Episode 2: The Cave of Skulls

Synopsis:

The TARDIS has landed in a barren wilderness, but is being watched by a figure. It is a man, dressed in furs. The two school teachers, Ian and Barbara, quickly recover and get to their feet. The Doctor and Susan are making checks on the external environment. Ian still refuses to believe that they have moved from the junkyard. The Doctor opens the doors and they see the wild landscape beyond, and Ian is forced to accept what has happened. The Doctor moves away by himself to carry out some tests. he is unhappy to see that the TARDIS has retained its Police Box shape. Susan explains that it ought to alter its appearance to fit in with its surroundings. 

When the Doctor lights his pipe with a match, the watching figure leaps forward and knocks him out, then drags him away to the nearby forest.

The others see the signs of struggle and set off to find him.

In the forest lives a primitive tribe whose leader, Za, is struggling to make fire. His father was a firemaker, but he failed to pass on the secret to his son when he died. An older tribesman named Horg has a daughter, Hur, and he will give her to whoever makes fire for the them. Za intends this to be him, but he has a rival for the leadership - a stranger named Kal, who only recently joined them after his own tribe perished in the last great cold. An old woman who is part of the tribe warns everyone against fire - believing it will lead to their destruction.

Kal arrives wit the Doctor, promising that the strange old man can make fire come from his fingers. When the Doctor comes to, however, he discovers that he has dropped his matches. Za scorns Kal and threatens to kill them both when Susan, Ian and Barbara arrive. The Doctor stops Za from killing Ian by promising to withhold fire if he harms them. Za orders the time travellers to be bound and sealed up in the Cave of Skulls. This cavern is strewn with bones, and Ian notices that all the skulls show signs of violence...

Next Episode: The Forest of Fear.

Data:

Written by: Anthony Coburn

Recorded: Friday 25th October 1963 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5:30pm, Saturday 30th November 1963

Ratings: 5.9 million / AI 59

Designer: Barry Newbery

Director: Waris Hussein

Guest cast: Derek Newark (Za), Alethea Charlton (Hur), Jeremy Young (Kal), Howard Lang (Horg), Eileen Way (Old Woman)

Critique:

The second episode of Doctor Who sees the TARDIS make its first voyage, depositing the time travellers into jeopardy for the first time. Last week's set up was more mystery, but now it is pure adventure. It had originally been intended that the series would have three kinds of story - ones set in the future, with science-fiction elements; ones set in the past, featuring people and events from history; and "sideways" ones - which could be set in any time or place but would involve alternate states of being. The studio allocation for this story meant that the hoped for "miniscules" story could not be made, as there weren't the technical facilities required at Lime Grove. Sydney Newman was also worried that a giant spider which was due to feature might take the show into BEM territory (Bug-Eyed Monsters) which he wanted to avoid. Neither Lambert nor Hussein wanted to open the series with a story about cavemen, but this Coburn story was all that was ready to go.

Of the characters, Susan is already demonstrating traits which will continue until she departs. She panics and falls apart when she thinks something has happened to her grandfather. Ian remains the sceptical one - the Doctor actually getting fed up with him when he continues to deny the obvious. Ian only finally accepts what the Doctor and Susan have said when the doors are opened onto the strange landscape. As Susan smugly proclaims: "That's not on the scanner!". Barbara once more seems more open-minded and accepting of what is going on.

We see the Doctor respond to danger for the first time - and he doesn't seem to cope very well. It is clear that it must still be early days in the Doctor's travels. Only later will unseen adventures which predate this start to be mentioned.

Not that the regulars appear very much in this episode. The cave people are introduced in a lengthy scene, which sets out the backdrop to their difficulties. Either winter is fast approaching, and they can't make fire, or it is actually the Ice Age which is approaching, and they haven't had fire for a very long time. It's all a bit vague and contradictory.

The assumption is that this is prehistoric Earth, but this is never explicitly stated. It could be primitive humanoids on an alien planet, or even a future Earth where the people have been cast back into a new stone age following some catastrophe.

Trivia:

• This is the second episode of the four part story generally known as An Unearthly Child. Some fans like to think of the first episode as being a stand-alone one, followed by a three part adventure set in the Stone Age (titled either 'The Tribe of Gum' or '100,000 BC') of which this is the first instalment.
• The episode was broadcast 15 minutes later than advertised in Radio Times, as a repeat of An Unearthly Child was scheduled just before it - many people having missed it first time round due to the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, and a major regional power cut on the evening of the 23rd November.
• The barren landscape scenes were filmed at Ealing in October 1963.
• Only a small part of the TARDIS console set was required, with the doors to the rear rather than off to the left as in the previous week.
• This is the only episode in which the Doctor is seen to smoke - he has a meerschaum-type pipe.
• When Ian dropped his torch in the last episode, the script made sure to have him mention that he did not have any matches on him. It is quite unusual for this time that neither of the two adults is a smoker.
• Both Susan and the Doctor make it clear that this is the first time that the TARDIS chameleon circuit (which it will only be called much later) has broken down.
• Something else which has broken down is a "Year-o-meter" - the Doctor states that it is reading zero.
• At one point, the cave people were not going to speak - only grunt and mime. Once it was decided to have them speak English, the actors amended the scripts in rehearsals to make it sound more guttural and not BBC English.
• Waris Hussein got the prospective actors to take their shirts off, to show that they were hirsute enough.
• One of the female extras, however, walked off the set and went home, rather than have her teeth blackened.
• Eileen Way had a bet with William Hartnell as to the programme's longevity. He thought 5 years, whilst she thought it wouldn't last the year. They never worked together again, so Way never did pay Hartnell the £1 she owed him.