Doctor Who: Guardian reviewer unimpressed by first episode

The Guardian gave no mention of the 23 November debut episode (editors were understandably busy with the assassination of John F Kennedy the previous day). That was remedied on 2 December 1963, when the newspaper printed a review of the first two episodes, although reviewer Mary Crozier seemed decidedly unimpressed. An inauspicious start for the world’s longest running sci-fi series. Television: Doctor Who By Mary Crozier 2 December 1963 A chance to see the first episode of the BBC’s Dr Who over again on Saturday before the second, turned out to accentuate that the space and time serial has fallen off badly soon after getting under way. Anthony’ Coburn’s science-fiction story started off traditionally with a strange, unearthly girl and her grandfather, who are travelling about in space and time. To some people anything like this is anathema, but to anyone lured by time travelling, there is always the hope when a new venture starts that it will capture a genuine thrill, that slight shiver of uneasiness that means a barrier has been broken. The first episode, in which a young man and woman, both schoolteachers, track down Susan and follow her into the mysterious police ‘phone box (which inside is a space-time ship) got off the ground predictably, but there was little to thrill. The time travellers were whisked off, the young teachers too, and thanks to strange sound effects and whirligigs on the screen, it was possible to get mildly worked up about the outcome. Part two was a depressing sequel. The vessel came clown in a prehistoric landscape, and the hairy savages who lived there got busy with prolonged debates and quarrels about their inability to make fire. Wigs and furry pelts and clubs and laborious dialogue were all ludicrous. Were these serious stone agers or not? The space ship, for some unexplained reason, remained looking like a police box in the dusty desert. I hope this will be explained later.