Season 1, Episode 1 | 4 parts | First broadcast: 23 November – 14 December 1963 | Writer: Anthony Coburn (C. E. Webber, uncredited) | Director: Waris Hussein
Cast
- William Hartnell as the Doctor
- Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman
- William Russell as Ian Chesterton
- Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright
Summary
Schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright grow concerned about their strange, brilliant pupil Susan Foreman and follow her one evening to a junkyard at 76 Totter’s Lane, where they discover her grandfather, the Doctor, and his time-and-space ship the TARDIS, disguised as a police box. After the Doctor abducts them to prevent them revealing his secret, the TARDIS transports the group to the Stone Age, where they are caught up in a tribe’s desperate struggle to rediscover the secret of fire.
Interesting Facts
- This serial’s opening episode is the very first episode of Doctor Who ever broadcast, airing the day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which affected its initial viewership.
- It introduces the show’s four original regulars and the TARDIS itself, including the idea that it is “bigger on the inside,” a police box shape inspired by writer Anthony Coburn seeing one near the BBC’s offices.
- The serial’s final three episodes are sometimes referred to collectively as “The Tribe of Gum,” the working title for the Stone Age setting.
- All four episodes survive in the BBC archive.
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