And with only the second story, the Doctor meets the foes that will, in large part, be responsible for the show making it past a first season, perhaps even giving it the relevance it needed to twenty-five more seasons beyond that.
Even with the obvious shortcomings of age, The Daleks is far more entertaining than the previous three episodes, and in many ways a better introduction than the first episode, since we get a chance to learn more about the characters before they get shoved in a dark cave for 90 minutes. We also get to learn more about the TARDIS, though I'll bet that food synthesizer looked dated even at the time the episode was aired. In the next story, we'll even see it has a button for milk, which looks ridiculous, but at least we get more of a sense of the ship than the brief time we get in the previous tale.
It's interesting how quickly the educational aspect of the show gets tossed out. Sure, they devote some time to discussing radiation and its effects, part of the plot revolves around obtaining mercury for the TARDIS,... but once the Daleks and the Thals enter the picture, the story turns into standard science-fiction fare.
Which isn't to deride the final product, because it is effective. But the story itself has ties to many classic science-fiction concepts, H.G. Wells' The Time Machine being the most obvious. It's the Daleks, though, and their concept and design that make this story a standout.
Given the show's budget, and it's ambitions to be nothing more than a children's show, it's surprising that so much thought was put into the Daleks, as well as their city. The producers could have easily used generic robots or monsters, but instead we get these fairly complex creations that clearly took some time to design and construct. They took the time to decide how they moved about and handled things, and even built a city set that accommodated these actions. It's a nice touch that all the doorways are Dalek height, and all the buttons are easily pushed by the suction arms jutting from their casings. Yes, the show looks as cheap as it always did, but the little touches help, and show a concern for detail that goes deeper than similar shows.
Actually, compared to other shows from this season, the seven episodes that comprise The Daleks look more expensive. They even seemed to have been filmed and edited with more care than we're used to. Where other stories often feel like filmed stageplays, there's a little more editing in these episodes, particularly during suspenseful sequences.
Another thing the show benefits from is the longer running time. As usual, this could have been shortened by an episode or two. Four episodes of the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan trapped in the Dalek city gets tedious. But one thing this story, and others like it, does that the current series can't, is convey an epic feel to things. Over the course of two and a half hours, you get to know a lot of minor characters that would barely be acknowledged in a standard forty-five minute episode, and you get a real sense that these characters have been trapped in this situation for some time, and you don't know how they're going to get out of it. If they could just figure out a way to pad things that doesn't involve being captured and re-captured, I don't think the length of these older episodes would bother viewers as much.
As with the previous story, it's William Russell as Ian who feels more like the lead of the show, rather than Hartnell. The Doctor spends much of the first few episodes sleeping off radiation sickness. I don't have much of a problem with Hartnell, but I have to admit that there are times when I think he's just too old for the role. He may only be in his mid-fifties, but he looks and acts about seventy. I get that they were going for a grandfatherly type at this time, but it often results in a less than exciting lead character. It doesn't help that when the Doctor is pro-active, he's often doing something like faking damage to the TARDIS so he can convince everyone to travel to the Dalek city. By the end, though, we get some glimpses of the heroic Doctor we're used to.
GRADE: A
There's just something about this story that's always appealed to me. Even as a kid, reading the novelization, I enjoyed the adventure of it, especially traveling through the mountains to reach the Dalek city in the last three episodes.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
Barbara has a bit of a romance going on here with one of the Thals. It doesn't go anywhere, and I wonder if they slipped it in to imply that there's nothing romantic between her and Ian, tamping down any hints of hanky panky on the TARDIS. In later episodes, Ian and Barbara feel more like a couple, and if the new series is to be believed, that's how they end up after their travels.
The Daleks aren't the only aliens with a strong design concept. The Thals all wear similar vets, and leather pants that either have white circles on the legs, or holes cut out of them. It's hard to tell in black and white. It's aged about as well as you'd expect, but at least they look better than the Movellans from the Destiny of the Daleks.
We don't get to see much of the mutated lake creatures, but there's a nice shot of one that looks pretty interesting.
The Doctor's a bit of a prick in this one. He removes a vital component of the TARDIS just to go on an expedition, nearly trapping everyone on Skaro for the rest of their lives. Eventually, the writers will come up with simpler ways to keep the travelers where they've landed, usually involving simply helping someone. In the early days, though, it seems like there's always some reason why they can't leave.
The TARDIS requires mercury to function? Has this ever been brought up since?
NEXT: The Edge of Destruction
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
001 An Unearthly Child
As I watched this, for probably the third or fourth time in my life, I was surprised to see how different the first episode felt to me. Not only was the picture sharper, but the Doctor more aggressive, Susan more mysterious.
As the episode ended, and the next one began, I realized why - the DVD versions automatically starts with the un-aired pilot. It's worth watching if you get the opportunity. Like I said, the major changes are with Susan and the Doctor. The scenes with Ian and Barbara are almost identical to the final version, right down to expression and line delivery. If it weren't for Susan's presence, you'd think they'd simply re-used the same footage.
It's common knowledge these days that the BBC felt Susan was too alien, and demanded that she act more like a normal teenager, so that's what we get in the final version. I'm not sure it was a bad choice. I know Carole Ann Ford, the actress playing Susan, felt limited in her role, but I'm not sure where they would have gone with her original portrayal. If the early concept was to highlight educational lessons conveyed by Ian and Barbara, then having Susan know more than them wouldn't have worked. On the other hand, I'm not sure why an alien from another time would behave like a typical '60s teenager. The writers themselves don't seem to know, either, as she vacillates from being a genius to a scared little girl time and again.
A less noticeable change is with the Doctor. Gruff as he was in the early days, he's even more belligerent in the pilot, even wrestling with Ian over the TARDIS console at one point. Maybe they fight in the aired version, as well, but it must have been quick enough that I missed it.
Aside from those differences, though, we still have the same basic set-up we've known for years: two teachers follow a student to the junk yard she claims as her home, find an old man with a police box that's bigger on the inside than the outside, then find themselves taken through time to the dawn of time. Presumably, since it's never explicitly stated that they're in the past, or even still on earth.
The first episode is solid. It suffers from the low budget and reliance on single, long takes. It often feels like a filmed stage play, complete with missed cues and line flubs. That's going to be the norm for several years, though, so as frustrating as it is, it's what you get for a BBC show shot on videotape in the 1960s. I learned long ago that in order to enjoy older Who, you have to keep that in mind.
You also have to learn to deal with the slow pacing. The first episode passes by easily enough, though still slow by today's standards. Episodes two through four, however...
I like to say that the first Doctor Who story is essentially twenty minutes of introduction, followed by eighty minutes of cave people shouting at each other. I get why the creators went with the logical choice of going back to the stone age in a time travel show, and the stress of the situation does give the characters a reason to bond and rely on each other, but, boy, is this story rough going at times.
We get no explanation as to why the cave people speak English. I know that years later we learn the TARDIS translates everything for the travelers, but without that information here, we're asked to accept a group of stone age humans who go from lengthy soliloquies to moans and grunts within the same scene.
It's a story that could easily be trimmed by an episode of two, but that can be said about almost all early Who.
On the positive side, William Russell and Jacqueline Wright get Ian and Barbara right from the start. Their characters are pretty much set with this story, with little adjustment in future stories. Susan... well, I don't think her character ever quite worked, and those problems all start here. Without a firm decision as to whether she's an alien or a typical teenager, I'm not sure how Ford could have played her effectively.
As for Hartnell - he's almost never selected as anyone's favorite Doctor, but he's fine here. I recall that for most of his first two seasons, he gives a solid performance. It's that weak third season that probably contributes to the negative impression today's fans have of him, but he does a fine job here and in other early stories in which he's still invested in the show. His age is something of a deterrent, as it prevents him from getting too physical, and places him in the role of an eccentric uncle in the background rather than the star of the show that people are used to now, and that takes some getting used to.
GRADE: C+
Mainly due to episodes 2-4. Episode 1 by itself I'd probably give a B.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
What a dark story to unveil a new series with. Nearly 90 minutes of the leads trapped in a cave with bashed-in skulls of other unlucky captors, with an ever-present threat of death. This was for kids?
The Doctor smokes. And nearly kills a tribesman. He's got a ways to go before he settles into the Doctor we're used to. He reminds me a lot of the Doctor Smith characters on Lost in Space, who essentially started as a villain (an actual foreign saboteur in the earliest episodes) before evolving into a daffy uncle.
NEXT: The Daleks
As the episode ended, and the next one began, I realized why - the DVD versions automatically starts with the un-aired pilot. It's worth watching if you get the opportunity. Like I said, the major changes are with Susan and the Doctor. The scenes with Ian and Barbara are almost identical to the final version, right down to expression and line delivery. If it weren't for Susan's presence, you'd think they'd simply re-used the same footage.
It's common knowledge these days that the BBC felt Susan was too alien, and demanded that she act more like a normal teenager, so that's what we get in the final version. I'm not sure it was a bad choice. I know Carole Ann Ford, the actress playing Susan, felt limited in her role, but I'm not sure where they would have gone with her original portrayal. If the early concept was to highlight educational lessons conveyed by Ian and Barbara, then having Susan know more than them wouldn't have worked. On the other hand, I'm not sure why an alien from another time would behave like a typical '60s teenager. The writers themselves don't seem to know, either, as she vacillates from being a genius to a scared little girl time and again.
A less noticeable change is with the Doctor. Gruff as he was in the early days, he's even more belligerent in the pilot, even wrestling with Ian over the TARDIS console at one point. Maybe they fight in the aired version, as well, but it must have been quick enough that I missed it.
Aside from those differences, though, we still have the same basic set-up we've known for years: two teachers follow a student to the junk yard she claims as her home, find an old man with a police box that's bigger on the inside than the outside, then find themselves taken through time to the dawn of time. Presumably, since it's never explicitly stated that they're in the past, or even still on earth.
The first episode is solid. It suffers from the low budget and reliance on single, long takes. It often feels like a filmed stage play, complete with missed cues and line flubs. That's going to be the norm for several years, though, so as frustrating as it is, it's what you get for a BBC show shot on videotape in the 1960s. I learned long ago that in order to enjoy older Who, you have to keep that in mind.
You also have to learn to deal with the slow pacing. The first episode passes by easily enough, though still slow by today's standards. Episodes two through four, however...
I like to say that the first Doctor Who story is essentially twenty minutes of introduction, followed by eighty minutes of cave people shouting at each other. I get why the creators went with the logical choice of going back to the stone age in a time travel show, and the stress of the situation does give the characters a reason to bond and rely on each other, but, boy, is this story rough going at times.
We get no explanation as to why the cave people speak English. I know that years later we learn the TARDIS translates everything for the travelers, but without that information here, we're asked to accept a group of stone age humans who go from lengthy soliloquies to moans and grunts within the same scene.
It's a story that could easily be trimmed by an episode of two, but that can be said about almost all early Who.
On the positive side, William Russell and Jacqueline Wright get Ian and Barbara right from the start. Their characters are pretty much set with this story, with little adjustment in future stories. Susan... well, I don't think her character ever quite worked, and those problems all start here. Without a firm decision as to whether she's an alien or a typical teenager, I'm not sure how Ford could have played her effectively.
As for Hartnell - he's almost never selected as anyone's favorite Doctor, but he's fine here. I recall that for most of his first two seasons, he gives a solid performance. It's that weak third season that probably contributes to the negative impression today's fans have of him, but he does a fine job here and in other early stories in which he's still invested in the show. His age is something of a deterrent, as it prevents him from getting too physical, and places him in the role of an eccentric uncle in the background rather than the star of the show that people are used to now, and that takes some getting used to.
GRADE: C+
Mainly due to episodes 2-4. Episode 1 by itself I'd probably give a B.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
What a dark story to unveil a new series with. Nearly 90 minutes of the leads trapped in a cave with bashed-in skulls of other unlucky captors, with an ever-present threat of death. This was for kids?
The Doctor smokes. And nearly kills a tribesman. He's got a ways to go before he settles into the Doctor we're used to. He reminds me a lot of the Doctor Smith characters on Lost in Space, who essentially started as a villain (an actual foreign saboteur in the earliest episodes) before evolving into a daffy uncle.
NEXT: The Daleks
The Beginning
Years ago, I attempted to view and blog about every single Doctor Who story, from the very beginning. I did reasonably well, watching almost all three seasons of the First Doctor, and blogging about half of that.
The big drawback is that I was usually watching poor copies on an iPod, a viewing experience that felt lacking. With more episodes available on DVD and via streaming, I decided to start over and experience these stories under superior viewing conditions.
I probably won't write the lengthy write-ups I did on the first go-round. This is mainly just to get some additional benefit out of re-watching all these, and perhaps aid my memory down the line.
The big drawback is that I was usually watching poor copies on an iPod, a viewing experience that felt lacking. With more episodes available on DVD and via streaming, I decided to start over and experience these stories under superior viewing conditions.
I probably won't write the lengthy write-ups I did on the first go-round. This is mainly just to get some additional benefit out of re-watching all these, and perhaps aid my memory down the line.
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