1: An Unearthly Child

THE first episode of Doctor Who was effectively spoilt by the Radio Times, letting people know straight away that Doctor Who was a mysterious exile from another world with a ship that can travel through space and time.

Thankfully it doesn’t reveal all the secrets that would unfold for the first time at 5.15pm on Saturday, November 23, 1963, although it did offer a glimpse of what lay ahead: cavemen, a neutron bomb and meeting Marco Polo.

The serial that was about to unfold was very unlike anything else on television at the time. Indeed, it still is unlike anything else. The closest was possibly Sliders, but that was always to alternative dimensions.

We shouldn’t forget television as a medium was still in its relative infancy. While broadcasts had started before the Second World War, it wasn’t until Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 Coronation that people started to get a television set in their home. Black and white, often encased in beautiful wooden cabinets to disguise their contents, they could only pick up one or two channels – if you were lucky.

The BBC television service was not broadcasting all day, and BBC Two was still on the drawing board.

ITV had only just started broadcasting from 1955, and even then the regional system was only completed in 1962.

Doctor Who was the brainchild of Sydney Newman, the BBC boss brought in to shake-up the staid image of Auntie. The Canadian was a genius for formats, and recognising talent – without him, the time-traveller would not be here. Nor would we have The Avengers, Adam Adamant Lives!, and The Forsyte Saga.

The Doctor Who logo appears for the first time
Picture: Screengrab (C) BBC

The opening titles to Doctor Who were unwordly. Unsettling. The music now so familiar was very different to what was in the hit parade.

And when they faded away, it was to a policeman wandering around a London street. What?

A policeman walks down Totters Lane – we never know why Picture: Screengrab (C) BBC

We never know as the action fades away to Coal Hill School and the impossible child.

Both Ian Chesterton, a science teacher, and Barbara Wright, a history teacher, are troubled by Susan Foreman.

We see through simple flashbacks a troubled soul, unsure why the history books got details wrong, and why a science puzzle was set without the correct dimensions.

This is a teenager who makes people laugh through unease – what is she talking about with the decimal system when pounds, shillings and pence rule?

Ian and Barbara want to know more, and their curiosity leads them to the junkyard in Totters Lane, and their first encounter with the mysterious Doctor.

This episode is full of gear changes. We don’t know what is happening, or why. We don’t know why there is a teenager who is clever and stupid. We don’t know why there is a police box not in the street, but in the middle of this yard.

Why is it humming? Why does Ian think it’s alive?

And why is this rude old man determined to stop Ian and Barbara from entering the police box?

Barbara and Ian discover that police box standing in a junkyard is actually bigger on the inside Picture: Screengrab (C) BBC

The gears crank again when they manage to barge past the stranger and end up not in the gloom of the yard, but in a bright, vast and futuristic interior.

It is a shock, not just for our new heroes, but for us as viewers too. What is this vast room? What is the strange hexagonal contraption. Why is Susan being so concerned about living in 1963, and why is the Docto determined to kidnap them?

This is a powerful drama as we are unsure what the motives of our key players are, but we are particularly uncertain as to whether the Doctor and Susan are goodies, especially when he flicks a switch and electrocutes Ian, before flicking another switch and seeing Tardis – she made up the name from its initials, Time and Relative Dimension in Space, and London starts to dissolve.

Our first Tardis take-off – a mysterious adventure in space and time Picture: Screengrab (C) BBC

The use of footage from the title sequence is a great way of setting out a link between the titles and the time vortex, although we don’t yet know that.

Suddenly, the police box is no longer in the junkyard, but under a strange sky, a strange landscape, and a strange figure has appeared on the horizon.

The title music starts up and the Next Episode caption appears – what happens next?

The first cliffhanger Picture: Screengrab (C) BBC

My first encounter with this episode was in 1981, when it was part of the Five Faces of Doctor Who season. It felt like magic that we were able to watch some television history – 1963 seemed an ancient age away for a five-year-old, and yet here it was in all its glory.

A magical, wonderful moment. A genuinely important piece of broadcasting history, and a cracking piece of drama.

Then, as now, the cliffhanger is irresistible. What happens next? We simply have to know.

Of course, the first four episodes are not currently available on iPlayer, thanks to a rights issue. Or a wrongs issue, depending on how you look at it. Thank goodness for the DVD.

NEXT EPISODE: The Cave of Skulls

An Unearthly Child is available on DVD while stocks last and was also released as a Target novel in 1981 Picture: Phil Creighton

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