“An Unearthly Child” is the name of the first episode of Doctor Who ever. In those early years they still operated as serials but each episode would have it’s own name. It wasn’t until a few years into the show that all the serial parts would share a name. For example, “An Unearthly Child” is now considered the name of the first four episodes of the first serial, with the other episodes titled “The Cave Of Skulls”, “The Forest Of Fear”, and “The Firemaker” respectively. However, the working name was apparently “The Tribe Of Gum”, named after one of the characters whose name became Kal in the final version of the serial. In modern Doctor Who all you have are one-shot episodes with one multiparter per “series” (what they call seasons in the UK at least now) and a running subplot through the season.

Because we can’t have nice things, the four episodes have entered the crazy world of rights issues. Upset at perceived past wrongs by the BBC toward his late father, the son of the episode’s writer, Anthony Coburn, is keeping the serial from joining the classic Who shows from airing on the BBC’s “iPlayer” website, which they announced they would start doing in November.

Now in the name of full disclosure, I am a fan of the classic show, less so the new show even before the recent shenanigans because it never had the same charm as the original for me. I’m also not in the UK so the only way I can see it as an American is with a VPN, a BritBox subscription, or the various Classic Doctor Who livestream channels that don’t seem to show the same episode. I checked earlier. Two services were showing “The Pirate Planet”, but one had “Snakedance” and the other “The Androids Of Tara”. I could use YouTube, Amazon, or Vudu but all three require you to rent an episode rather than stream free with ads. I do, however, own the episode on DVD so I can watch it whenever I want. My point is my dog in this fight is very small. And considering who my favorite Companion is, robotic.

So where’s the controversy, why and how can Stef Coburn keeps his dad’s episode from being part of the BBC’s new project I can’t see anyway, and who’s in the right? Let’s examine.

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