Forum:First appearance of the sun and the moon

Yeah, it's as banal as my question of guns, but hey, the variable is there to be used.

Does anyone know what the first appearance of Sol and the Moon is? I'm guessing the eclipse in The Aztecs might be it, but there might be something I missed from not having seen any Marco Polo telesnaps. -- Tybort (talk page) 16:57, July 19, 2012 (UTC)


 * Sol's first appearance was An Unearthly Child was it not? It was worshipped as a God. As for the Moon, I have no idea. MM/ Want to talk? 17:23, July 19, 2012 (UTC)


 * It was mentioned a lot of times as "Orb", but I'm not sure if the camera showed any representation of it. Given that the show didn't have exterior shots back then, I'm not sure if it could even appear incidentally.


 * I mean, I gather the Earth being in daylight isn't really an appearance of the sun, even if we see the scattered light from it. -- Tybort (talk page) 18:35, July 19, 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, just because there is a variable for an infobox doesn't mean that it must be used. But, sure, I get the fun of looking for the first appearances of common things.


 * In any event, the first appearance of Sol is "The Cave of Skulls", where in fact the set designer took the time to actually have the sun painted on the back cyclorama. It's particularly obvious when the Doctor shows a skeptical Ian what the scanner says is outside the TARDIS.  However, you can see what's meant to be the sun later when Ian, Barara and Susan are briefly separated from the pipe-smoking Doctor.  There's one shot where Ian is having a hard time believing the TARDIS has moved, and you can see it over his left (our right) shoulder.  You can also see it behind the Doctor when Hartnell takes a puff of his pipe.


 * I think you're going to have a harder time with La Luna, and I'd leave blank for that one.  The main reason is that we're missing all of Marco Polo and it could well have been represented in that story in a way that would not survive on audio.  If all we had was the audio of "The Cave of Skulls", I highly doubt that anyone would imagined it contained the sun.  I think they'd believe, like  you, that it was all shot on a soundstage and the BBC budget wouldn't have allowed any depiction of it.  But there it is, clearly and consistently over the shoulders of our two male leads.  I rather suspect that the moon could well have been in Marco Polo.  Since both stories have the same director and designer, it would seem plausible that Barry Newberry/Waris Hussein would have added the same set details to both productions.


 * I wouldn't feel comfortable definitively stating a first lunar appearance unless I were able to see the opening episodes of Marco Polo in their entirety. My suspicion is that they actually did sneak in some kind of lunar appearance in "The Roof of the World" and/or "The Singing Sands", since they're both largely set at night under the open sky.  03:43: Thu 26 Jul 2012