Season 6 of Doctor Who is the first season I’ll be keeping up with as it airs, and I’m fully expecting to hate the BBC in between shows for making me wait a week for the next one. So I’m embarking on a longtime plan to watch the original series, which I’m expecting will take me roughly as long to watch as it took the BBC to make.

Tonight’s episode: Season 1, Episode 1, Doctor 1: “An Unearthly Child.” Original airdate: 11/23/1963, which makes this only one day younger than the Kennedy assassination. I approached this episode—and really all of the first few seasons—with a great deal of trepidation, as I’m not particularly fond of out-of-date science fiction. I can get through the Star Trek original series thanks to a fond nostalgia, but not much else.

Surprise! This episode is actually still pretty damned good. Turns out that I can’t write a synopsis to save my life, so feel free to check out the one here.

Opening credits remind me of the worse effects of The Outer Limits, but the Who theme more than makes up for it; I wasn’t aware how much of what I love about the current theme was actually nearly fifty years old.

We’re introduced to the first two grownup companions, schoolteachers of the Doctor’s granddaughter, whose names escape me at the moment but will probably become ingrained shortly. Their repartee could have been a dated, muddled mess; instead, these are two smart people who treat each other as peers and generally comport themselves well onscreen. They appear to be more than a little dense when they first walk into the TARDIS—personally, if I walked into a room larger than its outside, I’d be less sure of myself—but they haven’t had the benefit of watching the last few decades of science fiction.

Likewise for the Doctor’s granddaughter; I’m always afraid of the teen interest element, but Susan isn’t 10% as annoying as I feared she might be. There’s a bit more shrill and foolishly headstrong than seems likely in her character, but again, that might just be the culture gap.

Which brings me to William Hartnell’s Doctor. This makes the episode. I don’t know how this played in 1963, but in 2011 he enters on screen like the classic creepy villain; you half-expect Susan to be chained up as his sex slave in the back of the phone booth. He’s a complete dick to both of her teachers and not much better to Susan herself; the bastard nature of recent Doctors is on full display here from the get-go.

Other points of note: the TARDIS sound is just as old as the theme; Hartnell’s teeth prove that those old jokes about British dentistry aren’t entirely untrue; I’m not sure what knocked out the passengers when they travelled through time, but that wide-eyed look on the Doctor’s face when they got there was a great touch—he’s so certain of himself until then, but that one moment shows the character isn’t omniscient.

I’m looking forward to what’s coming next.

Rating system: 5 stars: a classic 4 stars: still worth watching 3 stars: alright, nothing special 2 stars: checking my watch 1 star: Jesus, when will it end?