AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
BY ANTHONY COBURN

PLOT SUMMARY
(Taken from the Television Companion, 1st Edition, by David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker)
Schoolteachers Barabra Wright and Ian Chesterton become intrigued by one of their pupils, Susan Foreman and visit her home address- a junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane- where they meet her grandfather, the Doctor. The Doctor and Susan are aliens who travel through time and space in their ship, the TARDIS, which looks like an ordinary police box but actually houses a huge gleaming control room. The TARDIS takes them all to a Palaeolithic landscape where they encounter a tribe that has lost the secret of fire.

PERSONAL REVIEW
BY BARRY STANTON
It is such an interesting start to a series. We don't just dive into full blown action the first episode is mostly surrounding two school teachers trying to answer the question of who the strange girl Susan Forman is. They enter the TARDIS for the first time and really do ask the questions we would.
When they arrive at the time of the cavemen we see the Doctor being very unhelpful and not too pleased to be taken captive and then later helping one of the caveman, Za who was attacked by a beast.
The whole of the latter story is around one of the perspective leaders making fire and the TARIDS crew are caught in the middle.
This story concentrates on the relationship between Ian, Barbara, Susan and the Doctor and there is an uneasy friednship developing at the end of the story.
For an opening story it is OK by modern standards but at the time it must be something very novel and it must of worked otherwise I wouldn't be reviewing it now in the wake of many series and so many Doctors.
It is the foundation for early Doctor Who

RATING
8 out of 10