AN UNEARTHLY CHILD (***)

Season One / Serial A (4 episodes)

Written by Anthony Coburn and C.E. Webber

Directed by Waris Hussein


Continuity

Long-form storytelling: plot and character events, details, changes, and notable consistencies or lack thereof

The Doctor is a bit of a bastard, isn't he. Also, note the French Revolution book. The cavemen all seem to speak English...

Mythology

The abstract concepts that make up the show's world

TARDIS! Police box! Granddaughter!

Logbook

Passing references to unseen adventures; places gone, people met

Previous TARDIS travels?

Commentary

Notes, statistics, analysis, tropes, drinking games

Against odds, the story does a lot of things right. The caveman stuff should, by rights, be risible, yet it's played straight enough and written dramatically enough that it seems pretty believable and real -- probably important for a first trip, that it doesn't seem utterly illusory.

Originally broadcast 11/23/1963 - 12/14/1963


Season One

An Unearthly Child ~ The Daleks ~ The Edge of Destruction ~ Marco Polo ~ The Keys of Marinus ~ The Aztecs ~ The Sensorites ~ The Reign of Terror


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