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{{you may|BC#Prehistory|n1=the year 100,000 BC|100,000 BC (TARDIS data log)|n2=the TARDIS data log}} | |||
'''''An Unearthly Child''''' was the first serial of [[season 1 (Doctor Who 1963)|season one]] of ''[[Doctor Who (TV series)|Doctor Who]]''. It was the first televised ''Doctor Who'' [[serial]] and the beginning of the ''Doctor Who'' franchise in general. | '''''An Unearthly Child''''' was the first serial of [[season 1 (Doctor Who 1963)|season one]] of ''[[Doctor Who (TV series)|Doctor Who]]''. It was the first televised ''Doctor Who'' [[serial]] and the beginning of the ''Doctor Who'' franchise in general. | ||
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A tribe of cavemen is gathered around one of their members, [[Za]]. Za is the son of [[The Firemaker|the tribe's previous leader]], who never taught his son the secret of making [[fire]]. As Za futilely tries to make fire, [[Old Mother|a female tribe elder]] throws scorn on Za's abilities and states that [[Kal]], a stranger from another tribe, would be a far better leader. This frustrates Za. [[Hur]], a young cavewoman, tries to pacify him but also warns him that if he loses his position as the leader of the tribe he will lose her; her father is intent on her bearing children for the leader. | A tribe of cavemen is gathered around one of their members, [[Za]]. Za is the son of [[The Firemaker|the tribe's previous leader]], who never taught his son the secret of making [[fire]]. As Za futilely tries to make fire, [[Old Mother|a female tribe elder]] throws scorn on Za's abilities and states that [[Kal]], a stranger from another tribe, would be a far better leader. This frustrates Za. [[Hur]], a young cavewoman, tries to pacify him but also warns him that if he loses his position as the leader of the tribe he will lose her; her father is intent on her bearing children for the leader. | ||
Back at the TARDIS, [[Ian Chesterton|Ian]] and [[Barbara Wright|Barbara]] regain consciousness to find the Doctor and [[Susan Foreman|Susan]] puzzled over readings displayed on the TARDIS' main console. The Doctor tells them they have gone back in time. This annoys Ian, who demands concrete proof. The Doctor opens the door, revealing the barren desert, and all four go outside. The Doctor professes confusion as to why the TARDIS has retained the shape of a [[police box]]. Ian apologises to Susan and Barbara for stubbornly disbelieving the Doctor's story. Susan is also surprised that the TARDIS is still in the shape of a police box. The Doctor is elsewhere, looking for samples of rocks and plants to estimate the current date when the caveman who was watching the TARDIS sneaks up on him and attacks him. His three companions hear him shout and run to his rescue. When they get there, all they find is the Doctor's bag, hat, and Geiger counter smashed. Susan hysterically runs off to look for him. Ian and Barbara soon follow but not before Ian finds the sand is freezing cold. | Back at the TARDIS, [[Ian Chesterton|Ian]] and [[Barbara Wright|Barbara]] regain consciousness to find the Doctor and [[Susan Foreman|Susan]] puzzled over readings displayed on the TARDIS's main console. The Doctor tells them they have gone back in time. This annoys Ian, who demands concrete proof. The Doctor opens the door, revealing the barren desert, and all four go outside. The Doctor professes confusion as to why the TARDIS has retained the shape of a [[police box]]. Ian apologises to Susan and Barbara for stubbornly disbelieving the Doctor's story. Susan is also surprised that the TARDIS is still in the shape of a police box. The Doctor is elsewhere, looking for samples of rocks and plants to estimate the current date when the caveman who was watching the TARDIS sneaks up on him and attacks him. His three companions hear him shout and run to his rescue. When they get there, all they find is the Doctor's bag, hat, and Geiger counter smashed. Susan hysterically runs off to look for him. Ian and Barbara soon follow but not before Ian finds the sand is freezing cold. | ||
[[File:Ian shocked outside TARDIS CaveofSkulls.jpg|thumb|Ian stunned by his new surroundings.]] | [[File:Ian shocked outside TARDIS CaveofSkulls.jpg|thumb|Ian stunned by his new surroundings.]] | ||
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* This story is also known as ''100,000 BC'', ''The Tribe of Gum'', ''The Firemakers'' and ''The Cavemen''. See [[disputed story titles]] for more information. | * This story is also known as ''100,000 BC'', ''The Tribe of Gum'', ''The Firemakers'' and ''The Cavemen''. See [[disputed story titles]] for more information. | ||
* At no point is the name "[[Tribe of Gum]]" uttered on screen. The working title of ''The Tribe of Gum'' originated in earlier drafts of the script where the character of Kal was instead called Gum. The name was later used to describe the tribe in the 1994 novel ''[[Venusian Lullaby (novel)|Venusian Lullaby]]'' and in their second major appearance, the comic story ''[[Hunters of the Burning Stone (comic story)|Hunters of the Burning Stone]]''. | * At no point is the name "[[Tribe of Gum]]" uttered on screen. The working title of ''The Tribe of Gum'' originated in earlier drafts of the script where the character of Kal was instead called Gum. The name was later used to describe the tribe in the 1994 novel ''[[Venusian Lullaby (novel)|Venusian Lullaby]]'' and in their second major appearance, the comic story ''[[Hunters of the Burning Stone (comic story)|Hunters of the Burning Stone]]''. | ||
* The episodes of this story went by different titles during the production stage. Working titles included "Nothing | * The episodes of this story went by different titles during the production stage. Working titles included "Nothing at the End of the Lane" for the first episode; the second episode was entitled "The Firemaker"; the third episode was called "The Cave of Skulls"; and the fourth episode was entitled "The Dawn of Knowledge". | ||
* All episodes exist as [[Telerecording|16mm telerecordings]] and are held in the [[BBC Film and Videotape Library|BBC's Film and Videotape Library]]. | * All episodes exist as [[Telerecording|16mm telerecordings]] and are held in the [[BBC Film and Videotape Library|BBC's Film and Videotape Library]]. | ||
* A [[Untitled (1963 trailer)|trailer]] was filmed for this story. | * A [[Untitled (1963 trailer)|trailer]] was filmed for this story. | ||
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== Continuity == | == Continuity == | ||
* [[Susan Foreman]] expresses her appreciation for the band [[John Smith and the Common Men]], whose front man [[Ian Chesteron]] informs her changed his name from [[Aubrey Waites]], who previously fronted [[Chris Waites and the Carrollers]] under another alias. The Common Men would become central to the story [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|1963: Fanfare for the Common Men (audio story)}}, which incidentally revealed that Susan had kept a John Smith and the Common Men album aboard the TARDIS; it is stated that the First Doctor did not like it much but that he came to enjoy the group's music by the time of his [[Fifth Doctor|fifth incarnation]]. | |||
* Both aliases of Aubrey Waites would go on to be referenced in the set design of [[TV]]: {{cs|The Devil's Chord (TV story)}}. | |||
* A licensed mention of Aubrey Waites was also included in the novella [[PROSE]]: {{cs|Esquivalience (novel)|<nowiki>{{esquivalience}}</nowiki>}}, which placed considerable emphasis on a song cowritten by Waites, ''[[The Twist at the End]]''. | |||
* The [[First Doctor]] tells [[Ian Chesterton]] and [[Barbara Wright]] that he and Susan are cut off from their "own planet". This planet would eventually be seen in [[TV]]: {{cs|The War Games (TV story)}}, and identified by name as [[Gallifrey]] in [[TV]]: {{cs|The Time Warrior (TV story)}}. ''The War Games'' suggested the Doctor had left of his own free will due to being bored with his existence on his home planet, only becoming a wanted criminal by dint of having run away and stolen a TARDIS; many other stories, however, gave their own account of [[the Doctor and Susan's escape from Gallifrey]], such as [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Beginning (audio story)}} — depicting or hinting at more complicated motives better in keeping with the First Doctor's implication in this story that he and Susan are unwilling exiles. [[TV]]: {{cs|Twice Upon a Time (TV story)}} would see the First Doctor vaguely state that he had "many pressing reasons" for leaving. | |||
* [[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Little Things (short story)}} featured the Doctor and Susan's immediately previous TARDIS landing before settling in 1963 Shoreditch, with them travelling to [[St Albans]] on [[17 December]] [[1997]] to ensure that the [[United Kingdom]] would remain safe during and after the [[1960s]]. The story also saw the [[Fourth Doctor]] and his companions [[Romana II]] and [[K9 Mark II|K9]] happening to be in the vicinity on the same day, though the Doctor's earlier self didn't become aware of their presence, keeping history unchanged. | |||
* Different sources give different lengths for the Doctor and Susan's stay in 1960s London. Susan says in this story that "the last five months have been the happiest of my life". This is supported by [[COMIC]]: {{cs|Operation Proteus (comic story)}}, set in October, in which their arrival was detected "four months ago". However, in [[PROSE]]: {{cs|Matrix (novel)}} the Doctor says that "for six months it was perfect"; [[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Rag & Bone Man's Story (short story)}} states that the Doctor had been paying rent for "the last nine months"; and in [[PROSE]]: {{cs|Time and Relative (novel)}}, Susan claims in a March journal entry that they've been in 1963 for "five months", making their total stay thirteen months. | |||
* [[TV]]: {{cs|Remembrance of the Daleks (TV story)}} saw the [[Seventh Doctor]] return, with [[Ace]], to the setting of the first episode of this story, [[Shoreditch]]; the story revealed some of the secret business the Doctor had been up to while Susan was at school, which involved seeing to it that the [[Hand of Omega]] was buried in Shoreditch Cemetery. The Doctor's ultimate agenda turned out to be luring the [[Dalek]]s to Earth to steal the Hand of Omega, which had been rigged to destroy [[Skaro]] when they tried to use it; however, this would imply that the First Doctor of ''An Unearthly Child'' already knew of the Daleks, and was merely faking his unfamiliarity with them in [[TV]]: {{cs|The Daleks (TV story)}}. Due to the perceived radicalism of this retcon, other stories would go on to depict the First Doctor's part of the scheme as more tentative, with him uncertain of the purpose to which his future self would eventually put the hand. | |||
* [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wanderer (audio story)}} saw [[Grigori Rasputin]] foreseeing Ian and Barbara's first meeting with the Doctor in Totter's Lane in 1963, among other future events. | |||
* Various stories depicted the Doctor returning to [[76 Totter's Lane]] at later points in their timeline: | |||
** [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Perpetual Bond (audio story)}} had the First Doctor return in the company of [[Steven Taylor]] in 1966, shortly before meeting his new companion [[Oliver Harper]]. | |||
** [[PROSE]]: {{cs|Those Left Behind (short story)}} depicted the Fourth Doctor returning to Totter's Lane almost immediately after his older self left, to take care of an alien insect he'd been tracking as the First Doctor when Ian and Barbara interrupted his work. The story also featured him meeting [[Debbie (Those Left Behind)|Debbie]], one of Susan's friends from school, and making her aware of her friend's fate. | |||
** [[TV]]: {{cs|Attack of the Cybermen (TV story)}} saw the [[Sixth Doctor]] returning to the junkyard in [[1985]], though the Doctor was comically unaware of the location's significance. | |||
** [[TV]]: {{cs|Remembrance of the Daleks (TV story)}}, as documented above, saw the Seventh Doctor visiting Shoreditch again to take care of some unfinished business to do with the Hand of Omega. The story centred on [[Coal Hill School]], and Susan's history book was seen lying around in a direct nod to the events of the episode. | |||
** [[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Eight Doctors (novel)}} revealed that the junkyard was the [[Eighth Doctor]]'s first destination after leaving [[San Francisco]] in [[TV]]: {{cs|Doctor Who (TV story)}}, leading directly to his meeting his first long-term [[companion]], [[Sam Jones]]. The book gradually reveals that the Doctor, whose memories had been erased by a trap left by [[the Master (The TV Movie)|the Master]], had been trying to return to the junkyard during his earlier self's stay, so as to copy his memories and thus restore part of his own — only to get the timing wrong due to his mentally debilitated condition. | |||
* Also in [[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Eight Doctors (novel)}}, the amnesiac [[Eighth Doctor]] briefly visits prehistoric Earth and happens upon his younger self, whom he talks out of killing the caveman with a rock. | |||
* In [[TV]]: {{cs|The Devil's Chord (TV story)}}, the [[Fifteenth Doctor]] and [[Ruby Sunday]] travel back to 1963 London, but, although the Doctor points out his earlier self's residence from afar, he declines to go and say hello, fearful of causing a destructive paradox. | |||
* [[COMIC]]: {{cs|Hunters of the Burning Stone (comic story)}} served as a sequel to this story, featuring the [[Eleventh Doctor]] meeting 1960s versions of [[Ian Chesterton]] and [[Barbara Wright]] again, but also briefly going back to 1963 and becoming responsible for the breakdown of the [[chameleon circuit]]. The story's antagonists were the [[Tribe of Gum]]. | |||
* [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Harvest (audio story)}} revealed that by [[2021]], Totter's Lane was a commercially zoned area of Shoreditch which was mostly made up of office blocks. A car park had been built on the former location of the junkyard. | |||
* The events of this story are stated in [[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Cabinet of Light (novel)}} to have been "passed down as a trickster myth". | |||
* Two quotes from this story appeared in [[TV]]: {{cs|Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS (TV story)}} as echoes from the Doctor's past leaking back into his mind due to the temporal leakage within the damaged TARDIS. One of those voices was Susan saying "I made up the name 'TARDIS' from the initials: Time and Relative Dimension In Space". Another voice was Ian asking, "A thing that looks like a police box, standing in a junkyard, it can move anywhere in time and space?" | |||
* In [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Sontarans (audio story)}}, the Doctor reminisces about Ian talking him out of killing the caveman for his own gain. | |||
* The Doctor states "Fear makes companions of all of us". [[Clara Oswald]] would later quote this sentiment to [[the Doctor's early life|the child Doctor]] sleeping in the [[Barn (The Day of the Doctor)|barn]] in [[TV]]: {{cs|Listen (TV story)}}, leading to the possible interpretation that the events of ''An Unearthly Child'' form a [[time loop]] with this much later interference in the time-streams, with the First Doctor subconsciously quoting Clara quoting the future Doctor. Although this is logically paradoxical, and would contradict the many depictions of series of events proceeding from ''An Unearthly Child'' in which the [[Twelfth Doctor]] never comes to be, such infinitely recursive causal loops are sometimes depicted as possible in the [[Doctor Who universe|''Doctor Who'' universe]] in the works of [[Steven Moffat]]. | |||
* One of the interludes in [[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Knight, The Fool and The Dead (novel)}} revealed that, whilst trapped in the Cave of Skulls and preparing to trick the cavemen into believing they have become fire demons, Barbara tells the [[Brothers Grimm]] tale of [[Godfather Death|''Godfather Death'']]. The Eighth Doctor would later tell the same story to [[Brian the Ood]], and the Ninth to [[Rose Tyler|Rose]]. | |||
* The end of this story leads directly into [[TV]]: {{cs|The Daleks (TV story)}}. | * The end of this story leads directly into [[TV]]: {{cs|The Daleks (TV story)}}. | ||
== Home video and audio releases == | == Home video and audio releases == | ||
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==== Special Features ==== | ==== Special Features ==== | ||
* Commentaries (moderated by [[Gary Russell]]): | * Commentaries (moderated by [[Gary Russell]]): | ||
** [[The Pilot Episode |Pilot Episode]]: [[Verity Lambert]] & [[Waris Hussein]] | ** [[The Pilot Episode|Pilot Episode]]: [[Verity Lambert]] & [[Waris Hussein]] | ||
** Episode 1 - An Unearthly Child: [[William Russell]], [[Carole Ann Ford]] & Verity Lambert | ** Episode 1 - An Unearthly Child: [[William Russell]], [[Carole Ann Ford]] & Verity Lambert | ||
** Episode 4 - The Firemaker: William Russell, Carole Ann Ford & Waris Hussein | ** Episode 4 - The Firemaker: William Russell, Carole Ann Ford & Waris Hussein | ||
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{{DWTV}} | {{DWTV}} | ||
{{TitleSort}} | {{TitleSort}} | ||
[[cs:100 000 př.n.l. (TV příběh)]] | |||
[[cy:An Unearthly Child (stori deledu)]] | |||
[[de:001 - An Unearthly Child]] | |||
[[es:An Unearthly Child]] | |||
[[fr:An Unearthly Child (TV)]] | |||
[[he:ילד לא ארצי]] | |||
[[nl:An Unearthly Child]] | |||
[[pl:An Unearthly Child]] | |||
[[pt:An Unearthly Child]] | |||
[[ru:Неземное дитя]] | |||
[[uk:Неземне дитя]] | |||
[[Category:Doctor Who (1963) television stories]] | [[Category:Doctor Who (1963) television stories]] | ||
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[[Category:New Beginnings television stories]] | [[Category:New Beginnings television stories]] | ||
[[Category:An Introduction To The First Doctor television stories]] | [[Category:An Introduction To The First Doctor television stories]] | ||