This is start of the greatest journey in all of science fiction.





When I was a kid about 6 or 7, I would stay up late on Saturday nights and watch this science fiction classic on PBS. I started off watching the Tom Baker episodes and through the years have always tried to follow the show through the other Doctors.



For those needing a crash course of what I'm talking about:



Doctor Who is a science-fiction television show that came out of the United Kingdom, that is now a world-wide phenomenon. I say that it is as important to pop culture, as even Star Trek, Star Wars, and whatever fanboys worship nowadays.



It is the seemingly never ending story of a man known as The Doctor. He is an exile from a planet of time travelers. So now he travels through time and space looking for knowledge and adventure. He is often joined by people he picks up on his travels.

There have been 13 people that have taken on this role. So I will be reviewing the beginning of this series with the serial "An Unearthly Child". The very first Doctor is played by a man named William Hartnell. I believe he did an excellent job playing the Doctor. He seemed almost like a really wise and grumpy old wizard. Probably reminds you of your grandfather in a way. But you can also tell he has an adventurous spirit.



In the first episode we are taken to a high school in London, England where two school teachers are shown having a conversation about one of their female students. It seems that she behaves very oddly and seems to have a great intelligence. Fearing that something maybe wrong they decide to go to her residence and talk to her parents. Strangely enough though the address that the girl gave them turns out to be a junkyard. What they discover in that junkyard will change there lives forever.



This is a really good setup for the start of the series because it shows a air of mystery and intrigue. It is hear we meet all four of the principal players for the first season. Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright are the very clueless teachers who stumble upon a police box in the middle of that junkyard. Here they meet a strange old man calling himself The Doctor. The first Doctor has this very distrusting attitude and down right hostility towards people at the beginning. He seems to carry himself like he is royalty, you know, "I'm smarter than you ever thought about being." It is then discovered he is the student Susan Foreman's grandfather.



If you have never seen this serial before, I try not to do plot spoilers on this review. I thought that the pacing and content of the story was excellent. For a low budget black and white tv show I thought that this was one of the better science fiction stories I had seen in awhile. All the acting is very good except for how Susan is portrayed. As in like really weird and whiney. She really doesn't carry herself like she is an advanced being of time and space.



If you are any kind of Doctor Who fan then you need to watch these episodes just so you can see even back then how much potential this show has. I mean what the Doctor and his companions see and do is what I would do if I had a time machine. If you have never seen the show ever and need a starting off point (and don't mind its black and white) I still would recommend this.