Product Details

• Actors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison
• Writers: Sydney Newman
• Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: June 1, 1995
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302256755
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,410 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The "unearthly" strains of Ron Grainer's now-famous title music announced the arrival of Doctor Who to British TV screens on Saturday, November 23, 1963. It must have been quite a baffling experience for first-time viewers: the swirling abstract graphics, the weird electronic sound effects courtesy of the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, the very oddity of the show's title. This really was groundbreaking TV. "I think you'll find there's a very simple explanation for all of this," says schoolteacher Ian Chesterton (William Russell) condescendingly, just before being taken on board the Tardis and transported to an alien planet. For audiences, too, this was something entirely unfamiliar, yet obviously appealing: Doctor Who ran for almost 30 years and even long after cancellation it remains one of the BBC's most popular shows.

His later incarnations were all eccentric in their different ways, but William Hartnell's original Doctor is an irascible and distinctively alien character, not at all happy having to put up with ignorant 20th-century humans. The "Unearthly Child" of the title is his granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford), temporarily attending school on Earth. She is conspicuously different from her classmates and attracts the attention of two of her teachers, who resolve to find out why. After an encounter with her mysterious grandfather they are whisked away on an adventure to a different time and place, where angry cavemen are trying in vain to learn the secret of fire. Thus the show's trademarks are established from the outset: the Doctor and his more or less reluctant human companions, the mechanical unreliability of the Tardis, the cliffhanger ending of each episode. It was a formula that rarely changed but that allowed apparently limitless variation (the only constraint was the BBC's budget). In later years the show tried vainly to compete with blockbuster special-effects movies, but its original low-key incarnation relied more on inventive scenarios and good writing--qualities that are just as important now as then. --Mark Walker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "He's a doctor, isn't he?", March 22, 2000

By 

Brian May (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Ah, where the legend of Dr Who began! The first ever transmitted episode, aired on 23 November 1963, one day after the assassination of John F Kennedy. What an episode it is! Two teachers from Coal Hill school, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, are intrigued by the behaviour of one of their students, Susan Foreman (the eponymous child). They follow her to a junkyard wherein lies a police box and a fateful encounter with her mysterious grandfather. The rest is history. The first episode of this four part story is one of the best - watching it for the first time makes me feel sad I was not there to view it back in 1963. What a magical experience that would have been! Without all the baggage of hindsight and fandom's deconstructions and analyses of the show; without the knowledge it would endure on the small screen for 26 years. Watching the episode at the time would have been both a fascinating and wondrous experience - the cliffhanger of the TARDIS taking off would have left shocked faces and minds itching to know what happens next. Episodes 2-4 deal with the time travellers' experience with a tribe of cave people, who have lost the secret of fire. While some have criticised these episodes for dragging, this reviewer finds no such fault. It is one of the grittiest and dramatic Doctor Who adventures. The members of the tribe are convincing - primitive without being stupid. The situations are also tense. When the Doctor and co. are held prisoner inside the Cave of Skulls and attempt to free themselves, you are on the edge of your seat in anticipation. For viewers in 1963, without the knowledge of sonic screwdrivers or some humorous but ingenious method of escape that would be standard in ten years' time, the tension must have been unbearable! The flight through the forest provides more moments of tension, as does the TARDIS crew's attempts to escape at the end of the final episode. This story is a joy to watch all the way through. 5 stars for episode 1, 4 stars for episodes 2-4.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The dawn of a new age of television, August 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I remember seeing this pilot episode of Dr. Who when it was first transmitted - in fact, seeing it twice because the first showing preceded the assassination of John Kennedy by a matter of hours, and fearing that the series might get overlooked, the BBC repeated episode 1 the following Saturday (30th November 1963) immediately prior to episode 2.
The idea of a cranky time traveller captured the imagine in a way that is impossible to understand today. Dr. Who (in fact, it was meant to be "Dr. Who?" because no one knew the name of this strange old man) emerged at a time - it is so hard to avoid making a pun, however unintentionally - when most television in the U.K. was banal in the extreme (alas, most of it still is in America).
Dr. Who helped to fire my young imagination, and that of many other kids growing up in England in the early 1960s. I always look back on this pilot story with great affection, and thoroughly recommend it as a true landmark in science fiction on the silver screen.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure magic from beginning to end., May 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Two school-teachers are curious about an enigmatic pupil who lives, apparently, in a junkyard. So one evening they decide to follow her home, with unexpected results.

This first ever Dr Who adventure is still one of the high points. That first time-travel sequence in the first episode especially must rank as one of the great moments of the series. The TARDIS goes back to the dawn of civilization, appropriate for the dawn of what is possibly the best and most enduring sci-fi series ever made. Even today this story is a highly watchable and enjoyable piece of television.