"The Edge of Destruction"

All but the Doctor wake, and they’re acting strangely with memory lapses and almost drunken behavior. The Doctor has a bad cut on his head, to which Susan and Barbara are tending. Right away there’s this unsettling atmosphere where one is not sure what is happening, which I think is successful. The TARDIS doors open on their own, which Susan says is impossible, they close when Ian tries to walk toward them. Susan also says the ship can’t have crashed, as that’s impossible. I guess the TARDIS hasn’t been shown in physical flight before, and based on what we’ve seen on screen so far, that adds up with its disappearing and reappearing behavior. I like the ointment bandage that they put on the Doctor’s head with the colors that go away when the wound is healed. It’s a small thing, but it’s cool to see some advanced technology in use. Susan tries the TARDIS controls, but stops, screams, and collapses. The Doctor wakes, complains of pain from being hit on the neck, Ian takes Susan to a room to lie down. Ian gets water, but when he returns he finds Susan, brandishing scissors. She proceeds to lunge at him, but instead starts stabbing the recliner she’s in and collapses again. Carole Ann Ford is chewing some major scenery in this episode, but in a way that works for the story, adding to the unsettling nature of it. Ian, Barbara, and the Doctor continue to discuss the situation, speculate if something got in the ship, or if there’s perhaps a mechanical fault. Ian and the Doctor check the fault locator. Barbara tends to Susan, who insists there’s nothing wrong with her, threatens Barbara with the scissors, and then suggests if something got in the ship that Ian and Barbara are trying to hide it from her, and perhaps it’s inside one of them. The paranoia and suspicion is building the tension nicely.

The Doctor speculates that the fault must be outside the ship, so he goes to turn on the scanner, which makes Susan shout that he must not do so. Apparently that was the control that made her go unconscious and have the same neck pain as the Doctor, something that doesn’t seem to have happened to Ian and Barbara, which the Doctor and Susan find suspicious. The Doctor gets the scanner working, and it shows a variety of images, like maybe England, and then the planet Quinnis, places the TARDIS has been before. However, that doesn’t match the bright light they see when the doors open. They really are getting the most they can out of this TARDIS control room set, using the doors, the console, and the scanner in so many unusual ways, which again adds to the feeling of the story. I’ve mentioned things like the feel and the atmosphere a lot in this review so far, but that’s the majority of what makes this episode work, rather hard to define well in words. The Doctor accuses Ian and Barbara of sabotage, saying they’re trying to hold him hostage unless he can take them back home. Barbara rips him a new one, saying how he would have died in the Cave of Skulls if it wasn’t for them, and everything with the Daleks because of the Doctor’s own trickery.

“Accuse us? You ought to go down on your hands and knees and thank us! But gratitude’s the last thing you’ll ever have, or any sort of common sense either!” This is absolutely one of Barbara’s best moments, the point where she decides she’s done taking the Doctor’s abuse, and lets out all the frustrations that have been boiling within her from the very beginning of the show. The Doctor completely has it coming which makes it so very satisfying. It’s a shame this moment is directly followed by Barbara screaming because of all the clocks in the room breaking, very unfortunate. The Doctor very quickly manages to return to the console room (not sure exactly when he left) with nightcaps for all of them, saying it’s to help everyone get some rest. It’s actually to allow him to go to the controls on his own without interruption, when a pair of hands reaches for his neck. Such a bizarre episode of Doctor Who, and I really enjoy it. I imagine it’s almost incomprehensible to the first time viewer, but it rather makes sense if you know what’s happening from having seen the second part, and it’s cool to see that the hints were there all along.

"The Brink of Disaster"

It’s pretty funny that the first and second episode are the same title run through a thesaurus. The hands belong to Ian, and the Doctor thinks he’s caught him, and by extension Barbara, red-handed. Ian didn’t do very much until he fainted, which means Barbara is unsure exactly how that incriminates Ian. She tries to make Susan see some reason, which makes the Doctor just believe she’s trying to turn Susan against him. There’s threats of throwing them off the ship, despite Ian saying he was just trying to get the Doctor away from the controls to protect him, and it’s not until the Doctor sees the fault locator is reading that everything is at fault, that he realizes this couldn’t be his Earth companions doing this. That was many sentences of summary, but all of those things bring the tension very high, you really think the Doctor is going to throw them off wherever they are, it’s actually a little frightening to see. The Doctor believes there’s some powerful force at work, and that they are on “the brink of destruction.” You were so close to saying the title. The next big part of the episode is them all trying to work together to figure out the situation, and Barbara starts to realize that the strange things the ship has been doing must have been hints and warnings. Breaking the clocks to make them aware of time, and then returning it later when it’s running out. Ian and the Doctor are having a tough time believing the ship can think for itself, but realize it must be just in a way that a machine would think.

The third story of Doctor Who, and we already have the reveal that the TARDIS is alive, at least in some way, an idea that has been done time and time again over the course of the series to varying degrees. Very cool that it has lasted this long. There’s a bit of “let’s not tell the ladies the danger we’re in or how little time there is” between the Doctor and Ian, which is some of that period sexism leaking into the story, but it’s relatively minor, and I think rather countered by Barbara, a woman, being the one who’s figuring out what’s happening. So they were made aware of time, their attention was turned to the scanner, which was showing the places the TARDIS had last been, now it’s showing the creation of a galaxy and an explosion, the big bang (a little of the classic sci-fi TV galaxy vs universe mixup I’ve seen a few times before), the fault locator telling them that everything will go boom if they don’t fix it, and all but one panel of the console is electrified, which has narrowed everything down for them. The Doctor figures out that the fast return switch, designed to take the TARDIS to its previous destination is stuck, as if his finger never left it, which is taking them back into the beginning of the universe, which will destroy them all. He fixes it, and it’s all good.

A little padded when he explains how a stuck switch works with a flashlight, but I think story-wise it all comes together very nicely. The one thing I’ve never understood with this story, is how this is making them all act the way they were, like Susan losing her mind with the scissors, or the memory loss, any of that. If it’s part of the TARDIS’s warning, that’s very counterproductive, making the occupants unable to think clearly. We end with a very touching moment where the Doctor apologizes for the way he’s treated Barbara, how he’s misjudged her and Ian. “As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves,” is a good line, and that moment is kind of the culmination of the first Doctor’s loose character arc up to this point of learning that he needs to trust and has learned to respect his human companions. They all go outside and see a huge humanoid footprint in some snow. This is a good story of Doctor Who. It’s always good when Doctor Who tries to be a bit weird and unusual, and this is probably the earliest example. Sure, it’s a bottle episode because they went over budget with the first two stories, but they made it work. It was compelling, interesting, and actually progressed the characters, especially the Doctor and Barbara. Again, a 3.5/5 Stars, I feel like I find something new to like about it each time I watch it.

"The Dead Planet"

The TARDIS arrives in a petrified forest, everything appears to be dead, and the TARDIS crew are unaware of the dangerous radiation levels. This is some impressive set design considering their budget, forests and jungles will repeatedly be a strength of Doctor Who set designers. I like Ian and Barbara’s conversation about being unsure about things, and afraid because they don’t know if the Doctor will be able to get them back home, just a nice character moment. Ian’s observation that the Doctor has a knack for getting himself into trouble makes perfect sense, both in hindsight and for a viewer at the time. Susan finds a flower, tries to show Ian, but he hears Barbara call and immediately runs to her aid, crushing Susan’s flower. If we needed any early indication that Ian and Barbara like each other, there it is, the way he’d immediately drop whatever to come to her aid. I like that they don’t make it so overt though, it’s done with some degree of subtlety. The metal creature they found is pretty cool, though it’s not worth Barbara screaming over. The Doctor being so inquisitive in this episode is really cool, it’s the first we really see of the Doctor’s scientifically focused mind. He just wants to explore and study everything, which is a very Doctor-like character trait.

The Doctor wants to go down to the city they find in the distance, but it’s getting dark so Ian insists that they all go back to the TARDIS. We get to see the TARDIS food machine, which is fun, and I really like the way the Doctor mainly introduces it as a way to distract Ian from all his questions. It’s a shame we don’t really get to see the food machine much beyond this story and The Edge of Destruction. On the way back to the TARDIS, Susan was convinced she heard a sound and a hand touched her, and they hear a tapping from outside the ship, confirming that Susan in fact hadn’t imagined it. The Doctor again wants to go out and explore, the rest just want to leave, so he gets the TARDIS started, but takes out the fluid link so it won’t take off. He says it needs more mercury and they must go down to the city to see if they have any. Early One was such a troublemaker and was so stubborn, always trying to get his way in some manner. So they go to the city, finding a metal box outside the TARDIS containing a few glass vials. Susan puts them into the TARDIS and they continue on. I wonder if those glass vials will be important later. They get down to the city and they split up, Barbara gets trapped in there, and gets backed against a wall while we see from the perspective of something that looks like it’s carrying a plunger. Of course we all know that’s a Dalek, but that is one hell of a good cliffhanger, complete with Jacqueline Hill’s blood-curdling scream. That will get people to tune in next week, easily one of the best Doctor Who cliffhangers of all time. This episode is a pretty good start to this story.

"The Survivors"

The rest of the crew look around while they wait for Barbara. The Doctor quickly realizes that this city must be home to some very intelligent race, based on the technology and the architecture. He is right of course, but it’s fascinating to see the Doctor before he really knows just how bad the Daleks are, and there are a few parts of this story where he oddly praises them, which is just odd when we know what we know now. They find a Geiger counter, and the Doctor figures out that the planet must be dead because of nuclear fallout and radiation, and it also explains why they’re starting to feel unwell. Maybe they should have properly checked the radiation meter before they left the TARDIS, it was even blinking. Now that they know their situation, the Doctor realizes he made a mistake with the fluid link and that they need to get out of there before they all die. He confesses to the deception he did earlier, says they need to go, but Ian takes the fluid link from him saying that he won’t give it back until they’ve found Barbara. I like how Ian is not afraid to stand up to the Doctor, not afraid to call him out on his BS, and this scene is no exception. We’ll see time and time again how Ian clearly influenced the Doctor to become the character we know now.

The three of them are rounded up by more Daleks. Ian tries to run and is paralyzed, and they are captured and reunited with Barbara. It’s very interesting to see the Daleks first go for the incapacitation rather than outright killing Ian. Part of that is that the Daleks aren’t fully developed yet, but I guess with hindsight of what we know of the Daleks, and the context of the episode, they want information on the Thals, and Ian can’t potentially give them that unless he’s alive. These original Daleks look really good, and I like that the Dalek design really hasn’t changed that much over the years, Cusick’s iconic design needs no change. Also, Peter Hawkins on the voice, they really sound scary and intimidating when he does it. All of our TARDIS crew is starting to suffer the effects of the radiation, and the Daleks start with the Doctor for interrogation. They think he’s a Thal, but find it odd that he’s suffering from the radiation, as they know the Thals can live on the surface, they want to know if the Thals have an anti-radiation drug that is keeping them alive. The Doctor of course doesn’t know what they’re talking about, the Daleks don’t know what he’s talking about when he mentions the TARDIS and such, but they come to the realization that the box left outside the TARDIS must have contained anti-radiation drugs. Seeing these two age old enemies not know a thing about one another is fascinating, a feeling that is unsurprisingly not captured again when the Daleks get their records of him wiped in Asylum of the Daleks. The plan is to send someone back into the forest to get the drugs, and bring them into the Dalek city. Susan is in the best shape from the radiation so she ends up sent. Some really funny small set pretend running later, and Susan gets to the TARDIS the episode ending with her, drugs in hand, ready to return. Another good episode, mainly for the proper introduction of the Daleks. What we lost in the atmosphere of the mysterious forest and city, we gained in the Daleks being great right from the start. The episode still moved along at a decent pace too.

"The Escape"

Susan exits the TARDIS and immediately meets the Thal Alydon. She explains the situation, and he says not to trust the Daleks, giving her an extra set of the drugs to hide, one to give to the Daleks, one for them all to use themselves. I will point out, this is a lot of standing there chatting, when Susan’s instructions were to go and come straight back. Susan and Alydon are puzzled, because the Daleks called the Thals mutations, but they look completely normal. Makes you wonder what may be underneath their metal casings. He guides her back to the Dalek city so she can save her friends. The Daleks, upon Susan’s return, realize she must have made contact with the Thals and they believe that maybe she could bring the Thals to them. This is why they allow Susan to keep the second set of the drugs to save themselves, unbeknownst to our four main characters. Susan infodumps about the Thals, how they’re starving because of the lack of rain, and need to make a deal with the Daleks for food, which of course the Daleks are listening in on. I really like how the Daleks are kind of lurking in their base, listening to all this intel, and plotting a plan. The Daleks to me are always way more interesting and intimidating when they’re scheming and being clever, rather than just going around shooting everyone.

The Dalek collects Susan and gives the other prisoners more food and water, it says it needs her to help the Thals. We see the Thals discussing their situation, whether or not they should trust the Daleks. There’s a lot of casual 60s sexism in this scene where they basically don’t want to listen to the women’s opinions, and saying the drugs would have been safer had Alydon not given them to a girl, an observation Dyoni, a woman, made. Not such a, in Susan’s words, perfect people are they? The Daleks have Susan write a letter to the Thals inviting them to the city for food and supplies. I enjoy the comically large way she wrote “Susan” at the bottom of the page, so the audience could see it, and the Daleks not understanding what a name is is pretty funny. The Daleks say they will deliver the message. How? They established earlier that they can’t leave the city. Did they somehow get two Daleks to use their plungers to fold it into a paper airplane to throw from the city? Wad it up and shoot it out of a cannon? The Doctor and Ian stage an argument that turns into a bigger struggle, which they use as an opportunity to destroy the camera in their cell, stop the Daleks watching and listening in. I like the way they didn’t flat out tell us what was happening, aside from an, “all set, Doctor?” from Ian. They just showed it happen and let the audience easily figure it out without a whole “here’s the plan” bit.

Then they all work together to try and figure out a plan to escape, figuring out how the Daleks are powered. I like how all four of them had something to contribute, and it really felt like they were starting to work together as a team. Actually, we do figure out how the Daleks delivered the message, they just left it on the ground just outside the city, presumably hoping the Thals would just happen to find it. That’s a little silly, even if it worked. The Dalek returns with more food, and leaves. They realize they need a way to distract the Dalek, then grab it and put it on the coat Alydon gave Susan to insulate it from the static electricity in the floor that powers it. We’ll ignore that static electricity, by definition doesn’t flow like a circuit to power things. Barbara makes mud with the water the Daleks give them and dirt from Susan’s shoes. That is a lot of water compared to the dirt, which she just throws in the bowl, no way it makes the thick and putty-like mud that she ends up with. Anyway, they jam the door with a bit of the camera, mud the Dalek’s eye, hold the gun away, and drag it onto the coat. The Dalek is disabled and the plan worked. They open the Dalek up, and take the creature inside out. But they had to make sure the women didn’t see the horrible creature inside, it’s not for their eyes of course. Sixties sexism at play again. Ian gets into the Dalek casing and they do the old prisoner-in-escort trick as the episode ends. Another solid episode this one, good Dalek scheming, good TARDIS team planning.

"The Ambush"

Ian figures out how to operate the Dalek on his own, and they do some pretend prisoner stuff, including a wink from Susan in her ruse. Maybe a little on the nose. On the eye? Anyway, they get into a lift, the Doctor fixes the door shut, but Ian is now trapped in the Dalek casing. I like the shots of the lift going up and down. I bet it’s just a cardboard tube with holes for the “floors” on the end of the camera with a cylinder moving towards or away, simple, but I think gets the job done very effectively. That and some clever uses of split screen effects to show things moving in the shaft on set. We have the Daleks trying to cut the door down, a race between them that our heroes win. They get to the top, and throw a big styrofoam rock onto the lift to stop the Daleks. From above they get a nice view of the city and the nearby forest, and the Thals making their way to the city. That shot of the four of them with their muffled banging on the window trying to get the Thals to hear them will never not be funny. Alydon and Temmosus, the Thal leader, are talking, Alydon is suspicious of the Daleks, Temmosus believes that if he’s unarmed and talks to the Daleks peacefully, he’ll be fine. He says something about how fear leads to hatred and war, so clearly Yoda ripped off The Daleks in The Phantom Menace.

The Doctor wants to get everyone back to the ship and get the hell out of here, but Ian stays behind to try and warn the Thals. He wouldn’t feel right just letting them be ambushed. It’s kind of weirdly done, the way Ian stands around while Temmosus makes his plea for peace and cooperation, and waits until just before Temmosus is exterminated to actually do his warning. But, we get our first proper Dalek extermination here, and I really think the making the screen negative in lieu of any actual beam effects is another creative but inexpensive solution to get the effect across. Ian apologizes to Alydon for being late, which is amusing since he was there for a good half a minute before the Daleks fired, and he gets Alydon and the surviving Thals back to the camp and the TARDIS. They get back, they have a bit of a discussion about fighting the Daleks vs. fleeing, but that’s done in more detail in the next episode. I like the bits where the Doctor is talking to Dyoni (hey, someone’s listening to her now) about the history of Skaro. It’s good world building and done in a way that fuels the Doctor’s inquisitive nature. Skaro is the 12th planet in its system. The Thals used to be the warriors on this planet, fighting against the Dals, until there was a neutronic bomb which devastated the planet. There were mutations over the many centuries, which came full circle and made the Thals look the way they do, but for the Dals, they ended up the horrible mutations that we found inside the casing, they became the Daleks. A planet scarred by war called Skaro? That’s Terry Nation planetary naming at its finest. Now, of course we all know what happens to that origin story 11 years later in the show, but it’s still interesting stuff to learn. The Doctor and the others decide they should probably leave, not get further involved, but Ian realizes the Daleks took the fluid link when they searched him, and they can’t leave without recovering it. This episode goes by pretty quickly, there’s a lot of action in it, the first four episodes of this serial are very solid, it’s unfortunate that the final three episodes don’t do the first ones justice.

"The Expedition"

The Daleks have duplicated the Thal anti-radiation drug, and are now testing it on themselves. Meanwhile they’re just watching on their range scopes to see that the TARDIS team and the Thals have made contact and decide that it’s logical they will team up to attack them. Hard cut to Alydon saying he and the rest of the Thals won’t fight. The contrast there is a bit unintentionally funny. Ian tells Barbara that they won’t fight, and honestly he doesn’t feel it’s right to ask them to put their lives on the line for them. Barbara says that they’d be stuck here forever if they don’t have their help, and knows it’s only a matter of time until the Daleks figure out how to leave the city and kill them all. What I like about their debate is that they are both right in their own ways, which I think makes it a pretty well written part of the episode. The Doctor apologizes for his trick with the fluid link getting them in this mess, well, as much as this Doctor apologizes for anything, and we get the first Doctor gets Ian’s name wrong gag, which is funny every time, one of my favorite recurring jokes in Doctor Who. Susan and the Doctor are both on Barbara’s side, they need the Thals to help them, there’s no other option. Ian agrees, but says he will only convince them if they themselves want to, not just risking their lives for them.

The next bit, where Ian asks what if he took their history records to make a trade, or even one of their women, while admittedly a little bit based in 60s attitudes, I think is still a good scene in this episode. The Daleks have always been an allegory to fascism and Nazis, and this scene is basically asking, what will it take for you to stop accepting, ignoring, or appeasing fascism until you finally decide to stand up and do something to fight against it. Fighting against fascism is generally a good idea, and I think that’s a good message to put in the story. The Daleks meanwhile, have realized that the drug was toxic to them, and that they actually need radiation to survive, that’s how they’ve evolved after the neutronic war. So their new plan is now to detonate another bomb, kill what’s left of the Thals, and irradiate the planet some more. Alydon has decided that he will help the Doctor and co. and gets volunteers to join them, giving a good rousing speech in the process. “There is no indignity in being afraid to die. But there is a terrible shame in being afraid to live.” is a pretty good line contained within. They split into two groups, one, the big one with Ian, Barbara, Ganatus and others, will go through the swamps to get to the Dalek city from the mountains, and the other with the Doctor, Susan, and Alydon will go by the front door so to speak as a distraction. Some will stay by the camp and use mirrors to reflect light to blind the Daleks’ range scopes, so they can’t see them coming. The rest of the episode is basically just they sleep for the night by the lake, which is comedically a puddle in the studio, a Thal gets pulled into a whirlpool, where the episode ends. About the first half of this episode is interesting, the question on whether or not to fight, that thematic material, but then it gets very slow after they start out on the titular expedition. It feels like the story has lost a good bit of momentum. Momentum that isn’t really recovered in the next episode either.

"The Ordeal"

Welcome to the cave episode. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Ian’s group makes it to a cave, and they spend the episode getting through it. Ganatus falls, but is recovered. They jump over a gap, everyone except Antodus makes it across, and the episode ends with him dangling, threatening to pull Ian in. There isn’t much to say about that part of the episode, it’s pretty bog standard. It’s dark, kind of hard to tell exactly what the layout of this cave is supposed to be. Ganatus seems to have taken a liking to Barbara, she was his first concern when he fell, since she was on the other end of the rope, and they talk a bit in this episode and a bit in the previous, but they don’t really explore this all that much. Antodus is shown to be a coward, wanting to turn back the whole time, so of course we knew something bad would happen to him eventually. Additionally, the Doctor’s group makes it to the Dalek city, and the Doctor wants to try and short out their static electricity system, and hopefully some of their other systems as well. What I find funny about it is the panel has things far too small for the Dalek plungers to operate. Sure, we’ve seen other attachments, like the tool they used to cut the door in the third part, and maybe that could come into play here, but it still struck me as amusing thinking of a Dalek trying to use this panel with a plunger. I do like the Doctor standing there, bragging about his genius of doing the simple task of creating a short-circuit, when the Daleks show up (they could track them by their vibrations this whole time) and take him and Susan captive. Hey pride, meet fall. A very uneventful episode this one, we’ll see how it ends in the final part.

"The Rescue"

Not to be confused with the season 2 serial by the same name, we start with them trying to pull Antodus up, when he decides he won’t risk pulling anyone down with him. Antodus cuts the rope and lets himself fall to his death. I hope it was far enough to be instant for his sake. I guess he did something selfless and non-cowardly in the end, and Ian learned a valuable lesson of not using himself as the anchor to tie the rope around. They are about ready to turn back, declaring this plan a lost cause when they see a light, which leads to some kind of stock image machine room, they’ve made it to the Dalek city. The Doctor has a good moment here where we first learn just how truly evil the Daleks are. He condemns their plan of senseless killing, they want to spread the radiation so that none but the Daleks will be able to live on Skaro. This is the first we really see that they see themselves as the superior beings and will destroy anything that isn’t a Dalek too. The Doctor tries to bargain with the Daleks with his knowledge and the means by which he arrived on this planet. Many people have speculated that this kind of thing is what told the Daleks there was life beyond Skaro, leading them to seek it out to destroy it. The Doctor may have created his own biggest enemy by his involvement here. Now, of course, that is contradicted, as many things are, by later Doctor Who, but that’s just inevitable in a franchise that’s gone on this long.

The Thals, Ian, and Barbara enter the city as the Daleks begin their countdown for the bomb. There’s a fight, some Thals die, the Daleks lose their power, they stop the detonation and recover the fluid link. It’s actually a fairly simple conclusion to the problem, at least the pace moves better in this episode. They start to make their goodbyes. I think it’s a little odd that the Doctor basically tells them to ignore all the Dalek technology unless they want to end up like them, I’m sure there are plenty of good ways the Thals could adapt the technology, just be careful not to let the Daleks activate again. I do like his one piece of advice though, “always search for truth. My truth is in the stars, and yours is here.” We do get our first classic instance of the Doctor fixing a problem and then going on his way before he’d have to help them rebuild their society, which is always funny, and has never led to further issues. They say their farewells, Ganatus gives Barbara a kiss and says he’ll never forget her, and the TARDIS departs. As the TARDIS is in flight, there’s a sound, everything goes dark, and they all fall on the floor. Overall, I think this story is a pretty good introduction of the Daleks, and clearly it was successful as the show is still around today, Dalekmania being a huge boost to its popularity. I think it could have been condensed into a more concise 6 parter, but certainly cutting it down as much as The Daleks in Colour did is excessive. The Daleks felt threatening, there were other characters to like such as Alydon or Ganatus, the set design and effects were impressive for the budget. I’d say it’s a bit unfairly criticized for being boring and slow, I think it moves along just fine outside of the 5th and 6th parts. 3.5/5 Stars from me.

"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.