Susan. Yes, the Doctor, William Hartnell's Doctor, looks to his own self interest. This is most shockingly evident when he picks up and casts the first stone, driving Kal out of the tribe.  He sides with mob rule, brute force. He not only sides with it—he leads it. It is Ian, the young and strong, who provides the intelligence behind this seemingly brutal act of the Doctors when he advises Za that “Kal is not stronger than the whole tribe.” It is a lesson Ian reinforces later with the fire.  Everyone in the tribe should know how to make fire, he tells Za, thus making the fire maker the least important.  The good of the whole is more important than the individual.

And so our group of travelers, the Doctor and his granddaughter and the two kidnapped teachers, struggle through this first adventure of theirs.  Ian and Barbara accusing the Doctor of treating everybody and everything as something less important than himself, and the Doctor countering that the two of them consider everything they do as reasonable and everything he does as inhuman.  Of course he isn’t human and his actions and his attitudes speak to that. The Doctor’s arrogance is a quality that comes through in every incarnation, but this Doctor, William Hartnell’s Doctor, has a detached arrogance born of supreme confidence and not an arrogance of cruelty and disdain.  This vagabond adventurer is more richly layered than the self righteous Crusader of Good that the Doctor has become.

In the end, Gary, Ian concedes that the Doctor is the leader. In their struggle to escape the group has been forced to work together. They are not yet a happy little group of companions, but it is only the beginning. I look forward to observing how they grow and learn from each other.

And so I send this out into the Doctor's time swirl, Gary, as ever awaiting any little echo of a reply.