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
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