Thursday 10 December 2015

An Unearthly Child: The "Pilot"


Odd with that thunderclap on the music but I guess they can justify the thunder & lightning in Matt's 1st version with this!
50dw50@50dw50 thunder and lightening very very frightening...

It's the wrong policeman!

50dw50@50dw50 odd intro for a hospital drama...

Oooh, it's a clean version of the police box with bright white trims round the windows and notice!

Coal Hill's just not the same without Kenneth-Williams-Kid going "Oooh yes" in the corridor.
50dw50@50dw50 young Clara whispers in her friends ear...

William Russell and Jackie Hill are still perfect in this version.
Ian recalls that Susan lives with her grandfather, a doctor of some sort...

Barbara decided to check up, and Susan's "address" is an old junkyard.

John Smith & the Common Men might have made it to number 2, but what kept them off the top spot?
Number 1 when An Unearthly Child was broadcast was "You'll Never Walk Alone" by Gerry & the Pacemakers, fact fans.

While Ian impresses Susan with his expertise on John Smiths...

...Barbara lends her a book on the French Revolution that the girl says she'll have read by morning.

Susan turns down their offer of a lift as she likes walking home in the fog. And Pina Colladas.

As soon as they leave, Susan's at it with the Rorschach drawings.

Pretty sure that means she's crazy in the coconut. 
50dw50@50dw50 it does look like a penis in a hexagon, what a mucky Timeteen.
Is that what it looks like to you...? ;-P

50dw50@50dw50 errrm...

Ian and Barbara arrive at 76 Totter's Lane first, and compare notes while they wait for Susan to arrive.

The flashback-y bits with Susan are brilliant. Great writing, great production. Clever stuff for this little pilot. 

The "decimal system" scene still stands out as a glaring stroke of good luck.

Barbara wanted Susan to specialize in history, even though Ian thinks she could school him on science.
50dw50@50dw50 while Barbara decided to specialize in stalking her pupils.

It's perhaps a little adult, the thought that Susan might be meeting a boy...

Barbara feels a sense of dread.

Ian takes things as they come.
They venture inside the junkyard...

...where they find an incongruous police box, that vibrates. "It's alive!"

Heeeeeeere's Billy!
Hartnell seems to be playing slightly younger here...

...and he's stiffer, more tightly coiled and more defensive, aggressive.

I can see why they softened him but I actually think it's fine. 

At this stage he's not really the main character.

You really see how much the "Billy fluffs" were a deliberate touch as Hartnell tears through the lines here.

When Susan calls out, the old Doctor's deception is revealed and Ian struggles with him...

...giving Barbara the chance to enter the police box.

Of course, it's bigger on the inside.

Inside, it's a technological wonder, with Susan stood at an alien control console.

Susan's much weirder.
Hartnell's costume's less eccentric & his delivery of lines is direct & practically perfect.

Hartnell is practically Bond Villain-esque in his sinister delivery of the "cut off from our own people" bit.
It's much more tense, Hartnell & Russell shouting at each other, like they might actually come to blows.
Chris@KosmicKris it would have been a very different show if this had been the template.
Not keen on Susan's outfit, nor the stuff about being born in the 49th Century.

Bek Hobbes@Greebobek Because the whole Time Lord thing has coloured your views towards it?


To an extent maybe but more that it's too specific at this stage - not mysterious enough.

Bek Hobbes@Greebobek If they introduced it into the show now, would you be happier?


I did wonder if the reference to stealing the President's daughter (in "Hell Bent") was supposed to be a reference to Susan, so that would retcon a slightly different origin for her, not to mention for her "grandfather"!

His laughing at them as they try to escape the TARDIS is creepy as hell.

When Ian tries to work out which switch controls the doors...

...he gets a shocking put down from the Doctor.

The Doctor likens mankind discovering the TARDIS to giving Napoleon an aeroplane...
He goes to the controls, and the journey begins...

After a wierd take off effect... 

...and lots of bleeping...

...which I assume to be this darker Doctor getting sweary...

...there's the 1st cliffhanger!
50dw50@50dw50 i am so glad they did not stick with that TARDIS take off sound effect!

Great, weird, scary stuff... but I can see why they re-shot it. 


Hartnell's not just sinister, you actually feel he could and would harm people.


The broadcast version's definitely superior! 


Chris@KosmicKris it wasn’t perfect - but it was intriguing!
50dw50@50dw50 funny how we have two copies of the same episode and none of so many others.

Weird to think that they kept that, isn't it? When they were junking actual episodes with possible re-sale value. What use was it? 


Although I guess this was stashed away and forgotten about rather than earmarked for overseas sales then wiped.
50dw50@50dw50 if they had wiped the broadcast version this is what we could have now as the start of Who.

TTFN! K.
Coming Soon... The Daleks

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