"An Unearthly Child"

Here it is, the very first episode. We of course start with the iconic policeman in the junkyard, with the mysteriously humming police box. Now, of course, with hindsight we know it’s a time machine, but I bet back then it was intriguing, police boxes don’t tend to hum. We cut to Coal Hill school, class being let out, and we meet Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, discussing a strange student of theirs. They’re worried about her, because she seems so knowledgeable in some things, like math, science, and history, but struggles with basic things like how money works, that they’re not on a decimal system. You know, it’s nice that they care about their students this much, I don’t think you see that much these days with teachers, maybe some out there can prove me wrong. Right away these two have great on screen chemistry and are interesting characters. They seem to find it odd that her home address is a junkyard, how her grandfather is completely not accepting of strangers. Ian offers her a ride home, but she declines, saying she likes walking in the foggy dark due to it being mysterious. No way that would slide nowadays, driving a student home from school, even with good intentions that’s a liability. Following her home in the car is also definitely questionable by today’s standards, but their intentions are completely honest. They talk about Susan more, the litmus test in chemistry, the issue about the dimensions, time and space. I will point out that with the three dimensions, length, width, and height, you already make space, so saying space is the fifth dimension is silly. I do really like the way they make this kid seem either alien or not of this time. Ford actually nails the strange behavior, making her just that little bit off from what you’d expect of typical teenagers.

Ian and Barbara go in the junkyard at 76 Totter’s Lane, hear Susan and run into an old man by the police box we saw earlier. I really enjoy their interactions, especially between Ian and the Doctor. They’re antagonistic, but I find One so amusing at the same time. I don’t think people talk about how great this original cast was enough, and it’s evident from the very first time we see them. After they argue a bit, Susan opens the door, and the teachers barge into the police box and are blown away by how big it is on the inside. This reveal is great, shot just as abruptly as the characters experience it, perhaps the best TARDIS reveal of all time. I also like how the Doctor is so dismissive of Ian, and treats him like an idiot. It really sums up his initial distrust and condescending lack of respect he has for them. The line about the “Red Indian” is rather outdated, but his explanation of people seeing more advanced technology seeming impossible still stands otherwise. Oddly, the outdatedness fits this early First Doctor, because it makes him sound more dismissive of people generally, even if that’s not the intention of the line when written in 1963.

The Doctor closes and locks the doors, has the console electrocute Ian, and he kidnaps them in the TARDIS (a name Susan made up by the initials, really like how that one line has stood the test of time this long, we still call it the TARDIS, meaning the same six words now). The visual effects are really cool and make a very trippy experience for this first take off, to accentuate how bizarre and alien it is, but I’m glad it’s not how they do it every time, it would get old. We end with a shot of the TARDIS in a desert with the shadow of a caveman looking at it. Such an iconic shot, and a great cliffhanger to keep the viewer invested for the next week. This is a really well done first episode. It’s not too fancy with the plot, but right away makes the characters interesting and likeable, and just weird enough with the suspenseful ending. The rest of the serial might not be quite as good as this, but you’ll see I like it more than most people.

"The Cave of Skulls"

So we start with a caveman named Za, son of their old leader who knew how to make fire. He’s struggling to make fire, an old woman is taunting him, and Hur, his mate is trying to encourage him, if only because he will lose her if he can’t make fire and become leader. It’s highly amusing seeing him try to make fire by rubbing a bone between his hands, and throwing ash on sticks. The caveman acting is kinda stagey and ridiculous, but the exaggeration oddly works when they’re cavemen, even if a little dismissive of early humanity, but we’ll get back to that in a bit. In the TARDIS, Ian and Barbara are waking up, Ian is skeptical of all of this, wanting proof that they’ve traveled anywhere, Barbara is more accepting of the situation. It’s cool how the two of them are being the two likely types of viewers in this situation, the skeptic and the more open one, kind of opposite sides of the same coin. The Doctor notes that the “year-ometer” is not working right, so he doesn’t know when they are, or for that matter, where they are. Not only does this establish how this Doctor doesn’t really know how to pilot the TARDIS, but it also brings into question whether this story is even on Earth or not. To me, I feel like it’s meant to be Earth as written, but the story gives you enough to doubt that, these cavemen might not even be human.

They all exit the TARDIS, Ian for proof, the Doctor wanting samples of rocks to try and find out when and where they are. Outside, the Doctor and Susan question why the TARDIS is still a police box, it should have changed. I really enjoy how it’s the second episode ever, and the whole thing about the chameleon circuit is already established, even if not by name, and has lasted all this time. Ian, Barbara, and Susan look around, the Doctor on his own. The Doctor lights up a pipe, and the caveman watching him attacks, seeing him make fire, kidnapping him. The Doctor smoking, now that's something you don't see anymore. Ian, Barbara, and Susan rush to the scene, only finding his belongings left behind, and we get the first bad Susan scene in Doctor Who. She has this tendency to be written to scream and panic any time something happens to her grandfather, in a completely undignified way. Carole Ann Ford hated this type of thing, and expected more from her character, and is why she eventually left the role. There’s this bit where Ian notes that the sand is cold, and that’s not followed up on as to why that’s important. Odd.

So now we get a really long scene with the Doctor unconscious, and Kal (who found the Doctor) and Za argue about fire, and how he saw the Doctor make it from his hands, and Old Woman going on about how they shouldn’t make fire, because it just brings death, and just a lot of this without any plot progression. However, one thing I didn’t notice before, is that the differing opinions of the new technology of fire and all that sort of echoes Ian and Barbara’s struggle to understand and accept the new technology of time travel and their situation. I feel like this parallel is intentional and it’s a nice thematic touch to the story, even if it is progressing a little slowly. The Doctor is woken up, Kal tries to force him to make fire, but he has no matches. Conveniently, before he can be killed, the others arrive, try to free him, but they all get captured and imprisoned in the titular Cave of Skulls, many of the skulls there are split open. This starts a Hartnell era tradition where the title is something to do with the very last scene of the episode, something they do time and time again. Also the split skulls is a rather graphic and dark bit of imagery for Doctor Who of this era, which is interesting. Not as strong or exciting of an episode as the first one, but there’s still a bit of interesting stuff in there.

"The Forest of Fear"

Our four main characters try to figure out how to escape the Cave of Skulls. Nice that the Doctor actually admits that he’s the one who got them into this mess and also admits that there’s something he can’t do when he tells Ian to free himself first, since he’s not strong enough. It’s an unexpected amount of humility from this early first Doctor. He gives Ian a suggestion to use the bones to cut through their bonds because they’re sharper, how he will be the one who has to defend them if needed and he also tells Barbara to try to remember the way back to the ship. I’d say it’s sort of his first Doctory moment, the way he’s giving his companions something to do to keep them calm while aiding their escape, and he even talks about hope and how “fear makes companions of all of us.” Don’t worry, we’ll get plenty more grumpy One in this episode. The tribe is asleep, except for the old woman, who wakes up, steals Za’s knife and goes to the Cave of Skulls to free the prisoners, not knowing she’s observed by Hur. She gets to them, explains her fear of fire, and that she’ll let them go if they don’t teach Za how to make fire.

They leave just as Za and Hur arrive, and follow in pursuit after throwing the old woman to the floor. It’s interesting how Hur is the brains out of those two. He’s really indecisive until she gives him ideas a lot of the time, pretty much trying to shape him into the leader she wants as a mate, probably wanting some of that power by extension. For this story, she’s actually a somewhat interesting character, compared to the other cavemen for those reasons. The four travelers end up lost in the forest, Barbara having some difficulty remembering. This might be Barbara’s worst episode of her run. She starts crying and yelling about how she can’t remember, and full on screams when she sees a dead boar. That’s really not the Barbara I know, she’s generally a lot more level headed and intelligent, but I guess she’s been through a lot these past two episodes. Even worse is that her scream gave away their position. Za and Hur go after them, but he is attacked by an animal. In a surprising turn of events, Ian and Barbara want to help him instead of escaping, as the Doctor thinks they should. To be honest, I agree with the Doctor here, but I get that this is yet another demonstration of the Doctor’s lack of compassion and care for human life compared to his human acquaintances.

It’s a little silly that Hur, and by extension the cavemen, have no concept of friendship or cooperation. They wouldn’t be able to survive like that, but that is a simplification to reflect one of the overall themes of this story, the importance of friendship and cooperation, something that parallels between the main cast and the cavemen’s situations. I meantioned un-Doctor like things earlier, well we get the iconic scene of the Doctor about to bash Za’s head in with a rock to aid their escape, only to be stopped by Ian. It’s a more extreme version of the same contrast between the Doctor and his new human companions from earlier. His lie about asking Za to use it to draw a map is one of the most obvious lies in Doctor Who history, quite amusing. Back in the tribe, Kal finds the old woman, realizes she let the strangers escape, kills her, and blames it all on Za. Old Woman has the distinction of being the first character to die on Doctor Who, congratulations, you’re now a fun Doctor Who trivia question.

Kal gets the whole tribe after the strangers, and catch them right at the TARDIS. I think the scene with Kal needed to be earlier, because it is really fast and abrupt that they get to the TARDIS before our mains do to ambush them. If it was earlier in the episode, then them helping Za would have been what slowed them down, but as shot, that had already happened before they left. Sure, they know the land better, but even so. And that’s how this one ends. I think this is actually a pretty decent episode, what it lacks in plot it makes up for in reinforcing the themes of the story, while building up the team structure of this first main cast, something this whole story doesn’t get enough credit for.

"The Firemaker"

Our traveling friends are taken back to the tribe, and they argue with Kal about what should be done with them. Kal accuses Za of killing the old woman, and we learn how these people have no concept of forensics, which is much more understandable than the friendship thing. I do like the way the Doctor tricks Kal in to revealing that he killed her, with the knife that isn’t bloody vs the one that is. There’s something funny about “it is a bad knife, it doesn’t show what it does,” how Kal thinks that’s a good defense and all that, just always a line that gets a chuckle out of me. The theme of how people need to work together and cooperate to survive is again reinforced when the Doctor gets Za and the others to team up to force Kal out of the tribe. But of course, instead of being grateful and letting the Doctor and the others go, they get stuck back inside the Cave of Skulls, with a guard blocking the back entrance this time. This is where I feel the episode is running out of steam, and gets a little bit slow and right back where “The Cave of Skulls” started.

Ian makes a fire in the cave for Za hoping he’d let them go, and Ian talks about how the firemaker is the least important in his “tribe,” how they all know how to make fire. I think it would have been a much better and thematically relevant ending if it had Za truly learn that lesson, having Ian teach him and the whole tribe how fire is made, able to reason with him to be able to leave with Za and our main characters both learning something about cooperation and friendship. There was an earlier scene of Za and Hur talking about how “one man isn’t as strong as the whole tribe,” which was a good scene, but I wish it actually led to some kind of lasting lesson learned for him. Kal kills the back guard and he and Za fight in the cave of skulls, with Za eventually killing him, winning. The fight scene goes on a little long, and while not bad for 1963, it’s very stagey, unintentionally amusing. Za takes the fire, but still keeps our friends from 1963 trapped in the cave.

While the tribe eats cooked meat, Susan, with some help from Ian, makes a plan with fire and some of the skulls in the cave to make a flaming skull distraction as if they had died and those were their spirits, so they can escape. It’s cool to see the two of them come up with something like this, even if it’s not the solution I feel would have worked best for the episode. They also figure out their way back to the TARDIS really quickly and easily compared to last time. They run in, just avoiding a thrown spear, and they dematerialize in the TARDIS. They land on another planet, but don’t notice the radiation meter going up to the maximum. Overall, this serial is pretty good actually, and I think better than it gets credit for, aside from the popular first episode of course. The plot is simplistic and basic for parts 2-4, but I feel like that’s not as important as the message of how this TARDIS team and the tribe both need to learn to work together in order to survive. I think if the resolution to the plot was more in line with the themes it could have been better, but they are still present, and are important in the establishment of this TARDIS team’s dynamics. The parallels between the two groups I think work decently well. I give this story as a whole a 3.5/5 Stars, the first episode pushing into 4-4.5 territory if I had to grade it on its own.