{"id":280,"date":"2011-04-18T13:00:46","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T20:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=280"},"modified":"2011-04-17T13:47:16","modified_gmt":"2011-04-17T20:47:16","slug":"mark-watches-doctor-who-an-unearthly-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2011\/04\/mark-watches-doctor-who-an-unearthly-child\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Doctor Who’: An Unearthly Child"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the very first serial of Doctor Who<\/em> ever, the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first two companions follow his granddaughter into the TARDIS, where he proceeds to yell at them and then kidnap them and then take them to meet cavemen. Honestly, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what happens. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re intrigued, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Doctor<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to know where a series comes from, and I think that, rather naturally, the whole Mark Does Stuff idea facilitates that nicely. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always been the kind of person who wants a complete<\/em> picture of something. When I listen to music, I listen to full records. When I like I band, I find everything<\/em> they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve released and I organize my vinyl records at home by band and then the order those records were released. I find the concept of serialized fiction, either books or television or films, to be endlessly entertaining. I like the idea that an entire world can become so expansive and detailed that years or numerous novels can be spent exploring it.<\/p>\n

When I first decided I was going to tackle Doctor Who<\/em>, sometime in the fall of 2010, I initially thought it would be absurdly fun to watch all<\/em> of it: All forty-seven years of the show, in order, from beginning to end. At the time, I had no idea that so much of the show was missing, or that there was so much<\/em> that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to tackle. I knew there was a long break before the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new\u00e2\u20ac\u009d series started, but I thought it was much longer than it was. I initially didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know any episodes of the show were produced in the 80s!<\/p>\n

While I have always started at the beginning, I made a decision that maybe the sheer volume and challenge was a bit too<\/em> much for me to try to accomplish, as I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to spend so much time on one series. I worried that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get bored with the show. (LOL NOT POSSIBLE<\/strong>) I worried that after having left Buzznet to start my own site, I would lose my audience if I was on the same series for over a year. (Also not the case, as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m discovering that I exist in some weird vacuum of fandom, with people coming and go between the two sites I run based on what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing, with some people re-appearing since I finished Harry Potter<\/em> now that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing Avatar<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very, very satisfied that I started with the new series and that I became so quickly obsessed with Doctor Who<\/em>, that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten the chance to watch some truly incredible serials from the classic series, that I can continue to watch serials and review them in the future, and that in exactly a week, I will be POSTING A REVIEW FOR SERIES SIX. A;DKFJA ;LSKJFA;DSKLFJAS ;FDLK<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Sidenote: Who do I know in the Bay Area who has BBC America? I have no cable and it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look like iTunes is putting up the episodes the day after they are. TRAGEDY. I CANNOT MISS THIS<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

So, given this lengthy introduction, I wanted to lead this all into a statement I probably should have made at the beginning: Boy, is it fucking weird<\/em> to watch the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153first\u00e2\u20ac\u009d episode so long after I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve started a project. I mean, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think of doing this with anything<\/em> else. (Well\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6wait. Wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there an original Battlestar Galactica<\/em> series? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m probably going to skip that. SO MUCH FOR THIS STATEMENT.)<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really happy I watched \u00e2\u20ac\u0153An Unearthly Child.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That statement has no real qualifier. I am! I mean, parts two through four are pretty awful<\/em> and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even care! I mean, this shit was made in 1963 and there are large parts of it that still hold up well almost forty-eight years later.<\/p>\n

The condition of this serial in terms of quality is what most surprised me. I think that perhaps the show\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s creators wanted to do a serial that wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so heavy on special effects for this introduction to the show, so, for good and bad, a lot of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153An Unearthly Child\u00e2\u20ac\u009d deals with dialogue. I mean, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not unlike<\/em> the show in general. Nearly every classic serial I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen has a lot of talking. Well\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.a lot of the new episodes do to. The Doctor likes to talk, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t he?<\/p>\n

Here we also see so many of the seeds sown for what would become staples of the series, and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to find a way to express how exciting this was. The first time we see the TARDIS! Time travel! Smarmy dialogue! Dapper outfits! Companions! Oh god, THIS IS SO COOL. This is literally<\/em> the first time these things ever appeared on screen! NERDGASM!<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about the First Doctor, William Hartnell. I want to see more of his era, as I imagine he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s developed a lot further than what I saw in these four episodes, but holy shit. He is such a douchebag<\/strong>. I guess I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m used to the Doctor being so silly<\/em> and sarcastic<\/em> about his knowledge of time and space, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m used to him joking with humans when they first meet him, a sort of playful toying with their emotions. I understand that Ian and Barbara do follow Susan \u00e2\u20ac\u0153home\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and basically break into the junkyard in order to find out what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing. I mean, who wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be peeved at that? But the Doctor, for the entirety of this serial, is pretty much openly hostile to Ian and Barbara. I could understand it at the start, but it continues. First, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re being rude and trespassing. Then they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not smart enough. Then they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re too close-minded. Then they KNOW TOO MUCH. (Thankfully, no one actually says<\/em> this, but isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that basically the scenario here? The Doctor can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let them go because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen too much<\/em>. So allow me to show you even more, perpetuating this ridiculous cycle<\/strong><\/em>.) Then they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re too friendly. Then the Doctor tries to smash Za\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head in???? WHAT????<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hoping that I am making these statements out of pure ignorance. (You will never see those typed words again.) Somewhere along the way, the Doctor had to evolve into the more nuanced, humorous, and curious figure that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen along the way. Unless this is<\/em> Hartnell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Doctor? Unless something happened to make<\/em> him this bitter and cynical? Maybe? There are hints of some sort of story about why he and Susan are traveling on their own, and I actually don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what other information we learn over the course of the First Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tenure. (THAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S KIND OF EXCITING, SO DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T SPOIL THIS FOR ME.)<\/p>\n

Either way, I do have to admit that if this was the first I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d seen of the show, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m definitely left wanting more. Who is this man? Why does he travel through time and space? Where are he and Susan actually<\/em> from? Does the TARDIS actually change form over the course of the whole series? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mentioned here that it is supposed to change with the surroundings, but it seems to have gotten stuck.<\/p>\n

The first fourth of this serial is pretty fantastic, I must say. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exciting and weird and kind of abrasive and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re left wondering at the end of the first part: Where on earth is he taking them? Then you have to correct yourself because even that<\/em> phrase doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t apply to the Doctor. He can travel to other places off Earth! Seriously, WHERE IS MY TARDIS.<\/p>\n

From here on out\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6man, this is one of the strangest stories that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever seen Doctor Who<\/em> do. When I say that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s awful, I mean that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really not much that I may have enjoyed unironically. (Does that make me a Doctor Who<\/em> hipster? A Whopster?) The cave men and women we see for the next three parts talk a lot. THEY DO A LOT OF TALKING. A lot of their conversations are brunt and kind of absurd. How do they understand the intrinsic complications of leadership and inter-party politics, but they cannot comprehend the very concept of friendship?<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a really common thing that happens on television and in movies, where overly complicated and ridiculously dramatic plots seem to take place because the characters on screen simply don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take ten seconds out of their day to just state the obvious or be direct. I cannot tell you how many times during the parts two and three that I yelled JUST START A GODDAMN FIRE at any of our time travelers. There were numerous moments where they were alone or not preoccupied and if this tribe of people wanted and feared fire, COULDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T YOU HAVE STARTED ONE HOURS EARLIER?<\/p>\n

Unlike virtually every Doctor that comes after him, the First Doctor seems intent on doing one of three things:<\/p>\n

1)\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Getting the fuck<\/em> away from this place.<\/p>\n

2)\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Not getting involved in any way, shape, or form.<\/p>\n

3)\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Insulting any and every thing that is a living organism.<\/p>\n

I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m seeing a very small portrait here, one that will be developed and changed, with a character who will grow and adapt and become something so different, but good lord, the Doctor is so distracting<\/em> throughout this story. Sometimes I feel that Susan, Ian, and Barbara (especially those last two) were the ones trying to save everyone while the Doctor just puttered about. And smoked sand? What the hell did he put into that pipe?<\/p>\n

Like other stories we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d see in the future, the Doctor and his companions are essentially thrust into a civil war of sorts here in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153An Unearthly Child,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t commented much about the plot itself. I know it sounds like I hated this serial, but I honestly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t! It sort of became like an alternate Mystery Science Theatre 3000<\/em> for me, as I yelled shit at the screen and laughed and groaned. Truthfully, I actually had a great time watching this serial. But I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore that aside from all of that, the plot of this story bored me. It did! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sorry, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how I felt. So much violence and nonsensical posturing over fire<\/em>. Fire that could have taken like five seconds to create?<\/p>\n

But if they had taken the easy way out, I would not have seen:<\/p>\n