An Unearthly Child: The Unscreened Edition (comic story)

An Unearthly Child: The Unscreened Edition
Doctor:	First Doctor
Companion(s):	Susan, Ian, Barbara
Featuring:	Old Mother
Main enemy:	Tribe of Gum
Main setting:	London, November 1963; Earth, 1 million BC, Earth-33⅓
Key crew
Publisher:	Marvel Comics
Writer:	Tim Quinn
Artist:	Dicky Howett
Release details
Number of parts:	1
Printed in:	DWMS Winter 1983/84
Release date:	1983
Reprinted in:	DW84 23, It's Even Bigger on the Inside
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An Unearthly Child: The Unscreened Edition was a comic story by Tim Quinn and Dicky Howett included in the DWMS Winter 1983/84.

Summary

The First Doctor and Susan flee 20th century London with two of her teachers and travel back in time to the Stone Age.

Characters

• First Doctor
• Susan Foreman
• Ian Chesterton
• Barbara Wright
• George Dixon
• Policeman
• Susan Foreman's grandmother
• Raquel Welch
• Old Mother
• Tribe of Gum

Worldbuilding

• Dixon informs an unseen audience that a police officer's job doesn't end when he goes off duty and that a cry for help can come any time of the day or night. He mentions his chief, Detective Inspector Andy Pandy, before it is realised the crew is filming in the wrong studio, and a cut to camera three is made.
• Coal Hill School's postcode is SW1.
• Cheap BBC fog is used in the opening scene with Ian and Barbara.
• Ian loses his place in the script multiple times.
• Ian and Barbara talk in the Coal Hill Staff Common Room. On the notice board, there is information about football and athletics.
• Barbara notes that Susan is the only one that doesn't dress like a Beatle and that she instead follows Duran Duran, which hasn't been invented yet.
• Recycled ITV fog is used when Ian and Barbara are in their car.
• Ian thinks Susan lives on Barnes Common but Barbara knows it is Totter's Lane. She informs Ian Susan only lives on Barnes Common in the David Whitaker book version. He quips, "it's the first programme and the continuity is already botched".
• The Doctor runs the Foreman For Scrap business out of a junkyard. He drives a lorry into the TARDIS. The Flying Scotsman with the words "Duncan the Dragon" on it also enters, albeit slightly late.
• The Doctor offers to sell Ian a hardly-used fridge or a nice kitchen chair.
• As Ian enters the TARDIS, he notes it's bigger on the inside and Susan claims it is the decor that gives it a feeling of space while the Doctor offers him tea.
• The dematerialisation of the TARDIS is done through a BBC special effect. The Doctor does this to escape Susan's grandmother who wants her housekeeping completed.
• Old Mother claims her chilblains have chilblains.
• One member of the tribe invents bedsocks.
• The Fifth Doctor's head is among the skulls owned by the tribe.
• Another member of the tribe thinks Old Mother is conversing with the giant blue god but the TARDIS just landed on her foot.
• Ian is personal friends with Jacqueline Pearce.
• Ian thinks the Doctor is an inventor, but he has the wrong script again; this time, the TV Comic version.
• The Doctor believes the story padding will remain the same for the next twenty years.
• The Doctor can't give the tribe the secret of fire so presents them with Raquel Welch instead.
• Raquel asks where the local hairdresser is because her wig is in a mess.
• The Doctor tells the girls they can stop screaming, but they tell him that they are just rehearsing their lines for the next story and the one after that and the one after that.

Notes

• As a result of featuring George Dixon, this story is a crossover with Dixon of Dock Green.
• The story was colourised in DW84 23. It was reprinted in DWMS Winter 1983/84's original black-and-white for It's Even Bigger on the Inside, and in colour again for Who's 60?