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the_gob's review
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
The first Doctor Who story that sets up a well-loved science fiction TV series.
modernzorker's review
5.0
It was only earlier this year that I got my hands on a DVD containing the first three Doctor Who stories broadcast. Having been a fan of the series since the 80's beginning with the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) era, this was quite exciting. I watched An Unearthly Child and found myself mesmerized by the first episode.
As a brief aside: if you aren't familiar with the television format of Classic Who, stories were broadcast as multi-part serials, with a new installment appearing every week. Thus, while An Unearthly Child is one story, it's made up of four separate episodes, each meant to fill a 25-minute time slot. Early home video releases and US television broadcasts were usually edited to clip the extraneous closings, credit scrolls, openings, and recaps so they can be watched from start to finish as a single, uninterrupted experience, but the DVD releases have these cliffhangers and recaps intact to recreate the original experience of watching the program at home. Pretty nifty!
Watching the premiere episode of Doctor Who, in all its black and white glory, is a magnificent experience, not just for the historical aspect of what you're watching, but also for the incredible atmosphere and even sense of dread it manages to conjure up. The episode opens on a deserted, fog-enshrouded London street where a lone patrolman walks his beat, inspecting storefronts, shining his flashlight (er, sorry, 'torch') into shadowy spaces, and in general making sure all is well with his area. He takes a brief glance into a scrapyard, owned by one "I.M. Foreman, Scrap Merchant", moves his light over the assorted piles of trash/treasure, and lingers with slight confusion on a police call box before closing the door and continuing on his route.
It's eerie. The darkness in black and white productions is always so crisp and absolute, the whiteness of the fog contrasting with the stark shadows. From the first frame, Doctor Who establishes itself as a program where anything could happen. It's a marvelous introduction to the series, and I'm pleased to see it repeated so well in the novel, where Terrance Dicks gets inside the policeman's head as he performs his rounds. The sight of the police box prompts him to think about the rumors going around about how one day every man on the force would have his own portable walkie-talkie radio, which would make the call boxes obsolete. He discards that idea like rubbish, then goes on about his business, leaving the scrapyard.
Dicks departs from the teleplay by describing how the next day, while performing his rounds and inspecting the scrap yard again, the officer notices the police call box missing and wonders, briefly, if it was somehow connected to the disappearance of the scrap yard proprietor, his granddaughter, and two teachers from the local school. He waves off the thought though:
Dicks stays fairly true to the script from that point on, introducing three of the four main characters over the next couple of pages. We meet Susan Foreman, a young woman of roughly 15 years of age, along with Ian Chesterton her science teacher, and Barbara Wright her history instructor. Barbara's been trying to figure Susan out for some time now. She can't put her finger on what it is exactly, but there's something off about Susan. She knows far too much about some things that should be beyond her comprehension, and not enough about the sorts of everyday things you'd expect a fifteen year old girl to be on top of. Finally tonight her curiosity boils over, and after telling Susan to wait while she retrieves a book on the French Revolution for her, Barbara heads to Ian's classroom to talk it over with him.
Ian feels the same way. Half the time, he says he feels like Susan's the one teaching him about math and science. She also has strange notions about the fourth and fifth dimensions, stuff far too advanced for a girl her age, and she's utterly against having visitors over, claiming her grandfather doesn't care for strangers. Barbara hatches a plan to follow Susan home and see where she lives (the address on file with the school is a junkyard with no apparent place of residence), then make sure she's OK.
What follows begins an incredible adventure that captured the imagination of the public so vividly that it's still around today. Ian and Barbara follow Susan, meet her grumbling grandfather, and wind up inside the police box sitting in the scrap yard (which is, of course, bigger on the inside since it's a TARDIS...). Refusing to release the two teachers, this mysterious individual who doesn't answer to 'Foreman', just 'Doctor', sets his craft in motion to travel through time and space and prove to the poor instructors he isn't the crazy, brain-addled old man they believe him to be.
The only thing is, this TARDIS is touchy and temperamental much like its owner. Some of its bits and bobs don't work like they should, especially the chameleon circuitry, which is meant to camouflage it against casual observation. The crew wind up far in the past, in the time of primitive man where savage beasts roam the forests, caves are the best form of shelter, and fire is the tool which sets leaders apart from the rest of the tribe.
Lots of people find the last three episodes of An Unearthly Child far less interesting than the first, and originally I fell into this camp as well. The introduction to the characters is so well done the subsequent scenery and story of survival among the cavemen feels drab by comparison. Dicks' novel, on the other hand, does a great deal to upend this notion. With the only constraint imposed upon him by Target being a maximum page count (most of these books ran 128 pages with few exceptions) and instructions to follow the storyline of the screenplay, he plunges into the minds and thoughts of the various tribe members as they encounter these people in "strange furs" who can seemingly produce fire at will.
The hostility and enmity between the current tribal leader Za (whose father died before passing on the secret of how to make fire to his son), and his rival Kal (who is the only surviving member of a different tribe, but is a fierce warrior possessed of considerable cunning) is well-executed, with both men always looking to obtain favor over the other and willing to use almost any means or make any promise necessary to come out ahead.
While Susan and the Doctor have a fairly good idea of what's going on and where they are, Ian and Barbara (along with the reader, naturally) have to figure it out as they go. Where are they, and more importantly after the Doctor is taken prisoner by Kal and brought to the tribe, how do they get him back so they can return to the TARDIS and get away from this era where they not only don't belong, but also risk death from both the tribe and the creatures which prowl the jungle?
if there's a downside to this novelization (beyond the fact it showed up eight years later than it should have), it's the strict page count to which Dicks had to adhere. The first 79 pages of the book comprise the first two episodes, which leaves Dicks just under 50 pages into which to cram the remaining two, and the story suffers for the required rush.
That said, you really have to appreciate just what Dicks manages to do in this story, fleshing out bits that couldn't be shown on television for obvious reasons--the scene where Za fights a sabertooth tiger is far more exciting in print than on film, since they weren't about to release an actual big cat on an actor.
The rest of the story's strengths are down to Anthony Coburn's original script, which gives us an intelligent, cunning, resourceful, and alien Doctor. Far from the Humanity's Defender persona the character has developed in the current "new Who" era, this Doctor is a visitor, an observer, and a condescending one at that. He has to rely on his human companions, especially Ian, to demonstrate compassion. While the companions serve as a convenient plot device to relate information to the audience, Coburn's screenplay shows they could be more than just the confused sidekicks they could have been.
Barbara and Ian serve to counterbalance the Doctor's initial xenophobia with regards to other species. Far from being dead weight, they keep the Doctor grounded, providing a constant reminder, especially in the early shows, that he's toying with real lives beyond just his and Susan's. If your first exposure to the Doctor was David Tennant or Matt Smith, the scene where the Doctor decides the most logical and expedient solution to a problem is to commit murder will leave a sour taste in your mouth. "That's inhuman!" you'll want to scream at the book, and you'll be correct...and miss the point. The Doctor is not human, and this is just one of the many ways Coburn chose to underscore that detail. Early Doctor Who adventures are surprisingly brutal when compared to the whimsy later writers and actors brought to the part and the stories.
The story also showcases the Doctor's intelligence and cunning. While Hartnell bought a beyond-his-years spryness to the part, the fact remains the Doctor's first screen appearance is within a white-haired and over-the-hill body. While Ian was there to provide the physical excitement, and Barbara and Susan the screams, the Doctor can't rely on brute force to overcome problems, and thus has to out-think his opponents. It's this component of his character, the need to come up with the outside-the-box solutions and provide his enemies with enough rope to hang themselves, that would become a series staple. They're first demonstrated here, as the Doctor tricks Kal into revealing he was the one who committed a murder by using Kal's pride against him. It's a fantastic, underplayed moment you won't see coming until it's too late, and Dicks transcribes it perfectly.
The novel, just like the TV program, ends on a cliffhanger where the TARDIS lands on a different alien world and the group walks out just as the radiation counter flips to life and swings to the 'Danger' zone. In case you aren't already in on the joke, Dicks name-drops the planet and the enemies the Doctor and his companions are about to encounter, which is OK since episode 2 was already novelized back in 1973 as part of the original batch of three. Spoilers for a fifty-five year old story, but it's...the Daleks! (Gasp! Swoon!)
No matter how you look at it, it's impossible to concede An Unearthly Child is anything but as close to perfect as one could hope for. If you've never seen the episode, the book will make you want to read it. If you have seen it, the book does a grand job filling in little bits here and there that make the story that much better. Why Target chose to leave this story until 1981 I'll never know, but if you're looking for a good place to start reading classic Who, this is an ideal choice: it's short, it's brilliant, and best of all it's very inexpensive thanks to a slew of printings (mine's a fourth printing from 1984; there may have been more beyond that).
Four-and-a-half spinning blue police box lights out of five for the Doctor's first outing.
As a brief aside: if you aren't familiar with the television format of Classic Who, stories were broadcast as multi-part serials, with a new installment appearing every week. Thus, while An Unearthly Child is one story, it's made up of four separate episodes, each meant to fill a 25-minute time slot. Early home video releases and US television broadcasts were usually edited to clip the extraneous closings, credit scrolls, openings, and recaps so they can be watched from start to finish as a single, uninterrupted experience, but the DVD releases have these cliffhangers and recaps intact to recreate the original experience of watching the program at home. Pretty nifty!
Watching the premiere episode of Doctor Who, in all its black and white glory, is a magnificent experience, not just for the historical aspect of what you're watching, but also for the incredible atmosphere and even sense of dread it manages to conjure up. The episode opens on a deserted, fog-enshrouded London street where a lone patrolman walks his beat, inspecting storefronts, shining his flashlight (er, sorry, 'torch') into shadowy spaces, and in general making sure all is well with his area. He takes a brief glance into a scrapyard, owned by one "I.M. Foreman, Scrap Merchant", moves his light over the assorted piles of trash/treasure, and lingers with slight confusion on a police call box before closing the door and continuing on his route.
It's eerie. The darkness in black and white productions is always so crisp and absolute, the whiteness of the fog contrasting with the stark shadows. From the first frame, Doctor Who establishes itself as a program where anything could happen. It's a marvelous introduction to the series, and I'm pleased to see it repeated so well in the novel, where Terrance Dicks gets inside the policeman's head as he performs his rounds. The sight of the police box prompts him to think about the rumors going around about how one day every man on the force would have his own portable walkie-talkie radio, which would make the call boxes obsolete. He discards that idea like rubbish, then goes on about his business, leaving the scrapyard.
Dicks departs from the teleplay by describing how the next day, while performing his rounds and inspecting the scrap yard again, the officer notices the police call box missing and wonders, briefly, if it was somehow connected to the disappearance of the scrap yard proprietor, his granddaughter, and two teachers from the local school. He waves off the thought though:
After all, you couldn't get four people into a police box - could you?
Dicks stays fairly true to the script from that point on, introducing three of the four main characters over the next couple of pages. We meet Susan Foreman, a young woman of roughly 15 years of age, along with Ian Chesterton her science teacher, and Barbara Wright her history instructor. Barbara's been trying to figure Susan out for some time now. She can't put her finger on what it is exactly, but there's something off about Susan. She knows far too much about some things that should be beyond her comprehension, and not enough about the sorts of everyday things you'd expect a fifteen year old girl to be on top of. Finally tonight her curiosity boils over, and after telling Susan to wait while she retrieves a book on the French Revolution for her, Barbara heads to Ian's classroom to talk it over with him.
Ian feels the same way. Half the time, he says he feels like Susan's the one teaching him about math and science. She also has strange notions about the fourth and fifth dimensions, stuff far too advanced for a girl her age, and she's utterly against having visitors over, claiming her grandfather doesn't care for strangers. Barbara hatches a plan to follow Susan home and see where she lives (the address on file with the school is a junkyard with no apparent place of residence), then make sure she's OK.
What follows begins an incredible adventure that captured the imagination of the public so vividly that it's still around today. Ian and Barbara follow Susan, meet her grumbling grandfather, and wind up inside the police box sitting in the scrap yard (which is, of course, bigger on the inside since it's a TARDIS...). Refusing to release the two teachers, this mysterious individual who doesn't answer to 'Foreman', just 'Doctor', sets his craft in motion to travel through time and space and prove to the poor instructors he isn't the crazy, brain-addled old man they believe him to be.
The only thing is, this TARDIS is touchy and temperamental much like its owner. Some of its bits and bobs don't work like they should, especially the chameleon circuitry, which is meant to camouflage it against casual observation. The crew wind up far in the past, in the time of primitive man where savage beasts roam the forests, caves are the best form of shelter, and fire is the tool which sets leaders apart from the rest of the tribe.
Lots of people find the last three episodes of An Unearthly Child far less interesting than the first, and originally I fell into this camp as well. The introduction to the characters is so well done the subsequent scenery and story of survival among the cavemen feels drab by comparison. Dicks' novel, on the other hand, does a great deal to upend this notion. With the only constraint imposed upon him by Target being a maximum page count (most of these books ran 128 pages with few exceptions) and instructions to follow the storyline of the screenplay, he plunges into the minds and thoughts of the various tribe members as they encounter these people in "strange furs" who can seemingly produce fire at will.
The hostility and enmity between the current tribal leader Za (whose father died before passing on the secret of how to make fire to his son), and his rival Kal (who is the only surviving member of a different tribe, but is a fierce warrior possessed of considerable cunning) is well-executed, with both men always looking to obtain favor over the other and willing to use almost any means or make any promise necessary to come out ahead.
While Susan and the Doctor have a fairly good idea of what's going on and where they are, Ian and Barbara (along with the reader, naturally) have to figure it out as they go. Where are they, and more importantly after the Doctor is taken prisoner by Kal and brought to the tribe, how do they get him back so they can return to the TARDIS and get away from this era where they not only don't belong, but also risk death from both the tribe and the creatures which prowl the jungle?
if there's a downside to this novelization (beyond the fact it showed up eight years later than it should have), it's the strict page count to which Dicks had to adhere. The first 79 pages of the book comprise the first two episodes, which leaves Dicks just under 50 pages into which to cram the remaining two, and the story suffers for the required rush.
That said, you really have to appreciate just what Dicks manages to do in this story, fleshing out bits that couldn't be shown on television for obvious reasons--the scene where Za fights a sabertooth tiger is far more exciting in print than on film, since they weren't about to release an actual big cat on an actor.
The rest of the story's strengths are down to Anthony Coburn's original script, which gives us an intelligent, cunning, resourceful, and alien Doctor. Far from the Humanity's Defender persona the character has developed in the current "new Who" era, this Doctor is a visitor, an observer, and a condescending one at that. He has to rely on his human companions, especially Ian, to demonstrate compassion. While the companions serve as a convenient plot device to relate information to the audience, Coburn's screenplay shows they could be more than just the confused sidekicks they could have been.
Barbara and Ian serve to counterbalance the Doctor's initial xenophobia with regards to other species. Far from being dead weight, they keep the Doctor grounded, providing a constant reminder, especially in the early shows, that he's toying with real lives beyond just his and Susan's. If your first exposure to the Doctor was David Tennant or Matt Smith, the scene where the Doctor decides the most logical and expedient solution to a problem is to commit murder will leave a sour taste in your mouth. "That's inhuman!" you'll want to scream at the book, and you'll be correct...and miss the point. The Doctor is not human, and this is just one of the many ways Coburn chose to underscore that detail. Early Doctor Who adventures are surprisingly brutal when compared to the whimsy later writers and actors brought to the part and the stories.
The story also showcases the Doctor's intelligence and cunning. While Hartnell bought a beyond-his-years spryness to the part, the fact remains the Doctor's first screen appearance is within a white-haired and over-the-hill body. While Ian was there to provide the physical excitement, and Barbara and Susan the screams, the Doctor can't rely on brute force to overcome problems, and thus has to out-think his opponents. It's this component of his character, the need to come up with the outside-the-box solutions and provide his enemies with enough rope to hang themselves, that would become a series staple. They're first demonstrated here, as the Doctor tricks Kal into revealing he was the one who committed a murder by using Kal's pride against him. It's a fantastic, underplayed moment you won't see coming until it's too late, and Dicks transcribes it perfectly.
The novel, just like the TV program, ends on a cliffhanger where the TARDIS lands on a different alien world and the group walks out just as the radiation counter flips to life and swings to the 'Danger' zone. In case you aren't already in on the joke, Dicks name-drops the planet and the enemies the Doctor and his companions are about to encounter, which is OK since episode 2 was already novelized back in 1973 as part of the original batch of three. Spoilers for a fifty-five year old story, but it's...the Daleks! (Gasp! Swoon!)
No matter how you look at it, it's impossible to concede An Unearthly Child is anything but as close to perfect as one could hope for. If you've never seen the episode, the book will make you want to read it. If you have seen it, the book does a grand job filling in little bits here and there that make the story that much better. Why Target chose to leave this story until 1981 I'll never know, but if you're looking for a good place to start reading classic Who, this is an ideal choice: it's short, it's brilliant, and best of all it's very inexpensive thanks to a slew of printings (mine's a fourth printing from 1984; there may have been more beyond that).
Four-and-a-half spinning blue police box lights out of five for the Doctor's first outing.
elon's review
2.0
This was more of a transcript than a novel. I guess I shouldn't have expected more, but I did.
shaykelliher's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
booksforbrooks's review
4.0
As someone who has religiously watched Doctor Who since it made it's return 10 years ago (is it really that long??) I'm a little shocked that I only saw the first ever episode very recently. This is the novelisation of the first ever episode, and the first chance we get to meet the Doctor.
It's got everything I love about Doctor Who in. Time travel, alien worlds, bad guys an the Doctor himself. The story is written in a simplistic style with very little description or waffle; it's very much dialogue-action-dialogue-action. It works though. The downside to this is that there's very little character development, and I haven't yet got much of a sense for the first Doctor.
A very enjoyable way to see how it all began.
It's got everything I love about Doctor Who in. Time travel, alien worlds, bad guys an the Doctor himself. The story is written in a simplistic style with very little description or waffle; it's very much dialogue-action-dialogue-action. It works though. The downside to this is that there's very little character development, and I haven't yet got much of a sense for the first Doctor.
A very enjoyable way to see how it all began.
imakandiway's review
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
gingerreader99's review
3.0
It felt somewhat like a cut and paste of the episodes it is telling the story of. That being said having it in a written form allows for the mind to make up for anything that the Original episodes lack and for that I am grateful. The first Doctor Who story is an obvious classic and its novelization is a good one all things considered.
smiths2112's review
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
kmt75's review
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
yoda_bor's review
4.0
Ce livre est une novélisation très fidèle du tout premier arc de Doctor Who, An Unearthly child.
Comme pour la version télé, la première partie est bien plus intéressante que tout ce qui se passe avec les hommes préhistoriques. Sur ce point là, j’ai tout de même préféré le livre. Ici, on découvre les pensées des personnages, ce qui rend bien plus compréhensibles les actions pour retrouver le feu qui a disparu.
Et on n’a plus les grognements qui constituaient les seuls dialogues des hommes préhistoriques, ce qui est un ÉNORME progrès.
Rien de particulier à en dire de plus, la traduction est plutôt bonne et comme il s’agit d’une retranscription très fidèle, il n’y a pas de grosses surprises, les personnages sont exactement les mêmes et certaines répliques sont reprises au mot près.
Pour les personnes ne supportant pas la VOSTFR, c’est un bon moyen de débuter la saga et de faire connaissance avec l’univers Doctor Who.
A noter tout de même cette splendide couverture française, et notamment la quatrième avec Igor et Grichka Bogdanoff en tenue de cosmonaute du plus bel effet.
Comme pour la version télé, la première partie est bien plus intéressante que tout ce qui se passe avec les hommes préhistoriques. Sur ce point là, j’ai tout de même préféré le livre. Ici, on découvre les pensées des personnages, ce qui rend bien plus compréhensibles les actions pour retrouver le feu qui a disparu.
Et on n’a plus les grognements qui constituaient les seuls dialogues des hommes préhistoriques, ce qui est un ÉNORME progrès.
Rien de particulier à en dire de plus, la traduction est plutôt bonne et comme il s’agit d’une retranscription très fidèle, il n’y a pas de grosses surprises, les personnages sont exactement les mêmes et certaines répliques sont reprises au mot près.
Pour les personnes ne supportant pas la VOSTFR, c’est un bon moyen de débuter la saga et de faire connaissance avec l’univers Doctor Who.
A noter tout de même cette splendide couverture française, et notamment la quatrième avec Igor et Grichka Bogdanoff en tenue de cosmonaute du plus bel effet.