An Unearthly Child and the mystery of the junkyard gates
Today is the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who’s television debut. Rather than risking the overly portentous, let’s mark the occasion with something light-hearted and frivolous based around not just Doctor Who’s first episode but specifically around it’s very first shot.
When making An Unearthly Child, the series’ first story, director Waris Hussein was keen to use dynamic shot compositions and moving cameras. He opens the first episode with a lengthy single shot in which the camera tracks through the street set and into the junkyard, where it ‘discovers’ the incongruous presence of the TARDIS.*
Fans have often commented that the junkyard gates appear to mysteriously open by themselves to allow the camera’s entry. Even Douglas Camfield, who was the production assistant on the story, later criticised this. Interviewed for the fanzine Doctor Who Review in 1979, Camfield recalled:
“…there was something in the first episode that bothered me. The gates to the junkyard, where the TARDIS had landed, opened of their own accord! They had attached string to both gates and as the camera tracked forward, they opened! It seemed unmotivated, and it still does. I reckon Waris blew that bit…”
It seems hard to argue with Camfield. But I’m going to try. Let’s investigate why the gates open within the fiction of the episode – the ‘motivation’ of their motion in Camfield’s terms.
According to the camera script, the junkyard was supposed to have a large gate with an inset “smaller entry gate” – what’s usually called a wicket door and enables a person to enter a premises without having to open a large gate designed for vehicle access. The script states: “The policeman pushes the smaller gate, which opens. He looks through it into the yard. Then he closes it and moves on.” The script specifies that the main gate then opens, creaking slightly, and the camera passes through.
We can infer that the main gate was unsecured and the police officer’s action in opening the wicket door caused the main gate to fall open a moment later. It’s not wholly convincing but it just about makes sense.
However, there’s no wicket in the gate in the actual episode and the scripted action is slightly simplified. Instead of opening a wicket, the police officer briefly rattles the gates before moving off. It doesn’t happen now but police officers used to try the handles of doors to closed commercial premises they passed on their night-time beats in case of any properties being left unlocked and easy pray for burglars. We see PC Tom Campbell (dear old Bernard Cribbins) doing this at the start of the second Dalek film. This is what the police officer is doing in An Unearthly Child.
Presumably the officer thinks the gate is locked as he promptly moves on but it seems he was mistaken. Maybe he was trying to pull rather than push the gate open. We can perhaps infer that his rattling of the gates, which are evidently not properly secured, causes something to loosen, leading to them falling open. The point is, the gates do not open without any human intervention as some fans have suggested; they are interfered with by the police officer, even if there is then a slight lag before they open.
I concede that this explanation may not be wholly satisfactory given the ease with which the gates appear to open, but broadly speaking it fits both the scripted actions and what we see on screen, and suggests that the opening of the gates may not be quite as mysterious as some have made out.
Images © BBC and Aaru Productions Limited respectively
*I have written about Waris Hussein’s direction of this story at length in the latest issue (#6) of the superb fanzine Vworp Vworp! Order a copy here. Go on.
Sources
Doctor Who Review, issue 1, August-September 1979