An Unearthly Child - Production

Production

The serial that became An Unearthly Child was originally commissioned from writer Anthony Coburn in June 1963, when it was intended to run as the second Doctor Who serial. At this stage, it was planned that the series would open with a serial entitled The Giants, to be written by BBC staff scriptwriter C. E. Webber. Webber had been heavily involved in the brainstorming meetings which had led to the creation of Doctor Who, and — with BBC Head of Drama Sydney Newman and Head of Serials Donald Wilson — had co-written the initial format document for the series.

By the middle of June, however, Wilson and Doctor Who's initial "caretaker producer" Rex Tucker decided to reject The Giants. This was partly because it was felt the serial lacked the necessary impact for an opener, and partly because it was felt that the technical requirements of the storyline — which involved the leading characters being drastically reduced in size — would be beyond the capacities of the young series at this point, given the facilities available. Due to the lack of scripts ready for production, it was decided to move Coburn's serial up to first place in the running order.

By the end of June, responsibility for getting Doctor Who off the ground was handed over to producer Verity Lambert and script editor David Whitaker, neither of whom were greatly impressed with Coburn's serial as a series 'opener'. The writer was asked to carry out major rewrites. Some consideration was even given to dropping the scripts altogether, with writer Terence Dudley briefly sounded out about providing a replacement, but a lack of time necessitated Coburn's serial going ahead.

The moving up in the schedule of Coburn's story necessitated his rewriting the opening episode to include some introductory elements of Webber's script for the first episode of The Giants; as a result, Webber received a co-writer's credit for the episode "An Unearthly Child" on internal BBC documentation. Coburn did, however, make several significant original contributions of his own, most notably that the Doctor's time machine should externally resemble a police box, which subsequently went on to become one of the main icons of the show. Coburn had the idea for the design when he came across a real police box while on a walk near his office. Concerned to avoid any possibility of sexual impropriety implicit in having a young girl travelling with an older man, Coburn also insisted that the character of Susan Foreman should be redrawn as the Doctor's granddaughter, rather than simply his travelling companion.

The serial as a whole was originally to have been directed by Rex Tucker, but when he moved on from the series, young staff director Waris Hussein, who had been attached to Doctor Who from an early stage, was given the assignment. Some of the pre-filmed inserts for the serial, shot at Ealing Studios in early October, were directed by Hussein's production assistant, Douglas Camfield. The incidental music score was provided by Norman Kay. The scenic designer assigned to the serial was Peter Brachacki, who originated the distinctive TARDIS interior set, but he eventually handled only the very first episode before being replaced by Barry Newbery, as he was unhappy working on the programme.

The early series, says cultural scholar John Paul Green, "explicitly positioned the Doctor as grandfather to his companion Susan." Unlike most Doctor Who episodes, the Doctor is accompanied in the TARDIS by not only one companion, Susan, but also her school teachers, Ian and Barbara (William Russell and Jacqueline Hill). Scholar John R. Cook reflects that the teachers' presence echoes Doctor Who's original educational remit. The New Scientist reflected, in 1982, that the serial was set in the stone age because the show's original intention was "to bring to life the Earth's history."

The first version of the opening episode was shot at Lime Grove Studios on the evening of 27 September 1963, following a week of rehearsals. The second attempt at the opening episode was shot on 18 October, with the following three episodes being shot weekly from that point onwards on 25 October, 1 November and 8 November. As with much British television of the era, the episodes were predominantly videotaped "as live", with little scope for re-takes or breaks in recording. This left room for many mistakes that are evident on the show- but actually got the shows finished extremely quickly.