The first ever Serial of Doctor Who, as well as the first ever Doctor Who Story.

What else is there to say? Historically speaking, this is Doctor Who's most important Story and of course it is, it's the first one! But as a Story on its own right can it hold itself much?

I think so, yeah.

While super different from any other starting point in the Show's History... An Unearthly Child has all the Things a good Pilot Episode should do. Good directing, a good enough Set Up, a hook that gets you interested and a wonderful Choice how to introduce those otherworldly Things. The Moment when Barbara steps in the Tardis, and we see this big, strange Room in a Police Box, is magical. And yet this whole Scene is mainly telling than showing, which for a lot of Stories could be a downfall, but not this one. An Unearthly Child knows exactly what it needs to do. It gives us a hook, a Mystery to latch on too, opens the door and gives us even more Mysteries and then ending it with a Shadow Figure walking closer to the Ship.

And even the infamous disliked Cavemen Episodes are great to building this Foundation. While this Story as a whole is by no means a Masterpiece, it perfectly tells you what you need to know and more importantly shows you how our Leads interact with their environment. There is this saying that any good Characters, if they work, can be thrown in any Setting and Doctor Who is a perfect Example for it. This Story alone shows the strength and weakness each of our Leads have. Sadly, while of course it never reaches the Highs of the very first Episode and while the Story is still very solid, I do find myself having some Issues with some Choices they made. Especially Susan gets sadly as with many other Stories in her televised Tenure the short stick, what she brought in the first Episode was wonderful. A strange teenager girl played wonderfully by her. The Rest of the Stories kinda sidelines her and doesn't give her much to do. Instead, we focus mainly on those two Cavemen wanting to achieve the simple Goal of making fire. The Focus here is very much the Doctor, still Ian and Barbara still get some decent stuff to do, and I wish I could have said the same with Susan's Role in it, but sadly I cannot.

Still, this Story reaches big High points and shows the strength that this Show already has in its very early days. Highlights include Hartnell's stunning rough and cruel Performances at times, which while showing him at his grumpiest, still never reaches the Point of feeling like this strange alien doesn't have some sort of Sparkle in his eyes. Which is something Hartnell very much has in almost all of his Performances as the Doctor.

Overall, the Good Parts overshadow the bad ones. I enjoyed the Story greatly, while I wish some Stuff was handled a bit differently, **I still think you should give the whole Serial a Go and not skip right after Episode 1**. It does feature some wonderful Moments and basically does the heavy lifting slowly introducing the Characters to us and their Relationship to one another, which would greatly change over the course of the next Stories! But that's a Review for another Time.