Name Poll 1: Episodes 1-4

[Rob McCow]

There's been endless debate about this, so let's keep it going! The BBC DVD releases appear to be the clincher, but Doctor Who Magazine persists in calling the first story 100,000BC, so the argument is far from being all over.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

An Unearthly Child as per the VHS and DVD releases. DWM talks a lot of nonsense sometimes. I mean calling serial B "The Mutants" for starters!

[SiHart]

100000BC is a terrible title. The Tribe of Gum isn't much better. An Unearthly Child is really rather good.

[Lissa]

Why is Story A not an option in this poll? All right thinking people call it Story A. If you call it anything else you might as well wear a long scarf and a fez to work or school.

[SiHart]

If you call it anything else you might as well wear a long scarf and a fez to work or school.

How do you know I don't...

[Nyder]

I'd have preferred just "Unearthly Child" rather than "An Unearthly Child". The "An" makes it a bit of a mouthful!

[Anthony Williams]

Definitely An Unearthly Child!

It absolutely baffles me how DWM still insists on calling it 100,000 BC, even though it's been released twice on VHS and once on DVD as An Unearthly Child, as well as on the Target novel!

[J.R. Southall]

Do you know what? Even though I refer to the four-episode story as An Unearthly Child when 'in company', I've voted for The Tribe of Gum anyway, as the name I'd like to refer to this story by.

Not for any reason of being 'difficult', but simply because I don't really consider the first episode and the three that follow to be all a part of the same story. The first is quite definitely a standalone introduction to the Doctor and the TARDIS, with the cliffhanger into episode 2 working in the same way as the cliffhangers at the end of the rest of the stories during this period in Doctor Who did. So it's a single episode story (An Unearthly Child) followed by a three episode story (The Tribe of Gum - none of this 100,000 BC rubbish; what an awful title that would have been!), as far as I'm concerned.

As I mentioned on the other thread, this is how In-Vision magazine treated the first four episodes, and Anthony Coburn's script book uses The Tribe of Gum as a title (it's the most appropriate one of the lot), so that'll do for me.

An Unearthly Child doesn't even begin to feel appropriate for the entire four episodes, as Susan is pretty much sidelined after the end of the first episode.

But like I say, I use An Unearthly Child whenever I'm referring to the story to someone, as otherwise, they wouldn't have the foggiest notion what I was talking about!

[Dirk Gently]

I agree with J.R. I usually think of An Unearthly Child as the single episode at the start & The Tribe of Gum as the following 3 part story. But I have no objection in people referring to the whole as An Unearthly Child, as per my vote.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

The Tribe of Gum is the worst option in my eyes. Not only do the tribe never refer to themselves by this name, or indeed show any notion of the concept that their tribe should even have a name, but the word "gum" also already means something, so conjours up images of this sticky gummy tribe all glued to rocks and things. Stupid title.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Also I think it's a bit strange to split this into two different stories just because it's set in two different locations. The whole point is that this group of people are thrown together and then have to learn to trust each other and work together and adapt to their new situation. This personal story is barely started by the end of part 1. There's also plently of TARDISy exposition in part 2 that carries on from that in part 1, it's hardly just the TARDIS crew showing up and having an adventure as normal.

Part 1 doesn't work as a story in its own right as it's really just a prologue or an opening chapter. Parts 2-4 down't work as a story on their own as so much of part 2 (at the very least) continues on directly from the opening episode and doesn't work as an opening episode of a story.

[Alex Me]

An Unearthly Child, just seems like to most commonly used name. Plus Tribe of Gum and 1 000 000 BC just sound silly.

[wombatskidude]

I'd go with An Unearthly Child. I was brought up on Target books, so having story titles that don't correspond is just plain wrong*.







*Okay, by this argument, I must also prefer Doctor Who and the Space War, Doctor Who and the Loch Ness monster etc...

[Terry Leptil]

To begin with, I referred to this story as An Unearthly Child then afterwards mainly from The Television Companion by David J. Howe, 100,000 BC. The Tribe of Gum sounds silly and this was the title for the Titan script book. However, now I call it An Unearthly Child, as this title has been adopted for the book, video, DVD releases etc.

[Stuart Wallis]

Why is Story A not an option in this poll? All right thinking people call it Story A. If you call it anything else you might as well wear a long scarf and a fez to work or school.

Well it's that or Fred...

An unearthly Child I have always known it as, so An Unearthly Child it shall remain.