Series/Season One Wrap-Up

With the Reign of Terror, the first series (or season, in American parlance) wraps up.  Rather than jumping directly into the next second series/season with Planet of Giants, I thought I'd offer a bit of a wrap-up or summary of the first series/season of Doctor Who.

The Doctor's character arc is, by far, the most interesting.  In An Unearthly Child, he is portrayed as a touchy, irritable and suspicious gentlemen who shows no qualms about kidnapping two schoolteachers to protect the secret of his time travel machine, the Tardis.   By The Reign of Terror, he has developed at the very least a grudging respect for the two schoolteachers Ian and Barbara.  It's hard to imagine The Doctor of An Unearthly Child becoming romantically involved with Cameca as he does in the Aztecs story or the lengths he would go to to rescue Susan, Ian and Barbara in the Reign of Terror. 

Ian and Barbara, the two schoolteachers from Earth, seems to have changed the least between An Unearthly Child and The Reign of Terror.  Their primary motivation in An Unearthly Child was to get home to 1960s England, and this is still a primary motivation of both Ian and Barbara even at the end of The Reign of Terror.

Sadly, the writers really fumbled with Susan.  While they were able to tone down The Doctor and make him a much more likable character, the writers never seemed to be able to get a handle on Susan.  Was she an "unearthly" child, with an intelligence beyond her years?  Or was Susan a teenager, who would get easily scared by the aliens and other myraid threats and have to cower for protection?  In some episodes, like the Sensorites, the smarter and more otherworldly Susan would come to the fore.  In others, like the The Keys of Marinus, the latter Susan would make an appearance.   It's kind of a shame, really, as her character had so much promise.

The stories themselves are a bit of a mixed bag.  Here's how I'd rank the stories from the first series/season:

1. The Reign of Terror
2. The Daleks
3. The Aztecs
4. The Keys of Marinus
5. The Edge of Destruction
6. Marco Polo
7. An Unearthly Child
8. The Sensorites

For fans of the revived series, or those who've never watched any of these early stories, my recommendation would be to watch the very first episode of An Unearthly Child, skip ahead to The Daleks, and follow that up with The Aztecs and The Reign of Terror.

Up next, we'll jump into the second series/season of Doctor Who, with Planet of Giants!