An Unearthly Child.

There's a great Dr. Who blog called "TARDIS Eruditorium: A Psychochronography in Blue"; the author of which makes an argument that the single pilot episode An Unearthly Child is actually a separate story from the three that follow it 100,000 B.C. It's an opinion that from a narrative standpoint I share. So I'll be covering them both separately.

Barbara and Ian
played by Jacqueline Hill
and William Russell

Our journey begins oddly enough not with The Doctor; but with two meddlesome school teachers. There names are Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright who teach Science and History respectively. Two things that may come in handy on a show involving time travel and the scientific unknown eh? The show starts off with these two because they're the characters the audience are meant to connect with. They're what ties all the craziness that is Dr. Who to the real world we live in.

Susan Foreman
played by Carol Anne Ford

Both school teachers have a problem. There's an odd girl in their class who's equally brilliant and terrible at different things. She knows things she shouldn't. And she avoids Barbara's attempts to sneak their way into her house through tutoring. Her grandfather doesn't like strangers. She' a rather strange, unearthly child named Susan Foreman; and very soon she will be the catalyst that drags both Barbara and Ian kicking and screaming into a little land we like to call The Twilight Zone. And it's all their fault. Barbara claims she doesn't want to be a busybody; but she is. And Ian just goes with the flow.

Which leads to them to follow Susan to 76 Totter's Lane. Home to a junkyard. A scrap heap filled with odds and ends; and one very unusual object for this location: A police call box. A big blue box with a strange humming sound emanating from within it. A box Ian claims is alive. (and it's odd Barbara doesn't question this) But they aren't looking for a police box. They're looking for that mysterious girl who unbeknownst to them has led them down a rabbit hole. But they don't find her. Not right away.

The Doctor played by William Hartnell.

Instead they find a mischievous old man. A man who refuses to answer questions and seems to get off on frustrating the school teachers. He swears he doesn't know this Susan they're asking about; which in turn leads them to suspect that he kidnapped her or worse. And he doesn't care. This seems to only amuse him more. He finds their attempts to extract her whereabouts from him quite amusing indeed. Until of course they decide she's inside the police box. Soon her voice calls out from within it and the dynamic duo of Barbara and Ian rush in to save the day. Only to find Susan is in fact quite alright.

But they also have found themselves inside the TARDIS. A place for the time being that there's no escape. We soon learn that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than on the outside and that Susan named the TARDIS, short for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It's a spaceship that can travel through both time and space. We also learn that both she and her grandfather (the old man aka The Doctor aka Doctor Who) are both aliens from another world. A planet and society they've been exiled from; though The Doctor does hold out hope that one day they'll be allowed back. Ian and Barbara are both considerably confused. And who wouldn't be? They don't really believe the strange old man. And they want to leave.

But he won't let them. In fact he's dead set against this. And apparently he's done something similar before; because his granddaughter Susan already knows what he's up to. She pleads with him to let them go. At first he refuses because he's afraid of them telling people about them. Though you'd have to question who'd believe them. He could just kick them out and fly away. But eventually he relents and says he'll open the doors. Only he doesn't. Instead he begins starting up the ship. Susan sees this and in desperation attacks her grandfather; something I'd have to guess would've been shocking back in 1963. He manages to start up the ship anyway and the ship vanishes from 1963 into a montage of psychadelic imagery.

And where will it stop? That's anyone's guess. We soon see the ship has landed. Both Ian and Barbara are unconscious with The Doctor standing over them. I'm assuming they passed out. But back when the episode originally aired? I'm sure there were alot of people wondering which side of the law this mad old man was on.

We're then taken to the first cliffhanger of Doctor who. The TARDIS stands alone in a barren wasteland. Just where are they? We don't know. But there are people here judging from that shadow which just appeared accompanied to some very ominous music and apparently they have a Cave of Skulls. At this point only one thing's for sure. That trouble surely awaits in...