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The Aztecs- Where It Really Begins

An Unearthly Child set up the show in terms of character, but The Aztecs sets up the show in terms of a mission statement. Until now, the show had been moving along with an idea- teach kids at home some science and history- but lacked an in-universe goal. Admittedly, this goal (to quote the Doctor in this serial, “You can’t rewrite history, not one line!”) is just one of many and is often ignored. If an episode takes place anywhere but Earth’s history, the Doctor does whatever he pleases. However, implanting the idea that the Doctor stands for something, some ideal that will create conflict between characters and allow a consistent standpoint for the Doctor to have as he travels will lead the show in a direction that makes it just as entertaining to adults as it is to kids even today.

Synopsis: The TARDIS arrives in a 16th century tomb, and Barbara takes a bracelet off the tomb before heading out into the temple through a secret door. The others soon follow to find that the door only opened the one way, meaning they’re sealed off from their ship, and that the Aztec priest Otloc believes that Barbara is the reincarnation of their former priest, Yetaxa, making her a goddess. However, the priest of sacrifice, Tlotoxl, is not so easily convinced of her godhood and plans to try and out her as a false deity and get her and the rest of the gang killed. The crew splits up as they are given their roles in the Aztec community. The Doctor is let into the Garden of Peace, where all the retired Aztecs hang out, and uses the opportunity to try and get info on how to get back into that room the TARDIS is parked in. He also inadvertently starts flirting with an Aztec woman. Ian, meanwhile, is marked as Yetaxa’s warrior and is trained to potentially lead the Aztec army. This ticks off the current future leader, Ixta, who starts planning ways to kill Ian with the help of Tlotoxl. Susan is put into tutoring and is trained in the history, culture, and etiquette of the Aztecs. However, she rebels against it when she learns that in the process she’s being groomed for an arranged marriage.

Ian learns he is supposed to help with the ritual sacrifice to appease the gods just before it begins raining, and when Barbara catches wind of the upcoming sacrifice she does everything in her power to stop it. On the day of the event she stays the hand of both Ian and Ixta, and the sacrificial victim takes it as a denial of honor and jumps off the side of the temple so he can be sacrificed that way. Tlotoxl takes her refusal to let them sacrifice as a sign that she truly isn’t a goddess and begins in earnest to try and kill her or otherwise prove her false. Barbara is distraught over the fact that she couldn’t stop the execution, at which point The Doctor explains that their role in history is to observe, not to change the course of history. She ignores his advice, however, and swears she will do everything in her power to get rid of human sacrifice, thinking it will somehow save them when the Spanish come in later years. Tlotoxl convinces Ian and Ixta to fight to the death to determine who will lead the army. The Doctor accidentally proposes to the woman he had been flirting with and she accepts, and as a wedding present she arranges a meeting between him and the son of the architect who built the tomb, Ixta. Ixta tricks the Doctor into giving him a poison for the information, a poison that he intends to use to kill Ian. Susan again refuses her arranged marriage even after finding out it’s to the Perfect Victim, the next sacrifice who is given everything he wishes before his death. Tlotoxl tricks Barbara into permitting Susan’s death by saying that “someone” has broken the rules of the city and should be punished.

The Doctor and Ian meet at the base of the temple where The Doctor reveals what Ixta has told him- that a panel on the wall will let them into a tunnel that goes to the tomb room. Ixta had actually planned on the tunnel (actually a pipe used for diverting water out of the temple) killing Ian and whoever else climbed through it, but Ian evades the trap and does indeed find that the tunnel leads to the tomb. He finds some rope and uses it to make a pulley system that will let them back into the door from the outside. Ready to leave, Ian, Barbara, and the Doctor break Susan out of her guard and escape to the temple. However, as they’re opening the door the rope breaks and they’re once again stuck, and this time Otloc believes Tlotoxl when he calls Barbara a false goddess. The eclipse is coming, and with it the sacrifice of the Perfect Victim. Barbara talks to Otloc and convinces him of her innocence, although he’s actually been turned off the idea of religion by all of this. He gives up his symbols and possessions marking him as a priest in order to bribe the guards to free Susan again, and wanders into the woods never to be seen again. The crew break back into the tomb and manage to escape to the TARDIS just as the sacrifice begins. Barbara is heartbroken that she couldn’t stop it, and The Doctor reminds her that the point of time travel isn’t to change the life of a civilization, but to change the life of individuals. She did that by convincing Otloc to leave the city, which may spare his life when the Spaniards come in the future. The TARDIS takes off, and the last episode ends with the Doctor saying that the ship is stationary but that it says they’re still moving. Barbara wonders aloud if they’ve landed in something…

Background Info: 

This is the first episode of Doctor Who that got to film on the BBC Television Centre’s soundstage, if only for a little while. Normally up until then they filmed in the tiny, oddly proportioned Lime Grove studio.

This is the second of three serials written by John Lucarotti, the first being Marco Polo. Lucarotti used research and personal history of the locations he set his stories in to really hammer home the historical aspects.

Opinion: This is a really solid serial. I have a serious love for Lucarotti’s work on Doctor Who, though to be fair I only half watched his third and final serial, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve, so I’m not positive that one will join the other two in my heart. You can tell he knows what he’s talking about, mixing real historical figures and facts in with the show in a way that feels natural. Yetaxa was a real priest from the Aztec empire and Lucarotti made a point to keep everything as accurate as possible with regards to outfits and cultural details. I really enjoy this story not only for the historical aspects, however, but also for the fact that we begin to see The Doctor as we know him now emerge. Each Doctor has to learn how to actually be the Doctor, but Hartnell’s version is having to do the most heavy lifting since there’s no predecessor. Up until this point we see a man who is selfish and will do things like threaten to throw his companions into a void just because he’s paranoid of them or pit a peaceful race up against the Daleks just so he can sneak back into their city and grab something he forgot in there. We will still see this in glimpses throughout the rest of this season, but he’s finally on track to become The Doctor we all know and love. This episode wouldn’t make for a great first experience of Classic Who, but I’d put it up as a contender for the first one you watch of the First Doctor. It really shows the roots of where the character began to grow and shape himself into a hero rather than a selfish time-traveling man.

Favorite Moment: You know, back when stage fighting was done by actors who were literally used to fake fighting on a stage, where every move had to be telegraphed a mile ahead and things were slow and clunky, a lot of shows and movies would film the fight and speed it up so it looked more natural. Not Doctor Who though, no sir. They make you watch each fight in real time, and boy is it entertaining.

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The Keys of Marinus: Ready Player One

Just as Marco Polo is the series I wish existed primarily for its beauty and chemistry between actors, The Keys of Marinus is the series I’m so glad exists because it is just balls-to-the-wall fun. The reason for the post title is because this feels just like an old video game come to life, with each episode sending our heroes off to another wildly different location in search of a key, which when combined with the other keys will activate a device that will save the island. So strap in and get ready, because The Keys of Marinus flies by so quickly that you need to pay attention. That being said, the summary’s going to be a little long since each episode is its own separate thing. I’ve blockquoted it so that you can quickly see how long it is and/or skip it if you’re already familiar with the story.

Synopsis: The TARDIS materializes on a glass beach by an acid sea. In the distance is a towering building. They get out of the ship and go investigate, finding a torpedo-shaped vessel that appears to have recently opened. Unbeknownst to them, they’re being followed by the thing that emerged from that pod. The crew all eventually make their way into the building through hidden doors, with Susan almost getting kidnapped by the man from the torpedo pod until he’s mysteriously stabbed in the back by an unseen person. The crew regroup and meet a man named Arbitan who says he lives in the tower, guarding the weapon that’s in the tower from the Voord, the men who arrive in those pods. He explains that the weapon is a device that wipes all thoughts of violence from the minds of the people on the planet Marinus, but the Voord have escaped its control and are trying to destroy it. Arbitan needs 5 keys that run the machine in order to strengthen the weapon and retake control over the Voord. The keys are scattered all across Marinus and Arbitan takes the TARDIS hostage until they agree to go find them. They’re given teleportation devices with preprogrammed destinations that will take them from one hiding spot to another and back to the weapon, and there is a key hidden at each location. As they leave, Arbitan is stabbed to death by a Voord that snuck in.

The crew arrive at the first hiding spot and find themselves in a beautiful palace. They’re given food and lavish clothes by servants, and it isn’t long before they settle in for the night. After they fall asleep, servants come in and place strange tiny pods on their foreheads, but Barbara’s falls off. When she wakes up, she realizes that the opulent palace was actually a disgusting room and that their clothes are actually dirty rags. The rest of the crew don’t see what she sees, however, so she has to escape. Hiding deep in the building the discovers that the palace facade is just a way to placate new victims while they’re brainwashed for slavery, serving weird, brain-in-a-jar monsters. Barbara breaks into the room with the monsters and absolutely trashes the place, killing the brains and releasing their hold over the TARDIS crew and the slaves. Two of the slaves turn out to be Arbitan’s daughter and former assistant, who found the first key but were unable to escape mind control. They all head off together to the second location, except the Doctor who moves onto the fourth location when he hears that it’s a supposedly advanced civilization that he’d like to explore.

The second hiding spot is a jungle that makes screaming noises and is seemingly alive. Barbara spots the key on a statue against the wall of an ancient building, but when she grabs it and throws it to Ian the statue grabs her and traps her in the building. Arbitan’s daughter looks at the key and realizes it’s a decoy, so Ian heads inside the building through the same trap while Arbitan’s crew and Susan head onto the third location. Inside, Ian and Barbara navigate a series of booby traps until they’re confronted by a man who is protecting the real key, which is in his lab. However, on the way there he’s attacked by living plants that have broken through the wall, and he only has time to give Ian and Barbara a vague clue to the location of the key before dying of his injuries. They make it to his lab, but the jungle is screaming and the plants are forcing their way into the room. They find the key moments before it’s too late, and manage to narrowly escape death by plant by teleporting onto the next location. Instead of reuniting with Arbitan’s crew and Susan, however, they’re alone on a remote mountaintop and begin to worry about freezing to death. Just as they pass out, a mountain man saves them and brings them to his cabin. The guy seems hella sketchy, and for good reason; when the mountain man says he saw Susan and Arbitan’s crew headed for a cave supposedly guarded by spirit warriors, he decided not to try and rescue them. Ian trades his travel device for some furs and sets off after them, leaving Barbara alone with the mountain man. Later, Barbara discovers the keys and travel devices from Susan and the others and realizes the man was lying. The man explains that he left them to die and goes to attack Barbara but is stopped by Ian and Arbitan’s assistant, whom Ian found on the mountain and heard the truth from. They take all of their stuff back from the mountain man and force him to take them to the guarded cave the girls are trapped in. Once across the bridge to the cave, however, the mountain man destroys the bridge, leaving them to die. Luckily, the gang solve a puzzle in the cave that reveals the key, and they teleport off leaving the mountain man to be killed by the spirit guardians.

At the fourth stop, Ian goes into a museum-like building and sees the key in a display case and a dead man on the floor. Ian is knocked out by an unseen man who leaves the murder weapon in his hand, framing him. Ian awakes, still in the middle of the murder scene, to find the key now missing from the case. A cop questions him on the key, assuming Ian has hidden it, and arrests him for murder. Apparently in this society, you are guilty until proven innocent and Ian’s staring down the barrel of a death sentence for theft and murder. Ian meets up with the rest of the gang, The Doctor included (remember, he’s been chilling in this place the whole time), and The Doctor decides to be Ian’s legal counsel since he’s spent all this time conveniently reading up on the law here. They decide to investigate the cop who was there when Ian woke up, understandably thinking that’s oddly well-timed. They realize they’re barking up the right tree when they talk to his wife, whom the cop beats for talking to them. In the courtroom they trick the cop into admitting his guilt by pretending they found the key at his house, to which he insanely blurts something to the affect of “but that’s not where I hid it!” Sadly, the cop is killed by some unknown person in the courtroom before he can reveal the true location of the key, and later on Susan is kidnapped and forced to call Barbara telling her that she’ll be killed if they don’t quit digging.

In the next episode, it’s discovered that the wife of the guilty cop has actually kidnapped Susan, and she is told she can kill Susan because Ian has been declared guilty (since the cop was killed, they can’t kill him for the crime, so they might as well kill the guy who was just proved innocent? idk) and they believe the key won’t be found after that. The rest of the gang realize that the wife must have kidnapped Susan when she reveals some detail of the kidnapping she shouldn’t have known, and they save Susan just in time and begin to unravel the whole nefarious plot. After finding the key in the original murder weapon and providing all the evidence to the court, Ian is released and free to go. Everyone heads back to the building that has the weapon and find a man in Arbitan’s clothes and hood (actually the Voord who killed Arbitan in the first episode) who is hiding his face and says they can’t look upon him because he had a “disfiguring accident” while they were gone. Sure. The whole gang see through that stupid ruse in about three seconds and trick the false Arbitan by giving him the phony key from the jungle which causes the machine to blow up when the false Arbitan puts them all in the machine, killing all the Voords and leaving the entire planet with their own free will again. The TARDIS crew say goodbye to Arbitan’s assistant and daughter, who are going to start a life together.

Background Info:

This serial was a rush job written by Terry Nation, the man who made the Daleks.

Terry Nation’s first three serials (The Daleks, this one, and Dalek Invasion of Earth) were all optioned as films. The two involving the Daleks were eventually made into films starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Who, a literal human doctor, but for some reason Marinus was never made. Personally I think that’s a shame, because this story is absolutely bonkers.

This is the first time characters disappear for an episode or more, as an excuse to give the actors a break. It first happens when the Doctor goes two spots ahead, easily writing him out of the next two episodes. The shooting schedule for Classic Who is famously unbearable, filming more or less nonstop all year long (for instance, at this point William Hartnell had been filming on a weekly basis nonstop from October to April). Rather than taking a long break and stopping production, they instead would write characters out of episodes or even entire serials so that the actors could have a breather.

This is the first time there was a model shot of the TARDIS materializing at its destination. Believe me, you can tell.

Opinion: In case you couldn’t tell by the insanely long summary (out of which I cut a ton), this serial is absolutely packed full of action. For reference, the serial before this (Marco Polo) was 7 episodes long and had a rather small summary. This one was only 6 episodes. I love this episode for what it is: cheesy, bat-dookie crazy. Yeah, at times the plot is thin and as soon as you know that Terry Nation wrote it in a short amount of time (or as you’ll see in later Nation serials, just as soon as you know he wrote it period) you can tell it’s the work of a madman under pressure. That being said, you can see Ian and Barbara settling into their roles as companions here. When they first land on the glass beach they are eager to go out and explore, completely forgetting to beg The Doctor to send them back to London or just leave and try again like they’ve been known to do in the other serials. The only issue with this is that you’re getting so used to the companions and The Doctor working together and building that chemistry that when Hartnell takes his two week vacation leaving us without the titular Time Lord, the loss is incredibly telling. Or perhaps I’d just gotten spoiled by having the past four serials with everyone always hanging out together. This really does seem like a video game (or actually about 5 different video games I could name off the top of my head) put to film, and I appreciate it for that. This one is just a fun, goofy romp and I would absolutely recommend it to someone looking to get in on some First Doctor. Don’t go in expecting every First Doctor episode to be like this because you’ll be painfully disappointed, but definitely watch this one if you want to see what some of the most classic Classic Who does for fun.

Favorite Trivia: In the beginning of the first episode, the Doctor and Barbara make a short little joke about how his scanner screen should have color TV, to which he replies that he does, it’s just on the way. In the original script, they actually talk about how the whole reason the Doctor and Susan were in London in 1963 in the first place was because the Doctor wanted to talk to the BBC about helping him get a color scanner screen. They even go so far as to say that the reason he was so grouchy when they met was because he’d just gotten back and they had been incredibly stingy with the tech.

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Marco Polo- All the Splendor Telesnaps Can Display

This is one of my favorite First Doctor serials, which is saying something since none of it actually exists. For those of you who aren’t aware, back in the 60s and 70s the BBC (among other channels) wiped a metric ton of master videotapes from many TV series, Doctor Who included. Since the First and Second Doctors were filmed exclusively onto videotapes, it meant that every one of their master copies were destroyed forever. Over time people have found copies of episodes around the world, artifacts left over from old BBC foreign broadcasts. Some serials, such as this one, are completely missing, while some others are missing just one or a couple episodes. Even more interestingly, sometimes in missing episodes there will be a snippet of someone getting shot or a monster blowing up or some other violent acts, because all that survived were the pieces cut out of the broadcast in foreign markets due to censorship. As a result of this wiping, a huge percentage of the First and Second Doctor serials only exist in reconstructions made with the audio (every single episodes exists as audio even if the master tapes were dumped) and telesnaps, screenshots of the recording television screen kept for record keeping purposes. Thanks to the people who piece these together, we have a very thorough idea of what these episodes would have been like, but we are still missing out on the hard work put into our favorite show back in the day. Every Classic Whovian has a missing serial they’d love to see completed, and for me it’s this one (it used to be Enemy of the World, but they found that several years ago and it is literally as amazing as I could’ve ever hoped for).

Synopsis: Interestingly, this story is narrated by the titular Marco Polo as he writes his memoirs. He begins telling an interesting story about the strange group of people he met in 1289…

The Doctor and crew land in the snowy Pamir mountains, their TARDIS completely broken and shut down after escaping the craziness that was the previous serial. They begin to investigate their surroundings, trying to find a way to survive and avoid the Mongols they discover looming in the area. The Mongols track them down and are about to kill them, thinking they are evil spirits who have just materialized on the mountain, when Marco Polo arrives on scene and stops them. The crew join Polo’s caravan, which is headed to see the Kublai Khan, and the Doctor tells Polo about his “flying caravan” and how it needs to be repaired so they can leave. Our four heroes are introduced to Tegana, a Mongol warlord on a peace mission to see the Khan, and Ping-Cho, a young Chinese girl whom Polo is escorting to the Khan so she can be wed to a 75 year old dignitary. Tegana and Marco Polo begin creating their own plots to steal the TARDIS- Tegana so that he can use it to destroy the Khan, and Polo so that he can use it as a bargaining chip to earn his freedom from the Khan- as soon as the Doctor repairs it. Over the next several episodes, the caravan moves across the Gobi desert, with the TARDIS crew trying to figure out how to escape now that they know that Polo intends to take the ship for himself. Tegana’s attempts to steal the TARDIS get more cunning and more violent, but he manages to escape blame on merit of his (seemingly) faithful servitude to Polo and the Kublai Khan.

Eventually, the crew makes it to the Khan’s summer palace. The Doctor meets with Kublai Khan and they end up becoming friends, bonding over their old age and all the issues that come with it. They start playing backgammon, and the Doctor makes bank but then bets it all on the freedom of his TARDIS and loses. After some arguments over who the TARDIS should belong to, our four heroes are locked up yet again and only escape when Ping-Cho and Susan tell them about a plan they overheard in the palace, a plot created by Tegana to sneak into the throne room and kill everyone, including the Khan. The crew escape capture yet again, alert Marco Polo, and they all head into the throne room to find Tegana having killed many a dignitary but subdue him before he can kill the Khan. Tegana takes his own life rather than have it taken by the Khan’s men, and as a reward for saving the Khan The Doctor and his companions are given the key to the TARDIS and allowed their freedom. Things even work out well for Ping-Cho, who is freed from her dreaded arranged marriage to the 75 year old dignitary when he is found dead after drinking an elixir of life (mercury). She chooses to stay with the Khan’s court and enjoy freedom in splendor. As the TARDIS fades away, Polo is granted freedom to go home back to Venice.

Background Info: 

This is one of the hard-historical serials that were present in the first season (which was 50% historical and 50% hard science fiction since it was supposed to be an educational show)

This is the first serial to feature The Doctor interacting with a famous historical figure

First serial written by John Lucarotti. Lucarotti had worked with show creator Sidney Newman on several of his largest shows both in Canada and in England, and he contributed three serials to Doctor Who, all First Doctor stories.

A photo from this serial was the first ever Doctor Who cover photo on the magazine Radio Times. The show and Radio Times have a long-standing history of cover features, and this was the very first one to receive the treatment.

This was the second and final directorial credit for Waris Hussein on the show. He was the director for An Unearthly Child and had been supposed to direct half of all episodes of season 1 (of which there are 3 more serials after this), but left because he wanted to direct more plays.

Opinion: I love this serial. Yes, at times it does drag on (I mean, how many times can shady stuff happen and people literally bring you evidence that Tegana did it before you start thinking they may have a point?), but that’s what happens in these old 7-part serials. The shame with these telesnap reconstructions is that you can’t see what they actually looked like in action. The shots of the sets, especially with regards to the caravan, are so lavish looking. I imagine that if we had the actual episodes in full it may not look as opulent, but it is far and away one of the best set designs we’ll see for a long time. Every character is incredibly strongly written and I love the scenes between Ping-Cho and Susan as well as Ian and Tegana because the actors’ chemistry is so great that you can feel it without even having to see it. Phil Sandifer points out an interesting quirk about this episode, one that I loved without realizing that I loved it until I saw it pointed out in his review. The characters in this serial that we encounter throughout the entire thing are surprisingly diverse. Even currently on Doctor Who we tend to focus on one culture and/or race at a time. Typically, if the Doctor is getting involved with a group of people, they are often fairly homogenized. In this one, however, we get a western man, a Chinese woman (although the actress is actually Burmese, but still, yay not-yellowface!), and a myriad of Asian characters (sadly, these are almost entirely yellowface. Gotta love the 1960s) all interacting with each other as they trek across the desert. I just think that this story is fascinating because the hard-historical episodes are pretty rare, making up half of the serials in this season but then dropping rapidly until there were no hard-historical ones anymore by season 5. Out of all the ones I’ve seen so far, this one is the first where I could really get invested in the history without being bored to tears. John Lucarotti used the actual memoirs of Marco Polo to create his story, and it shows. I definitely wouldn’t want to show this as anyone’s first Classic Who serial or anything, but once you’re comfortable with the tone and format I’d recommend giving this one a watch. Or, more accurately a listen. It’s on YouTube if you’re interested!

Favorite Moment: Like I said, I enjoy the whole thing, but let’s just all gather ‘round and enjoy these lovely colorized photos from the set that shows you just how amazing this serial looks.

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The Edge of Destruction- Bordering Insanity

Only three serials in and we hit the show’s first bottle episode. And, surprisingly enough, it’s actually a true bottle episode (defined by using a single set that they already had built and using now other characters other than the principal cast), which not many shows fully manage. Since it’s only two episodes long, expect the Background Info part to be roughly as long as the synopsis. For such a short, strange serial, there’s a lot started here that has repercussions far off into the future. Regardless, buckle up because we are about to take a dive into the most paranoid, chaotic, confused two episodes of Classic Who I’ve witnessed so far.

Synopsis: Our four heroes have set off from Skaro when something goes wrong in the TARDIS, causing an explosion that knocks everyone out. Everyone slowly comes to, and they all begin acting strangely. Their memories of their adventures together come and go, they faint at random times, Susan gets particularly violent and stabby, and overall everyone just acts like they were told to act like a crazy person on a soap opera. The crew aren’t the only things acting up aboard the TARDIS- the machine itself starts freaking out in strange ways: clock faces aboard the ship start melting, the fault locator goes on and off, and the viewscreen shows photos of ancient places, over and over in a pattern. The crew investigate, and throughout tensions are rising. The Doctor suspects Ian and Barbara of sabotaging the ship in some way as retaliation for having kidnapped them, everyone else thinks that maybe some alien thing has taken over the ship or perhaps someone on it, and at one point The Doctor actually attempts to throw the two human companions out of the TARDIS into the mysterious void they’re parked in!

In the end it’s Barbara who figures out what’s going on (using some absolutely horrible logic you have to just cringe your way through): there’s something wrong with the ship itself, and the TARDIS is actually doing all the strange, clock-melting things on its own as a warning to the crew. The Doctor refuses to believe that the ship is somehow sentient, but checks the TARDIS console anyway and finds the problem- the spring under the Fast Return switch is stuck down, essentially cutting the brakes as the TARDIS hurtled back in time. All the issues were the TARDIS freaking out as it was running up against the very beginning of time itself. The Doctor fixes it, apologizes to Ian and Barbara for being absolutely insane earlier, and they head off to the next destination. The last episode ends with the police box materializing on a snowy field, and there’s a huge footprint not far from the ship…

Background Info: Shannon Sullivan’s website (links in the sources/inspiration section of my blog) explains the reason for this episode existing better than I ever could: “Doctor Who was nearly cancelled before it even began.” Even before they’d began shooting anything for the show, the man in charge of the budget was hesitant to fund the show past the Unearthly Child/100,000 BC serial due to perceived cost issues. In order to get the money, they had to agree to only doing 13 episodes at first and figuring out future budget after the ratings came in. The problem was, the serials they had planned would only be able to film up to the second episode of the upcoming Marco Polo serial. Rather than filming part of it and hoping they’d get the rest of the money on merit alone, they decided to hastily cram in a short two-episode bottle serial in to both cut back on budget and end the 13 episode run evenly. Script Editor David Whitaker wrote the episode, but it was rushed since it was a bit of an last-second thing, and they also had trouble getting a director that was actually available.

First episode of the show to only feature principal cast with no outside characters- something that wouldn’t be done for another decade or so.

One of the few bottle episodes of Doctor Who, and the first one of the show

Opinion: This episode is strange. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, which is fitting seeing as it’s an episode entirely built around confusion and mixed emotions. On the one hand, I like the idea of an episode where the problem is entirely aboard the TARDIS (though lord knows Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and this episode both make me realize it’s not going to be done as well as my imagination wants it to be), but on the other hand this serial is so hacky and poorly thought-out that I just don’t enjoy watching it for the most part. This whole serial is a case of setting up an idea and going “wait, maybe we shouldn’t actually do this.” Barbara implants the idea that the TARDIS is a living, thinking being that’s capable of warning the crew of impending doom, but at the same time it’s also a machine that can have a spring get stuck down and nearly kill everyone. The Doctor has paranoia about his companions turning on him, but rather than explore the feelings of mistrust amongst the crew it’s just wiped away with a very quick, barely heartfelt “oh yeah, sorry I almost tried to throw you into the void.” On top of all that, you can tell that the story as a whole was barely thought out because of the idea that getting knocked unconscious would turn Susan into a stabbing, screaming psychopath. When that’s the direction you take with a usually precocious character, it’s a good sign that you haven’t really thought out the actual character while writing it. Overall, this episode has some bright points that really form where the show goes in the future (the TARDIS being alive, the contemplation and discourse over the role of companions in the show, etc) and some brilliant character building moments that really help to make the relationship between these characters shine. That being said, this serial is still rushed and confused and just all around strange to watch. I called this post the Brink of Insanity because not only do the characters get driven into paranoia and panic with just one mysterious issue, but also the way they show this paranoia and panic is absolutely bonkers.

Favorite Moment: Oh, that’s absolutely going to be Susan stabbing the crap out of the bed she’s placed into after having passed out in the console room. That one scene makes the whole serial worth watching. It’s so over-the-top dramatic!

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The Daleks- Beginnings of the Never-Ending Villains

This serial is almost as important as An Unearthly Child. In terms of iconography, Doctor Who is nothing without the Daleks. I still remember the first time I’d had Christmas at my dad’s house since becoming a Whovian and asking him if I could change the channel to BBCA for that year’s special. When I explained the show to him, he told me about vague memories about how his dad would watch it on PBS sometimes way back when. He didn’t remember much except for a guy in a long scarf, a “blue phone booth,” and monster robots with sticky-outy eyes and “lightbulbs” all over. Regardless of how you may feel about their constant presence, this story introduces one of the most influential villains in sci-fi history. It’s also the first classic serial to begin to find the tone of the show we know today.

Synopsis: Our heroes leave the TARDIS to find themselves in a dead forest of petrified trees and metal animals and a seemingly abandoned city in the distance. The Doctor wants to investigate the city, but everyone else wants to just fly off and abandon the whole creepy scene, so as a compromise they take a big tour of the TARDIS and discover the wonders of what the 60s thought was futuristic alien technology. There’s a knock on the TARDIS door and a mysterious box full of strange vials, and that’s enough to freak out all three companions and they beg the Doctor to fly them away. As he starts up the engine, however, he reaches under the console and rips out a piece of the TARDIS. He pretends that the piece is busted and that the only way to repair it is to go into the city. They arrive in the city and Barbara and Ian split up to investigate the central building. The first episode ends with the iconic POV shot of Barbara, cornered in a dead end hallway screaming her lungs out as some unseen monster with a plunger slowly encroaches.

The rest of the crew go looking for Barbara only to find a lab with a Geiger counter that’s off the charts. Once the Doctor realizes the danger, he admits he has the “broken” piece of the TARDIS and that they can actually just leave as soon as they grab Barbara. As they head out of the lab, however, they’re captured by the monsters that got Barbara and the four are reunited in a cell. The Doctor is brought to the monsters, called Daleks, who think he is part of another native race called the Thals. The Daleks explain that the Thals are hideous mutated monsters that are the result of a nuclear war between the two races generations ago. The Thals have been in hiding for decades but have recently emerged, so the Daleks assume they’ve got an anti-radiation drug. The Daleks want the drug for themselves, thinking that they must need to be cured of the radiation as well. The Doctor assumes that must be what the mysterious vials were so they let him send Susan to the TARDIS alone because everyone else is too sick to move. Susan makes it to the TARDIS and is stopped by a Thal, a hunky Aryan-looking man rather than the expected hideous mutants, and they get a plan to negotiate peace with the Daleks together before she heads back. Everyone feels much better after taking the drugs, and Susan works with the Daleks in an attempt to create peace. However, the peace talk is all a trap by the Daleks to finally exterminate the Thals, and the TARDIS crew manage to escape the city with the survivors of the ensuing ambush.

The Doctor and Co. plan to just bail and let the Thals and Daleks kill each other, but a problem arises- The Doctor actually forgot the piece he ripped out of the TARDIS back in the now heavily guarded city! Pressed for ideas, Ian and the Doctor go full-on Braveheart and incite the peaceful Thals to start a war just so they can make it back to the city for the piece. The plan works out though, because the Daleks have learned that they’ve evolved to need radiation to survive and that they’ll need to drop another neutron bomb to boost the dropping radiation levels. The Thals, Ian, and Barbara spend what feels like a million years crawling through caves to get through the mountains surrounding part of the city while the Doctor and Susan distract the Daleks and knock out their security. Having earlier discovered that the shells the Daleks ride around are powered by static electricity (ah, when static electricity was considered powerful tech), the Thals and our four heroes break into the building and wreak havoc. They basically murder all the Daleks and head back to the TARDIS. Barbara had a fling with one of the Thals during the 7-million hours of cave crawling (if you pay attention during the episode, at one point she starts wearing Thal pants and they even carry over to the next serial) and has a very steamy goodbye with him before they all head into the TARDIS. The Doctor replaces the piece he ripped out and the crew sets off on their next adventure!

Background Info:

•First episode to feature the Daleks, Thals, and their home planet Skaro

•First episode written by Terry Nation. Though this isn’t his only claim to Doctor Who fame, this is by far his biggest. The Daleks were his creation and were actually his copyrighted property, which led to a lot of interesting production issues down the road.

•First episode directed by Christopher Barry, who would work on Doctor Who until 1979.

Opinion: The parts of this story that aren’t set in caves are some of my favorite Classic Who moments. Not only does this episode introduce the Daleks as scary (albeit easily defeated) monsters, but it provides a compelling tale of good vs. evil that’s still being fought now over 50 years later. The parts that do take place are just plain dull. When I watch this and I’m not doing a review for a blog I actually skip about two and a half episodes’ worth of spelunking. It’s repetitive, dreary, and there’s no way that’s the proper way to go diving in caves. Given that this was made in the late 60s when WWII was still very relevant and people were developing and threatening each other with nukes seemingly on the daily, there was a lot of very un-subtle discussion about war and pacifism vs. aggression that really go anywhere because I’m not sure Nation knew where he wanted to go with it. It may be a result of this confused narrative, or the fact that we don’t know who the characters are yet, that lead to my one big takeaway from this serial. It’s the same thing I took away from the episodes before: the Doctor is violent and selfish in a way he never is again. For god’s sake, he turned an entire race of pacifist farmers into professional Dalek-killers so they can fix their ride! He’s got a lot of ways to go before he really becomes the Doctor we know now.

Favorite Trivia: While Terry Nation was the creator of the Daleks from the writing side of things, the design of the creatures was almost done by a then-unknown guy named Ridley Scott. The same Ridley Scott that would go on to create Alien and Blade Runner. Imagine how much more terrifying the Daleks would have been if he’d had a hand in them!

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100,000 BC- Historically Mediocre

Y'all better love me. I promised myself I’d never rewatch this, but I"m doing it for all of you. If you don’t know what a slog this serial is, just keep in mind that what I detail to you in the next section is taking place over the course of what adds up to a feature-length film divided into 3 episodes. See you on the other side…

Synopsis: We’re introduced to a tribe of cavemen all sitting around watching a caveman futilely try to make fire by rolling a bone between his hands. Smokey the Bear’s best friend here is Za, the son of the late firemaker/tribal leader. The tribe argues about whether they should let Za lead or if they should go with Kal, the hunter caveman. Meanwhile, the TARDIS crew wakes up to find the “yearometer” on the console set to 0, so they assume it’s broken (a sign that the Doctor really doesn’t understand how time works yet). The Doctor convinces Ian and Barbara, fresh off their kidnapping, that they’ve traveled back in time by everyone going out of the TARDIS to investigate their whereabouts in hopes of finding what year they’ve landed in. Both Susan and the Doctor remark that the TARDIS should have changed appearance in order to camouflage with their surroundings, but it seems to be stuck looking like a Police Box. Anyway, Kal kidnaps the TARDIS crew and they are thrown into the Cave of Skulls, so named for the lovely decor of murder remains strewn about, with an ultimatum- make fire for Kal, or die. The rest of all three episodes are a series of escapes and recaptures of the Doctor and his companions and discussions between either Kal or Za and the TARDIS crew over who they should give fire to. After Ian makes fire under the threat of death, Kal and Za engage in some dramatically lit wrestling until Za straight up puts Kal in a chokehold and clubs him to death, with our four heroes watching the whole ordeal and making some killer shocked faces. Za wants to keep the crew as part of their tribe now that he knows how to make fire, so they escape after sticking some skulls on some torches and scaring the heck out of the cavemen and manage to make it to the TARDIS just in time to escape. The Doctor takes off and reveals to Ian and Barbara that he has no control over where or when the ship lands. The TARDIS lands in a strange forest and they decide to go investigate their whereabouts yet again, after Susan checks the readings and sees that radiation levels are safe, only for the needle on the radiation meter to rise firmly into the Danger Zone as they walk outside…

Background Info: Since this is still technically part of the same serial as An Unearthly Child, not much is new, except that An Unearthly Child was rerun right before the airing of the first episode of this part- The Cave of Skulls- to make up for people skipping it to watch the JFK news the week prior. 

Opinion: Upon rewatching, this serial isn’t quite as horrible as I recall. I still wouldn’t call it good, and I’ll never watch it again if given the chance, but it wasn’t as mind-numbing as originally thought. I think my negative preconceptions stemmed from the fact that this serial was the first classic serial I ever watched. That was a mistake and I’m so glad I didn’t give up right then and there because this one is in no way indicative of episodes to come. The main detriment to this story is the same reason that Doctor Who has never revisited cavemen: there’s really only one story you can tell (how cavemen get fire), and listening to cavemen grunt-speak their way through monologues and discussions for over an hour is torture on the highest scale. The only reason I”d tell someone to watch it is if they want to see a Doctor who isn’t yet the Doctor. In both the show and behind the scenes, the character we are getting isn’t fully realized. At least Doctors after Hartnell are able to look back at the Doctors before them and have something to build their character on; here in the beginning they’re carving out something wholly original. This Doctor is one who briefly considered ditching his granddaughter alone in the 60s to cover his tracks and escape discovery in the last episode. In this serial, he convinces a tribe to stone a caveman until he runs away so that he and his companions can escape capture. We won’t really see glimpses of the Doctor we know and love today until The Aztecs, so the only reason I’d ever recommend anyone watching this is for those moments in between the tedium where this unformed Time Lord is showing through.

Favorite Moment: The part where our heroes are escaping through the Forest of Fear and it’s the worst forest-running ever seen outside of a B-movie.

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An Unearthly Child- The Strangest Origin Story Ever

Ah, the one that started it all. I would give every penny of the almost-no money I have to be a fly on the wall in the tiny BBC studio as they filmed this. Now, right off the bat I feel it important to note that I’m specifically talking about An Unearthly Child, not the rest of the serial that it was a part of, 100,000 BC. The reason I’m doing that is because the rest of the serial serves as a complete story in itself where this is it’s own beast and deserves to be talked about by itself as the piece of history it is. Also, 100,000 BC is my least favorite serial I’ve seen to date, but more on that in a couple days.

Synopsis: Two teachers from the Coal Hill school, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, are concerned about their enigmatic student named Susan Foreman. She behaves oddly in class- challenging Ian in his science class using terms and theories far advanced even for him, but coming off as nonsensical in Barbara’s history class by swearing the textbooks are wrong and seemingly forgetting what year it currently is. The other concern is her home- Barbara and Ian pay a visit to her address in hopes of a home visit that night only to find a junkyard with a police box strangely parked inside. In search of Susan, Ian and Barbara explore around the junkyard only to come across a strange old man who shouts for Susan to close the doors to the police box. The teachers burst past this old man and through the doors of the box only to find themselves in a room much too large to fit inside the police box, almost as if it were bigger on the inside! Susan explains that the old man is her grandfather- known simply as The Doctor- and that the two of them are running away from another planet and time. They did so using the police box, actually a spaceship called the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space, Susan says, she named it that herself), in which the Doctor and Susan live and travel. The Doctor decides that Ian and Barbara knowing their secret is too dangerous and that he has to leave- even considering abandoning Susan in the 60s with the teachers when she begs him to let her stay for school- but in the end he just sets the TARDIS off to an unknown destination, effectively kidnapping the two teachers. Everyone is knocked unconscious as the TARDIS lands in what seems ot be a barren wasteland. An ominous shadow is cast over the sand as the screen fades to black…

Background Info: People could- and have- written scholarly essays on the significance and history of this episode from a production standpoint, so far be it from me to try and outdo them. If you want an in-depth exploration of the creation of this show, check out my Sources page and dig in. Here’s a rundown of a few important facts about this episode:

•This is the first appearance of William Hartnell, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, and Jacqueline Hill as The Doctor, Susan, Ian, and Barbara, respectively.

•It’s also the first episode produced by Verity Lambert, considered one of the most influential women in all of sci-fi history thanks to her contributions to this show.

•It’s the first appearance of David Whitaker, this time as story editor. Whitaker was crucial in the early years, writing and editing from this episode, off and on through to the Third Doctor.

•This is also the only story (with 100,000 BC included) written by Anthony Coburn, who actually had four serials planned for this first season but left after the other three stories were rejected, among other creative differences.

Opinion: Obviously this episode means a lot to me, just like it does to anyone with an appreciation of this show. I first watched this in 2012 out of sheer curiosity about the origins of my (then) new favorite show. The thing that struck me as cool then and fills me with Nerd Love™ now is the fact that so many things from this episode are still used or iconic in the show today. They set up the Doctor and Susan’s backstory in 1963 and over 53 years later Susan’s picture sits on the Doctor’s desk in the series 10 eisode “The Pilot,” with no explanation as to who she is because anyone who knows anything about Classic Who knows about Susan. The original TARDIS console is so memorable that they brought it back in the 50th anniversary special and several times since. This episode gets more and more important and dear to me with every rewatch, especially as I delve deeper into Classic Who, and I’d gladly recommend it to anyone who’s watched a good bit of New Who and wants to explore the old stuff. However, don’t make the mistake I did the first time I dove into Classic Who and continue after this by finishing the serial, because the Tribe of Gum may catch you in their sticky wad of suck and sour you on Who altogether. IN lieu of watching it, just read my next post on 100,000 BC.

Favorite Trivia:

•Ratings were astronomically low on this episode in particular because it got ignored in favor of news coverage of the JFK assassination that’d happened the day before.

•The iconic TARDIS sound that it makes as it travels was made by the maager of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop scraping his house keys on the wires of a studio piano.

•A young actress named Anneke Wills was supposed to audition for Susan, but never showed up because her agent forgot to tell her about it. This ends up working out well, though, because she goes on to play fellow First Doctor companion Polly.

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Every Doctor Who Story from An Unearthly Child (1963) - World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls (2017).

I figured that now we’ve reached the end of Series Ten, I should update this to include all of this year’s stories!

cc. @bbcamerica @bbcone 

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The crafting of posts begins today... if you're interested in Doctor Who, definitely look into this blog. I'll be starting with Classic Who, and I'll be putting some semi-detailed recaps of the serials for those of you who aren't able or interested in watching all the way through seven episodes of Classic Who three times a week so you can keep up. I'll also be including any background info or trivia I can find, as well as my opinion on the episode since that's essentially the point of this whole blog. There will also be dumb memes at every available opportunity. I'm already building a collection of them.

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So I was going through the first few seasons of the first doctor, trying to get a backlog of stuff ready so I can start this blog proper when I move up to Alaska. I got to The Romans and couldn't unsee this.