Doctor Who #1-3: The Beginning

Title: Doctor Who: The Beginning ("An Unearthly Child" / "The Daleks" / "The Edge of Destruction")
Year: 1963 / 1963-1964 / 1964
Network: BBC
Creators: Sydney Newman, C.E. Webber, Donald Wilson
Directors: Waris Hussein (Unearthly), Christopher Barry (Daleks, 4 episodes), Richard Martin (Daleks, 3 episodes; Edge, 1 episode), Frank Cox (Edge, 1 episode)
Writers: Anthony Coburn, C.E. Webber, Terry Nation, David Whitaker
Starring: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Carole Ann Ford
Music: Ron Grainer (theme), Norman Kay, Tristram Cary
Episodes: 13, at 25 minutes (1 story of 4 episodes, 1 of 7, and 1 of 2); the first 3 (of 8) stories from season 1
Synopsis: an elderly alien kidnaps two English schoolteachers when they follow a student to his timetravelling spaceship
How I saw it: on video a couple times (rented from Netflix), most recently a few months ago
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good).
Objective Rating: 7/10 (points off for story, pacing and cinematography) c. 2.8/4 (Good).

The first episode, where we meet The Doctor and his Tardis, is very interesting for a fan to see what the Doctor was like when he first started hanging out with humans.  But, ironically, the start of the show would be a bad place to start watching Doctor Who. The character hasn't quite solidified at this point - Hartnell's portrayal is right on from the start, but he's written as self-centered, unwilling to help strangers, and even dishonest. And little details, like bits of the Tardis breaking down for the first time, fill me with a dorky glee that wouldn't be there if I hadn't seen later episodes first. As for the actual adventure in "An Unearthly Child," they get caught up in uncharacteristically well-written prehistoric politics, which makes for one of the better early episodes.

In "The Daleks," The Doctor meets the Daleks for the first time, and they are more clumsy and less threatening than ever - about 10 people invade the Dalek city and win with almost no difficulty. The writing is tedious, halting the story for repetitive side stories for complete episodes at a time.

"The Edge of Destruction" is filler - only two episodes, with no sets other than the Tardis and no guest stars. Mostly it felt like they were just making stuff up as they went along (which they probably were), but the ending is cute enough that I've grown to like this story despite its faults.