Doctor Who An Unearthly Child

How it all began (sort of)….

It is a foggy haunting night- an owl is hooting in the distance as a small dog collides with the camera. Slowly, a car draws up extraordinarily slowly as if it’s indoors and it cannot be driven properly.  Ian Chesterton is looking very bored because instead of inviting him round for sex and a coffee, fellow teacher Barbara Wright has insisted they follow spooky Susan Foreman, their weird pupil with the trainers, high IQ and an iPad. Whatever that is.

The Doctor cannot remember what he did with that chocolate cake but luckly Susan has spotted it.

“Oh this is crap” he moans, “Wouldn’t you rather be having a good old rumpy with me?”
Barbara glares at him as if he’s a fish, “No I wouldn’t. It’s time to find out the truth about spooky Susan. She had my class in uproar today with her John Smith and the Common
Men downloads”

Ian nodded, “I know what you mean. What is a down load exactly? I know physics but I’ve never heard of that. I wonder what she’s on about sometimes. Or on.”

Barbara pointed through the window, “We have to investigate that junkyard; for all we know she could be an alien”.

Ian raised his eyebrows, “Yes and for all we know she might just live in a junkyard with her grandfather cooking muffins and playing pin the tail on the goat”

“Oh Ian I’d love that to be true. Then at least we’d know she was normal”

“Yes and then we could get back to Chez Babs for a little one to one tutoring!”

They try to climb out of the car, but Barbara’s epic beehive hairstyle traps her in the door frame so she is unable to move. Using a blowtorch he finds lying about, Ian frees her and, hair still smouldering; she follows him to the gate. There is a sudden clatter that makes them jump and causes  Ian to fondle Barbara inappropriately.

A camera man pokes his head from underneath a dustbin, “Sorry folks, only me. It’s live- you’d better go on”

Doing their best to ignore him Ian shines a flashlight on the wide wooden doors picking out a sign in white lettering that reads I AM FOUR MEN.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he mutters.

"Now then Chimpington my boy, I am certain I left a chocolate cake in this clock, mmm?"

They push open the gates to find Susan floating in mid- air, spinning like a top. She waves to them calling, “Hello, Mr Chesterton and Miss Wright. What are you doing here?”

“You see” says Ian, “Everything’s perfectly fine; we don’t have anything to worry about”

Outraged, Barbara turns on him, “Are you mad? Everything is not alright- she isn’t even wearing a scarf on a foggy haunting night like this!”

Turning to Susan who has now stopped rotating, she says, “We came to see if you were alight.” Susan’s’ brow furrowed, “Haven’t you read my Facebook status? I changed it to `alright`”

The teachers exchange puzzled glances as they hear a wheezing groaning sound, a good deal of theatrical coughing as an elderly man emerges wearing an astrakhan hat and a pince nez. And some clothes. The old man glowers at them, whilst waving a handkerchief unnecessarily

“Hmm, Susan my child, who are these people mm?”
Susan replied cheerfully, ”Oh it’s only my teachers grandfather. They brought me a flask of, erm, cake didn’t you? Because it’s so foggy and haunting?”

The old man seemed uninterested, “Well come along child, hmm, we must be on our way”

As he lead Susan away, Ian stepped in, pulling her back, “Now wait a minute you old git; I’ve sacrificed a night of passion on Bab’s crumby sofa for this so the least you can give us is an explanation. Who are you?”

The Doctor declines to answer dragging Susan by the hair into an old police box standing incongruously in the corner. Following him, Ian and Barbara force their way inside, their mouths dropping open as they do. They stare at the brightly lit room with a large hexagonal console at its centre and round things round the walls.

“We call them roundels” said Susan helpfully.

“Oh” said Barbara, whose hair had dropped due to gravity issues.

Ian whistled, “Crikey, the rag trade must be profitable. We’re in the wrong business, Babs”

Barbara looked at Susan, “You live here?”

Suddenly and for no real dramatic reason anyone can think of, Susan started to babble in a panicked voice, “Aaarrggh, grandfather, they’ve come here now and messed up everything; now we’ll have to eat them!”

The old man patted her on the head, “Now, now my child don’t fret. You know I only eat lentils”

He turns to the startled teachers and announces, “My name is the Doctor and I’m a renegade from my people. I travel in time and space., mm”

“Bollocks” said Ian

Barbara however seems more convinced, “That makes a lot of things clear. Like the other day when Susan mentioned in class that she lived with her grandfather in a time ship and she was from another planet.”

Ian marches up to console, “Well I don’t believe a word of it. Let us out of here- we’re going straight to the police”

He pulls a lever as the Doctor yells, “No Chatterbox, don’t....”

Grinding noises fill the room as the door shuts and the whole place lurches to one side. They tumble about for minutes, some more convincingly than others, until the shuddering stops and everything is still.

Barbara’s hair has now knotted itself up so she looks like a 99 ice cream.
“Where are we?” she asks shakily.

The Doctor looks concerned, “We’re beyond the world you know now. On some faraway planet, mmm...”

Outside, a shadow appears on the side of the TARDIS; it is a giant M.