Doctor Who: The Beginning (An Unearthy Child / The Daleks / The Edge of Destruction) |  | Actors: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Carole Ann Ford
Studio: BBC Warner
Category: DVD
List Price: $37.98
Buy New: $22.97
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New (12) Used (5) from $22.97
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Rating:  65 reviews
Sales Rank: 5,105
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Discs: 3
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 311 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.3 x 1.3
MPN: 794051248923
UPC: 794051248923
EAN: 0794051248923
ASIN: B000CNESV2
Theatrical Release Date: 1963
Release Date: March 28, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 03/04/2008
Amazon.com
The "unearthly" strains of Ron Grainer's soon-to-be-famous title music announced the arrival of Doctor Who to British TV screens on Saturday, November 23, 1963. It must have been quite a baffling experience for first-time viewers: the swirling abstract graphics, the weird electronic sound effects courtesy of the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, the very oddity of the show's title. This really was groundbreaking TV. "I think you'll find there's a very simple explanation for all of this", says schoolteacher Ian Chesterton (William Russell) condescendingly, shortly before being taken on board the TARDIS and transported to an alien planet. For audiences, too, this was something entirely unfamiliar, yet obviously appealing: Doctor Who ran for almost 30 years and remains one of the BBC's most popular shows. His later incarnations were all eccentric in their different ways, but William Hartnell's original Doctor is an irascible and distinctively alien character, not at all happy having to put up with ignorant 20th-century humans. The "Unearthly Child" of the title is his granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford), temporarily attending school on Earth. She is conspicuously different from her classmates and attracts the attention of two of her teachers who resolve to find out why. After an encounter with her mysterious grandfather they are whisked away on an adventure to a different time and place where angry cavemen are trying in vain to learn the secret of fire. Thus the show's trademarks are established from the outset: the Doctor and his more or less reluctant human companions, the mechanical unreliability of the TARDIS, the cliffhanger ending of each episode. It was a formula that rarely changed but that allowed apparently limitless variation, the only constraint being the BBC's budget. In later years the show tried vainly to compete with blockbuster special effects movies; but its original low-key incarnation relied more on inventive scenarios and good writing--qualities that are just as important now as then. --Mark Walker The Daleks (sometimes called "The Dead Planet") is the second-ever Doctor Who serial. First broadcast between December 1963 and February 1964, the seven-episode story ensured the program's success by introducing the Doctor's most iconic enemies. Five hundred years after a nuclear war has devastated the planet Skaro, the Doctor (William Hartnell), Barbara, Ian, and Susan materialize in a petrified forest where the pacifist, and decidedly camp, Thals face starvation. Our heroes visit a nearby city, the home of the last remaining Daleks, terrifyingly cold-blooded mutants encased in armed, pepper-pot-like shells, and become involved in a desperate battle for survival. Given a nightmarish atmosphere by Tristram Cary's surreal electronic score, The Daleks proved the template for many a future Doctor Who adventure. Hartnell's Doctor is a surprisingly self-serving hero and the ambitious storytelling, which reflects the Cold War fears of the time, belies a tiny budget. The remastered picture sometimes looks digitized, but this story, remade for the cinema as Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and starring Peter Cushing, is still both an effective, if at times unintentionally hilarious, entertainment and an essential piece of television history. A superior sequel, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, was screened in late 1964. --Gary S Dalkin One of the rarest of the early Doctor Who series, with William Hartnell as the crusty old Doctor, Edge of Destruction is entirely based in the TARDIS, which has stopped somewhere between worlds and times. The Doctor blames Ian and Barbara, the two teachers who came aboard in search for answers about his granddaughter, Susan, assuming they have committed sabotage in an attempt to return to their own time. They, in turn, in spite of recent shared escapes from Cavemen and Daleks, have no particular reason to trust his sanity. Something is causing one after another of them to act with violent irrationality, and the clock is ticking towards their destruction... This is a claustrophobic two-episode plot in which the series examines closely some of its more beloved assumptions. --Roz Kaveney
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 65
 Must Have for Doctor Who Fans September 5, 2010
Rob from Sanford (Maine)
As a fan of Doctor Who for more years (decades) than I care to remember, it was cool to see the start of it all with the first series and the original Doctor. Not only do you hear the term TARDIS for the first time and the Doctor respond "Doctor..Who?", but this series also introduces the Daleks and sets the tone for a lifetime! Fans of Doctor Who will not be disappointed with this collection.
 This is not your modern Doctor Who June 11, 2010
J. Vasen (Montgomery IL)
1 out of 13 found this review helpful
As a 5 star fan of the 21st century version of Doctor Who, I found this entire package a waste of time. To me Doctor Who is intended to be witty and energetic, and brilliant.
The Doctor Who portrayed in this package is the total opposite. No one in this cast is witty. The plots are boring and the Doctor is annoying. I think he was meant to be. The crew survives in spite of themselves in these three stories and certainly not because of anything the Doctor does.
Even the 1950's series Superman has better plots even though each story here takes several episodes.
Not remembering a lot about the episodes I watched as a teen, I was disappointed by this package. I was pleased to see in another package that the third Doctor is starting to be more like the modern one, and even the first Doctor as shown in the story The Three Doctors is an improved character.
I was happy to see the historical feature on the DVD set. And some of the comedy skits are entertaining.
At least a solid, and reasonably priced, Doctor Who set by BBC April 10, 2010
Curtis Mitchell (Peoria, AZ USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
American Doctor Who fans often get the short end of the stick when it comes to collecting their favorite show on DVD. The individual discs cost a great deal and take up considerable space. That's all different with The Beginning Collection though. The three included discs, nicely packed into two DVD cases with a nice slip-cover includes the first FOUR Doctor Who stories. Compared to the average asking price of a Doctor Who DVD, this is a real bargain. And, outside of the 30 minute reconstruction of the lost fourth story, this doesn't even begin to consider the excellent special features! The ability to view these first few story arcs sequentially also helps put the original run of the show into perspective. Older, and diehard, fans will appreciate this set for its historic value and nostalgia for the classic era of Doctor Who. Newer fans may find themselves pleasantly surprised by the intriguing stories and remarkable degree of series structure between these first few episodes. The clarity of the audio on these transfers is remarkable and these shows have never sounded better. The visual quality of the episodes leaves quite a bit to be desired but, unfortunately, this is a shortcoming of the program itself and not a result of questionable transfer methods. In general, the episodes look just about as good as they can.
While classic Doctor Who is not for every fan of the new series, this package is a smart, and affordable, collection that serves as an excellent entry point into the classic series or into building a personal DVD collection of the older shows.
Here's where the show starts...for the first time March 2, 2010
alex bushman (Michigan)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I consider each and every doctor change to be essentially the start of a new show which is part of what makes this series so interesting. I'm just getting into the classic series after jumping on the new show with the ninth doctor. The thing I prefer about the classic show is the format of the stories being many episodes long, it makes it more interesting to me in that things can really be fleshed out well. Hartnell is fantastic as the Doctor and really establishes the role well in order to give the future actors something to work for and against. If you didn't know, this set contains the first four stories of the show and contains a bunch of interesting featurettes, commentaries, and text fact track. The fourth story isn't complete, but is pieced together with pictures and the audio being pieced together with subtitles. Overall, it's a fantastic package and is in amazing condition considering how old it is. Might not be what people would consider the best starting place, but to me, if want to know where something came from and how good it was, even at the beginning, then this is the place to be.
 Pretty good for 1963 January 9, 2010
Michael Morell (Bolingbrook, IL)
I really liked this boxset, only issue have with it, is that the unedited first episode should have been done as a special feature. Other than that, it's really good.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 65
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