Doctor Who Season 1 - in review
When I first started writing up my thoughts about Classic Doctor Who serials, I did so in a very off-the-cuff manner, jumping around from era to era as the whim struck, in most cases offering little more than first impressions, without much depth of analysis. Then recently I decided to revisit the Doctor's first ever season in a more structured manner, watching and reviewing each serial in sequence. I reviewed a story I hadn't previously written about (Marco Polo), re-wrote two reviews from scratch (An Unearthly Child and The Daleks) and refreshed and revised the rest, with an especial focus on story progression and character development - this is the masterpost for those season one reviews.
The first season of Doctor Who is made up of 42 episodes, 8 serials - and one long ongoing story in which the coming and going of the various individual adventures is rather less important than the question raised in the first episode, asked by the Doctor shortly after Ian and Barbara entered the TARDIS for the first time. "The point is not whether you understand," he said. "What is going to happen to you?" Every episode of every adventure they have been through during this first season asks that same question; those two characters, perfectly ordinary people from contemporary London, have stepped through the Looking Glass into Wonderland, in effect, and this is the story of what happens to them on the other side.
The current fashion for TV shows is for a variety of 'arcs', both plot- and character-based, to play out over the course of each season, with clearly defined start and finishing points. Well, in 1963-4 there was no such thing as an 'arc', the term hadn't been invented, but what Doctor Who had in this its first ever season was progression, progression of both the characters and the story of their adventures together. There was no such thing as a standalone episode, or even a standalone adventure, because the show as a whole was one long ongoing story which was constantly moving forward. Each episode builds on what has come before, while the relationship between the characters evolves constantly and naturally over the course of the season, as they get to know one another better and learn from their experiences.
This is vintage television and it shows, of course it does. The production values are primitive, the narrative style outdated and the acting theatrical, all of which can appear alien to our modern sensibilities, accustomed as we are to watching shows that conform to more up-to-date values and fashions. Yet if you look past those surface drawbacks to the story being told and to the characters at the heart of that story, the 42-episode season as a whole really is gripping and wonderful to watch.
1.01 An Unearthly Child
1.02 The Daleks
1.03 Edge of Destruction
1.04 Marco Polo
1.05 The Keys of Marinus
1.06 The Aztecs
1.07 The Sensorites
1.08 The Reign of Terror
The first season of Doctor Who is made up of 42 episodes, 8 serials - and one long ongoing story in which the coming and going of the various individual adventures is rather less important than the question raised in the first episode, asked by the Doctor shortly after Ian and Barbara entered the TARDIS for the first time. "The point is not whether you understand," he said. "What is going to happen to you?" Every episode of every adventure they have been through during this first season asks that same question; those two characters, perfectly ordinary people from contemporary London, have stepped through the Looking Glass into Wonderland, in effect, and this is the story of what happens to them on the other side.
The current fashion for TV shows is for a variety of 'arcs', both plot- and character-based, to play out over the course of each season, with clearly defined start and finishing points. Well, in 1963-4 there was no such thing as an 'arc', the term hadn't been invented, but what Doctor Who had in this its first ever season was progression, progression of both the characters and the story of their adventures together. There was no such thing as a standalone episode, or even a standalone adventure, because the show as a whole was one long ongoing story which was constantly moving forward. Each episode builds on what has come before, while the relationship between the characters evolves constantly and naturally over the course of the season, as they get to know one another better and learn from their experiences.
This is vintage television and it shows, of course it does. The production values are primitive, the narrative style outdated and the acting theatrical, all of which can appear alien to our modern sensibilities, accustomed as we are to watching shows that conform to more up-to-date values and fashions. Yet if you look past those surface drawbacks to the story being told and to the characters at the heart of that story, the 42-episode season as a whole really is gripping and wonderful to watch.
1.01 An Unearthly Child
1.02 The Daleks
1.03 Edge of Destruction
1.04 Marco Polo
1.05 The Keys of Marinus
1.06 The Aztecs
1.07 The Sensorites
1.08 The Reign of Terror