Doctor Who (1963), An Unearthly Child
So our protagonists have attempted a daring escape from the Cave of Skulls, through the Forest of Fear, only to be caught within sight of their goal. Once more they are captives of the tribe.
Summary
The Time Travelers are brought back to the caves, where Kal makes his play for leadership of the Tribe, accusing Za of having aided them and killing the Old Woman, but the Doctor tricks Kal into revealing that he had killed the Old Woman himself. The Doctor and Ian help Za to rally the Tribe and Kal is driven away.
Instead of showing gratitude, Za has the Travelers imprisoned in the Cave of Skulls again. Once there, they make a fire in order to bargain for their freedom. They show the fire to Za just as Kal sneaks into the cave, leading to a grizzly fight to the death between Kal and Za, with Za emerging as the victor.
Za still refuses to free the Travelers, however, and when it becomes clear that he will never do so, they fake their own deaths, using fire and skulls from the cave, escaping into the forest, this time reaching the TARDIS just in time to escape the pursuing Tribe.
Crew Credits
Writer: Anthony Coburn
Director: Waris Hussein
Story Editor: David Whitaker
Producer: Verity Lambert
Overview
Like the previous episode, this one is a bit on the grizzly side, particularly the rather brutal hand-to-hand confrontation between Za and Kal. Also like the previous episode, its not so much the presence of violence that gives that impression (Doctor Who will frequently feature violence over the years) but the manner in which it is portrayed, with an emphasis on how viscerally unpleasant it is.
In addition, this episode sees the culmination of the serial's story about the leadership of the Tribe. For three episodes now, we've seen the struggle between Kal and Za for leadership with implications about what it would mean for the rest of the Tribe if one or the other succeeds and, indeed, what it would mean if they don't rediscover fire before "the Great Cold" comes.
On the surface of it, it's hardly surprising that this story about the fate of the Tribe and those within it gets concluded but, in a larger sense, the show is setting up a condition to its storytelling that will carry over into the rest of the series but which hadn't necessarily been guaranteed before...
Doctor Who is going to finish the narratives of each environment they visit.
When Doctor Who introduces serial-specific characters and story arcs and dynamics, it's going to play them out, to bring them to a conclusion. The show isn't just going to be the story of the Time Travelers themselves and how they escape from whatever predicament they're in. Each setting, each serial, each story, is going to be resolved.
Again, there's a certain degree to which this seems obvious. I mean, sure, they could restrict the story almost entirely to the perspectives of the four main characters, to how the events affect them personally. They could have ended this serial at the end of the previous episode, having the Travelers arrive at the TARDIS ever so slightly before the Tribe at the end and escape. Heck, that's the way this episode ends. But that wouldn't have been particularly satisfying, would it?
Sure, the dynamics of the struggle between Ian and the Doctor for leadership might be slightly more interesting than the similar struggle between Kal and Za. Sure, it's fascinating to watch these early days of the TARDIS team dynamic, to see the little glimmerings of the Doctor we will know later in this far more cynical, selfish character on the screen now.
But that's such a limited perspective. It's a world where the actions of the main characters really only affect the main characters themselves. It's a microcosm.
No, this episode is here to wrap up the storyline of the cavemen, not necessarily because it's the most interesting storyline, but because it's important to establish, right from the beginning, that the actions of the main characters affect things. What the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan do when they're outside the TARDIS matters, not just to those four, but to everyone around them. Without their presence, the Tribe would have never rediscovered fire and would likely have died, likely altering the entire future of the planet.
This episode makes it clear that Doctor Who is not going to be a story about escaping history but rather one about shaping it.
Characters
Speaking of the cavemen...
Kal continues to play his hand at being the world's first politician. He cements this by out and out lying to the Tribe for his own gain, telling them that Za both freed the prisoners and killed the Old Woman. That Za had nothing to gain by doing either of those things is immaterial. Like modern politics, the lie doesn't have to make sense. It just has to rile up the emotions of the crowd. And Kal's good at that. He pretty much has the crowd eating out of his hand before the Doctor starts poking holes in his story.
But then we get to see the limitations of Kal's abilities. He's good at whipping the crowd into a frenzy, but he's not good at defending his own position. He can lie, but he can't explain away his lies when they're challenged. He can win the crowd when they're neutral, but he can't win them back when they've turned against him. Even later, in the Cave of Skulls, when he burns himself, we see that for all his coveting of fire as a tool to install himself as leader, he doesn't really understand what it is. Indeed, I'd hazard a guess that, despite his claims, Kal has probably never seen fire before.
If the episode is highlighting the limitations of Kal, it's doing the opposite for Za. As I mentioned in my previous post, we've already seen that Za has a wider vision of leadership than Kal does. He wants to be in charge but he also wants that to benefit the Tribe. He's not content just to lead but also actively wants to learn to be a better leader. As he says, he "must hear more things to remember. The leader would have things to remember." It's why he presses Hur for the knowledge of what happened while he was unconscious. It's also why he's unwilling to let the Time Travelers go, even after they've shown him how to make fire. He's recognized their knowledge as a resource that he wants to continue to make use of for the Tribe's benefit.
For all intents and purposes, Za has had a bit of an intellectual epiphany. He's seen the things the Travelers do, the things Kal does, and integrated them into his thinking, turning himself into a better leader, one suited to carry the Tribe further. Note how, as soon as Kal's lies start to fall apart, Za leaps right into the same crowd-rallying approach that Kal himself used. He's seeing good ideas and he's making them his own.
Integral to this is his embrace of Ian's statement, "Kal is not stronger than the whole tribe." Za doesn't just take this as a one-off homily, but clearly starts thinking about it in a wider sense, about how the tribe can function better as a unit than just as individuals. I mentioned, back when the Travelers first arrived, that this is a world where physical strength trumps intellectualism. It's better to be strong than it is to be smart here. Here, Za is taking the first steps toward a world in which brains and innovation are the driving force in the world. Strength still matters of course, but it's no longer the only thing that does.
All of this culminates with Za coming up with an idea of his own, when told that the night will hide the Travelers' escape: "With fire, it is day!" It's a simple idea, sure, that they can use fire to light the dark. But it's the first idea he seems to have come up with entirely on his own and it's a pretty innovative one for this, the dawn of mankind.
Of course, such change can be a bit frightening. The Old Woman, so afraid of change, may no longer be around to voice her objections, but Horg effectively takes her place. Toward the end of the episode, he's practically jumping at the chance to get rid of Za, perhaps seeing this new approach of Za's as a sign of individual weakness, rather than the sign of rising above individuality that it really is. Horg wants a leader like they had before. But Za's turning into a leader who's beyond that and Horg is ready to have the Tribe lash out to stop it. At least he is until Za walks out of the Cave of Skulls with fire. Za may have adopted some new approaches but he hasn't forgotten the previous ways of asserting dominance in the Tribe. The leader is the one who makes fire. Once he's done that, Horg has no power left at all.
Hur, who I've previously maintained to be the smartest person in the Tribe does, unfortunately, get a bit left behind by Za's rapid epiphany. Whereas, in the previous two episodes, she was the one explaining the wider implications of their observations to him, in this one it's largely the opposite. He has basically leapfrogged over her intellectually. This could have been played as a negative, as her resenting him for moving beyond her, but it's actually not. If anything, Hur seems more smitten with him than ever. It's like his ascendance has cemented him as being precisely the kind of man and leader she has always wanted him to be.
And then there's the main characters...
After being somewhat sidelined for the past two episodes (get used to it), Susan gets a small moment to shine when she figures out the trick to making the skulls look spectral via the fire. But Ian steals her moment pretty quickly, latching onto the idea and giving the impression that she couldn't finish the thought on her own. I think that's a shame as I'd have liked Susan to make a more positive contribution to their escape.
Barbara gets even less to do than Susan in this episode, effectively just reacting to things. What she's not doing, however, is panicking and screaming the way she was during the last episode, showing that she's already growing as a character, helped along by Jacqueline Hill's marvelous acting. Even when she doesn't get much to do, she's good.
Ian definitely gets the most to do of the regulars in this episode, falling squarely into the role of "hero" in this episode, a role he'll largely inhabit for the rest of his time on the show. Ian's heroics are less of the physical kind than they are of the intellectual and emotional type, though. He's the one who tells Za that "Kal is not stronger than the whole tribe," affecting both the rest of the story and likely the rest of the history of the Tribe after the Travelers leave.
Why does he pass that bit of advice on? Because Ian's a teacher and just generally a good person. He wants to help people. It's probably why he became a teacher in the first place. It's also likely the same motivation that leads him to suggest to Za that the whole tribe learn to make fire, that leadership shouldn't be determined by hording knowledge that everyone needs. (We don't get to see if Za ever takes this advice but, given how many other new ideas we see Za adopting, it wouldn't surprise me.)
Through Ian, we also continue the episode's theme of characters learning to substitute brains for brawn. Ian had spent most of the previous episode clashing with the Doctor over who should lead the Travelers. It was effectively just a clash of wills. But here we see Ian trying a different approach, one that will serve him well in the future. Rather than trying to force the Doctor to do what he says, he steps back and allows the Doctor to assume the trappings of leadership, specifically referring to the Doctor as the leader of their "tribe" when Za asks. Like Za, Ian is valuing the group over his own authority. It's why he jumps on board when it's clear that the Doctor's tactics against Kal are working and it's why he's perfectly willing to let the Doctor be the leader as long as the Doctor's looking out for all of them. Ian's also taking motivations into account too. Note how he doesn't give the Doctor any grief when the Doctor turns out to be wrong about when Za will let them go, recognizing that it was an honest mistake, not just the Doctor needlessly trying to assert his authority.
Speaking of the Doctor, this episode contains the first instance of a staple of the show: the Doctor outwitting the villain. Admittedly, Kal is no intellectual giant, but the caveman is good at whipping the crowd into a frenzy. The way that the Doctor undercuts that, using Kal's own words and the caveman's vanity to get him to incriminate himself, is quite clever. It's also worth noting that, while Ian may be the one to put it into words later, it's the Doctor who first gets the Tribe to act collectively to drive Kal out. As with Ian and Za, the Doctor is using intellect to balance and overcome physical power. It's a little intellectual revolution at the dawn of time.
The Doctor helps exonerate Za. He supports Ian's contention that everyone in the Tribe should know how to make fire. He warns Ian back when the schoolteacher is going to press too far with Za, possibly saving Ian's life again. The Doctor also makes a well-delivered moral pronouncement about the Cave of Skulls: "This place is evil." It'd be easy, especially given where we know the character is going, to think that the Doctor has turned a corner and has begun valuing others besides himself and his granddaughter. But is that really the case?
Well, no. Not really. Discrediting Kal is just protecting himself, since Kal clearly doesn't have the Travelers' best interests in mind. Spreading the knowledge of how fire is made is in the Doctor's interests as well. The more people know how to make fire, the less mystified it is and the less reason there is to keep the Travelers prisoner because of their knowledge it. Saving Ian's life might not be entirely selfish (It's not the first time he's done it, after all) but it's not selfless either. Ian's useful for the group's survival. (Not just in his physicality, either. As this episode shows, Ian's an idea man too.) And you don't need to be a moral paragon to call a cave full of split human skulls "evil," do you?
If one wants to be sure the Doctor's character hasn't entirely shifted for the better, one need look no further than the fact that he runs right by Barbara when she falls during their escape, making no move to help her whatsoever. Yes, he's still got a long way to go before he's the Doctor who'll drive the narrative for the next six decades.
But it'll be a lot of fun watching him get there.
Little Tidbits
-I continue to be impressed with the little things the show does to make the best of their small budget. An elaborate scene of the Travelers being recaptured and marched through the forest is skipped in favor of an atmospheric fade from Kal's sinister face to that of Horg as the Travelers are brought back to the caves.
-One scene I wish hadn't been skipped, however, is the one where the Travelers' decide to make fire for the Tribe. We jump from them being put into the Cave of Skulls again (luckily without their hands bound this time) to a scene where they are already working on making a fire. I'd be very curious whose idea it was to actually do this. I suspect it was Ian's but, given the previous episode, it would have been interesting to see if the Doctor supported it or objected initially and had to be convinced. Everyone seems to be on board by the time Za arrives, though.
-There are more little examples of the caveman's odd but functional language: "It took away your axe in it's head," "His name is Friend," "I remember how the meat and fire joined together." There's also a nice, brief scene of the tribe gathered around the fire, emphasizing its novelty as they warm themselves.
-The fight between Za and Kal is, as mentioned above, pretty brutal. Clubs, axes, knives, pure hand-to-hand, bites, kicks, throws, back-snapping and finally Kal's head crushed with a big rock. (I distinctly recall that Terrance Dicks ended the sequence with "Now there was one more shattered skull in the Cave of Skulls" in the Target novelization.) Both Kal and Za seem to be pretty competent fighters and both clearly enter into the fight knowing it's going to be to the death. The director, Warris Hussein, does an excellent job of cutting from the action of the fight to the reactions of the Travelers who are watching, giving them a combination of fascination, horror and disgust. Even the Doctor, who'd been the one who seemed the most morbidly fascinated by it all, seems shocked by the final blow.
-I like that the Travelers' move much faster during this, their second escape. They know the way this time and they're also not bothering to stop and argue. Even so, they barely make it in time.
-The Doctor can't resist stopping to take one last look at the approaching cavemen before entering the TARDIS. It's a nice visual touch.
-Given how early this is in terms of the show's special effects, the shot where the TARDIS dematerializes as the Tribe's spears "pass through" it is quite effective. I also rather like the incredulous look on Za's face as he sees this. It nicely mirrors the similar look on Kal's face two episodes ago when he saw the ship's arrival.
-As soon as they've left, we get first bit of dialogue that indicates that the Doctor can't actually control where and when the TARDIS is going. The Doctor tries to bluff through it by saying he needs specific information about their takeoff point (and maybe he really believes that at this point), trying to describe it as a matter of information, not his own ability.
-And, of course, we get the cliffhanger with the radiation meter belatedly registering a danger level...
...which will lead us into the serial that is most likely the reason Doctor Who is still around today...
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