Continuing my Doctor Who marathon, I watched the shorter (23 minute) “official” broadcast version of An Unearthly Child last night.  In comparison to the previous version, it felt like it zipped along a bit quicker but I couldn’t honestly tell you where the missing 12 minutes were (although a good chunk of them were lost with the policeman at the start).

The internal TARDIS scene felt almost too brief, with not enough time spent on just how different the Doctor and Susan were from the schoolteachers, but maybe that’s because it felt a little on the shallow side compared to the original version.  Without the “fear” of the Doctor worrying about corrupting their (his and Susan’s) past time stream, the reasoning for “kidnapping” Ian & Barbara comes across with very little substance.  All we’re left with is the Doctor saying that, if they let Ian & Barbara go, then they, too, would have to leave.  It’s only Susan arguing that she didn’t want to leave 20th Century Earth that convinces the Doctor to kidnap the teachers.  Given that he could easily have held Susan within the TARDIS, let Ian & Barbara go, and then leave (with Susan), the whole thing feels very shallow.

In short, the change of reason behind leaving Earth and refusing to let the teachers go is the biggest loss of the episode.  Whilst the pilot (as broadcast) is still a very fine piece of television, it would have been unsurpassed excellence if they’d kept the real reason in there.