Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2428 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-01-30
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 346 minutes

Special Features
Disc 1 - An Unearthly Child Pilot Episode - 25 mins Episode 1: Commentary with Verity Lambert, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, Gary Russell Episode 4: Commentary with Waris Hussein, Ann Ford, William Russell, Gary Russell.

Pilot Episode Studio Recording (dur. 40') - unedited recording of the entire studio session for the Pilot Episode, including retakes. Commentary with Verity Lambert, Waris Hussein and Gary Russell. Theme Music Video (dur. 2' 30") - allows the viewer to hear the original full-length theme music with original 1963 title sequences elements in three different versions. Picture Gallery Programme Subtitles Subtitle Production Notes Disc 2 - The Daleks Episode 2: Commentary with Christopher Barry, Verity Lambert, Gary Russell Episode 4: Commentary with Christopher Barry, William Russell, Carole Ann Ford, Gary Russell Episode 7: Commentary with Richard Martin, William Russell, Carole Ann Ford, Gary Russell Extras Creation of the Daleks (dur. 18') - new featurette looking at the origins of these icon villains. Picture Gallery Programme Subtitles Subtitle Production Notes

Disc 3 - The Edge of Destruction Episodes The Edge of Destruction - 2 x 25 mins. Episode 2 - Arabic Soundtrack Extras Origins (dur. 53') - an in-depth look at the creation of Doctor Who, including rare interviews with the programme's creator, the late Sidney Newman, and new interviews with other members of the cast and production team. Over the Edge (dur. 30') - a new featurette exploring 'The Edge of Destruction', featuring interviews with cast and crew.

Synopsis
Doctor Who - The Beginning features four early episodes. Includes the previously unreleased pilot episode and the very first episode from the long-running sci-fi TV series. Set in London in 1963, "An Unearthly Child" is our very first brush with the Doctor. Teachers Ian and Barbara follow a mysterious pupil, Susan, home one evening and find that she lives in a junkyard. Suddenly her uncle, the Doctor, appears but they suspect Susan is being held in the police box. On entering this box their lives change forever... Also includes "The Daleks" and the two-part episode of "The Edge Of Destruction".

Customer Reviews

Vintage T.V.
'Doctor Who - The Beginning Boxset' comprises of the first three William Hartnell adventures and contains some interesting special features, along the way.

There's something for everyone on this boxset, which up to now is probably the best Doctor Who release for fans of the original series.

I myself, didn't get the chance to watch these episodes on their original run (1963-64) but one of my friends, kindly lent me VHS copies of some Hartnell stories and I can tell you for sure that the Restoration Team (the people who improve the picture quality of these episodes) have clearly made a difference to the way we watch them, which makes them look as if they'd just been shown recently.

As for the features themselves, they have got to be among some of the best First Doctor outings ever.

'An Unearthly Child' (the first story) is a very entertaining T.V. gem to watch, even though its been over 40 years since it was aired on 23rd November 1963-14th December 1963. We are introduced to two schoolteachers, Ian Chesterton and Babara Wright who are suspicious about a strange pupil who they teach, Susan Foreman. A series of events follows, leading them to a mysterious stranger who calls himself the Doctor, and a police box standing in a junkyard, which is believed to travel through time and space. After an argument breaks out between the Doctor and the two teachers, the time-machine accidently transports them to the year one million B.C.

The second story (The Daleks), introduces us to Doctor Who's most popular villain, which Terry Nation created. Even though these episodes are must-sees, admittedly it does towards the end drag on, partly because 'The Daleks' runs one or two episodes too long.

Finally, 'The Edge of Destruction' is definitely the weakest of the three, but at the time a two-parter had to be written with only the Tardis and the main actors in it, within a very low budget.

Coming on to the extras, the stand-outs include 'Doctor Who: Origins' a great documentary looking back at nearly everything that lead to this phenomenal Saturday tea-time show and there's also a reproduction of the missing historical seven-parter 'Marco Polo' which followed after 'The Edge of Destruction'.

Overall, a great set which every Whovian should buy, to relive the birth of Doctor Who or discover how it all began in the early 60s.

As near to how they originally looked as they'll ever be...
I'd seen all these stories as they were released over the years on video, out of order, in visually and audially low-grade editions, so it was interesting to sit down and watch them in order, and with restored visuals and much improved sound. It's surprising how much having sharper images and clearer sound improves even the dullest story, and reminds one that 1963 wasn't so very long ago - whereas the original video releases were so low-grade they made one feel that Doctor Who was made around the same time as The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari.

The first story, An Unearthly Child, is pacey, atmospheric and compelling. The following three episode yarn, The Tribe Of Gum, has good moments but crawls along with about fifteen minutes of plot stretched out for an hour and a quarter. The Daleks is pretty much gripping throughout, with only a few flabby or clunky moments, and one can see why it was that story that really put the show on the map: the Daleks themselves really are a Sixties design classic. The Edge Of Destruction is a weird psychological two-parter that again (despite a limp denoument and generally wobbly science) held my attention pretty well for a show over 40 years old.

What most struck me most rewatching these stories, and for the first time in order, was how grim and serious the feel of them is: Ian and Barbara are all but abducted in An Unearthly Child; the cavemen and women in the Tribe Of Gum are starving and murderous; everyone almost dies of radiation poisoning in The Daleks and genocide is planned; stabbings and stranglings are threatened several times in The Edge Of Destruction. The two teachers are often at odds with the selfish, capricious Doctor and his strange grand-daughter, and so, despite the codas that end each story, there is a general lack of reassurance that is unusual in a television programme aimed at children. Moreover, partly because of budgetary and filming constraints there is little heroic derring-do in any of these stories in the escapist Buck Rogers sense; indeed fighting tends to be presented as dirty and dangerous.

In that context it was interesting and informative to watch the accompanying documentaries, perhaps most particularly the (40-odd minute) one about the genesis of the show, which was very consciously constructed to be a ratings hit in the slot between the afternoon's sport and the very popular Juke Box Jury, when the traditional children's classic serial that was currently being run in that slot had viewers turning off or over in droves. The resistance to populism within the BBC hierarchy made it rather hard for programmers to actively court a wide or mass audience - as evidenced by a research document the BBC commissioned about what sorts of science fiction themes might be 'acceptable' to base TV shows around which concluded that only time travel and ESP were classy enough for the BBC.

While Sidney Newman is always trumpeted as a populist imported to bring the BBC a mass audience, it's interesting to note that he favoured educational yarns set in the past and opposed stories featuring bug-eyed monsters as vociferously as the BBC mandarins. In effect he felt that Verity Lambert had conned him into accepting the Daleks, and of course only did accept them because the next story, Marco Polo, wasn't ready in time to be broadcast straight after The Tribe Of Gum.

Verity Lambert and Waris Hussein come across engagingly both in the interviews in the documentaries and on the commentary tracks, and seem to remember their involvement in the show with genuine affection, as do William Russell and Carol Anne Ford. As on The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, having an informed moderator on the commentary tracks keeps them focussed and they're all at least mildly interesting.

It's fun to watch the three versions of An Unearthly Child and notice the quite numerous small changes to the script, performances and direction. Everyone's performances are markedly better the second time around; in the first version I definitely had a sense of the actors just getting through their lines rather than doing much in the way of acting or characterisation. Again it's historically interesting that the episode was remounted for quality reasons (as well as its being eclipsed by Kennedy's assassination), an expensive decision that was made only because Doctor Who was seen as an important show from the get-go.

The restoration looks to be as good as it can ever be, and brings the viewer as close to seeing the programmes as originally broadcast as is ever likely to be possible. I have to say I enjoyed watching all these dvds rather more than I was expecting to. Even the under-powered Tribe Of Gum was worth revisiting.

Classic TV
I remember watching the first ever episode of Doctor Who on a damp November day in 1963 as an awe-struck 7 year old and having re-watched it in its pristine digital form from this box set my initial judgement has not altered. It is a piece of ground-breaking television.

This set of the first three adventures plus some truly fascinating documentaries is a must have for fans of the good doctor. Whilst the initial `cavemen' story is not the best ever broadcast that first episode is worth the price of the box alone. The second story, introducing the Daleks is a classic and the third; a short one-set drama shows the invention-on-a-shoe-string that the series would become famous for.

The overriding tenor of the Hartnell years is one of seriousness. The drama is played absolutely straight with none of the wisecracking self-awareness of today's doctor. This would change with the introduction of Patrick Troughton but for the first few years the show was dark and mysterious. The production leans very heavily on the tension that the drama creates rather than effects and fast-cut editing. In particular, the first half of `the Daleks' is almost unbearably tense, the scene in the metal Dalek cell where the realisation that the Doctor and his companions are dying of radiation sickness has a grimness that is only found in thought-provoking adult dramas, not supposedly `family' viewing. But it is all the better for it. ITV's answer to Doctor Who, Sapphire and Steel, also majored heavily on tense no-effects drama with an almost callous edge and was broadcast at teatime! Perhaps we over-protect our children today with humour driven effects laden shows that have nothing to provoke the imagination or sharpen their sense of danger?

For this reason, many will find these stories leaden paced and lacking visual impact but give them a chance, try to forget today's limited attention span TV and Tardis yourself back in time to the 1960s and imagine the effect these stories would have had on television audiences used to Blue Peter and the Flowerpot men (original version!) Fabulous stuff!