An Unearthly Child (TV story)

New project alert! For something to do when I'm bored or procrastinating, I've decided to rank every DW television story. I want to be fair, so I'm deciding rankings based on categories rather than just which ones I personally like best. However, this is still quite biased to my opinion, so I thought I'd ask you guys for help.

So, for each of the following categories, please give me a score out of 10 for An Unearthly Child.

Categories:

1. Plot (e.g: Is the story idea good? Does the episode do it justice? Does the plot run smoothly or drag on? etc)

2. Characters (e.g: Are the characters believable? Is there enough focus on characterization overall? Do the recurring characters still feel like themselves?)

3. Entertainment value (How enjoyable you personally found the story)

4. Legacy/Importance (e.g: Does the episode contribute to the lore? Do any milestones occur? Is the story referenced in future episodes?)

5. Fan popularity (In your experience, how do you think the fandom at large rates this story?)

So...

In the very first Doctor Who story, Susan states that she came up with the name TARDIS herself.

That aged well...

But it is canon in every single way. So how come all the other Time Lords refer to their ships as TARDISes as well? There is no way the show would just rewrite or ignore that line from the very beginning, is there?

I would love to know your theories on this, and if you have any other pieces of canon that have been ignored or erased?

Does Remembrance of The Daleks take place before or after The First Doctor left with Susan, Barbara, and Ian

Comment down your problems with the serial that started it all.

This is my personal ranking of every doctors first full story (not necessarily post-regeneration story).

I’d love to hear everyone else’s rankings

1. An unearthly Child :ONLY PART 1 and it’s a perfect first story, introducing us to the doctor, TARDIS , and companions perfectly

2. The Eleventh Hour: a great jumping on point for new viewers, and Smith understood the role immediately and introducing us to Amy as well was done perfectly with a great story to boot.

3. Spearhead from Space: a new breath of life to the show and a fun, earth-based story which establishes what type of stories we will continue to see from Pertwee’s run moving forward. Pertwee is fantastic right off!

4. Power of the Daleks: the story that could have ended the show if done wrong, but Troughton and the daleks created an amazing story which kept the show going for so long

5. Rose: nostalgia might affect my views on this story but much like an unearthly child it has to introduce people to the doctor, companion, and TARDIS while having a good story. While the story isn’t as good, it’s still a dang good time and got me hooked when I watched it.

6. Deep Breath: I like this story more than most. I like how Capaldi questions his morality and has to figure out who he is more than any other doctor before him had. So much so that it ends up being his arc throughout his run. Plus I love the paternoster gang.

7. RoboT: Tom’s first story feels more like a lost Pertwee story, howeve that’s not to say it’s bad, but I’m glad that we get a nice transition from Pertwee’s earthbound era to Tom’s time and sapce era

8. Doctor Who (the movie): once again I like this story more than most. McGann is great as the doctor and the “who am I” scene gives me chills every time. Of course the story itself is not great, but I enjoy it.

9. Castrovalva: nothing inherently wrong with this story, but I kind of feel like Davisons post-regeneration trauma was a bit drawn out so we didn’t get a proper taste of his doctor. But I love the look of the story and Ainley is fantastic as well.

10. The church on Ruby Road: it’s fun. Ncuti steals the scenes he’s in and immediately felt like the doctor, I actually like that we don’t get the traumatic post-regeneration for him as some time has passed since the giggle. The story itself though is quite generic

11. The Woman Who Fell to Earth: again, not inherently bad, I just enjoy others more. Jodie I feel was great for her first episode and the stunt on the crane is one of the best “I am the doctor” moments for a post-regeneration doctor

12. The Star Beast: a fun return to form with a rushed third act. Tennant was great to have back and you really felt like this doctor was different just because of little things he did. The story was good for the first two-thirds, but then it got rushed and deus-ex-machina’d the meta crisis.

13. The Christmas Invasion: yeah I don’t really care for this story. I feel like having the doctor absent for most of it doesn’t work for me when it’s his first story. That being said when he does wake up, Tennant was fantastic and immediately felt like the doctor

14. Time and The Rani: this story’s bad but I LOVE IT! I just love how campy and ridiculous it is and Sylvester was not as bad as people say in this story. Plus I feel he can work that multi-color coat.

15. The twin Dilemma: When you have your new doctor’s first action be strangling their companion, it’s hard to see past that and makes them completely unlikable. The story itself is not as bad as people say (definitely not the worst of classic who) but it’s still pretty bad. Plus putting this at the end of a season rather than the beginning was a very bad choice.

This is just my list and my opinion. I did not count “Day of the Doctor“ of “fugitive of the Judoon” as they are more debatable.

Perhaps splitting them was a bad idea, but I do think that there are different things to say about this and AUC.

I like the fact that it is the Doctor who gives humanity fire, and therefore life, which is almost a parallel with Prometheus, and I like the idea of doing cavemen. Barbara (well, the actress who plays her, but I'm displaying a worrying tendency to forget everybody's names. It'll come to me in a minute.) is very good here as well, even if she will be better later.

But mostly the thematic parallels to Prometheus, setting up Dr Who as a hero, even if he isn't one yet.

1. An Unearthly Child (Part 1 is by far the best and if I was ranking the rest of the story separately it it would be lower.

2. The Keys of Marinus (among the best of Hartnell's stories)

3. The Reign of Terror (The only historical of this season not to be racist)

4. The Sensorites (Could have taken the number 2 spot if only it was 2 episodes shorter. This is Susan's best appearance as a character aside from the first episode of An Unearthly Child.)

5. The Daleks (Obviously iconic but very slow and unfocused. It's a story with a lot of good ideas and some really great moments peppered throughout)

6. The Aztecs (if it wasn't full of brownface it would be ranked higher. The story is surprisingly not as condescending as you'd expect to indigenous people but still. Ultimately it's a fun story and Cameca and the Doctor's relationship is great)

7. Marco Polo (Apparently beautiful from set photos and obviously done with some real style based on the short reconstruction I've seen but in my view more racist than The Aztecs. I can't really judge it fairly until it's found by some miracle or animated)

8. The Edge of Destruction (not terrible but clearly filler and it doesn't fit super well with the tone/vibe of the rest of the season or the show as a whole)