Synopsis: Two teachers, Ian and Barbara, discuss one of their pupils who seems to be highly unusual. She is particularly intelligent and eager to learn; and while she is advanced in some areas of study, is less familiar with more local subjects such as the British monetary system. Barbara had decided to check on Susan at home but when she went to the address given there was nothing there but a junkyard. Concerned for Susan's welfare, she enlists the help of Ian to try again and find out where Susan lives.
The teachers track Susan back to the same abandoned lot but this time they meet her grandfather, the Doctor, a contentious old man who only wants to be left alone and will answer no questions about Susan or himself. When Susan appears, the Doctor allows Ian and Barbara inside the Tardis whereupon he activates the transmat and dematerializes the Tardis. The Doctor has, in effect, kidnapped the two teachers and has no intention of returning them to London. Ian and Barbara are immediately struck with the impossibility of the interior of the Tardis, being "bigger on the inside." Ian has a particularly difficult time wrapping his head around things that contradict the science he knows to be true.
Because he decided to leave in a hurry, the Doctor didn't adequately calibrate their destination, and he has no control of where they will end up. In fact, they materialize in a desert wasteland and when they leave the Tardis to explore the surrounding area, the Doctor is taken prisoner. His captors are the local paleolithic community whose main concerns are finding enough meat to eat and discovering the secret of fire to sustain them through the coming winter.
Leadership of the tribe depends on providing those things, and one aspirant kidnapped the Doctor to provide fire for the tribe and claim leadership in the ongoing struggle between Kal and Za. The recalcitrant Doctor refuses and is about to be attacked by the tribe when Ian and Barbara intervene. The whole group is confined to the Cave of Skulls while the tribe determines their fate. An elder woman of the tribe is convinced that fire will only cause conflict within the tribe and she sets the party free.
The tribal leader discovers the escape and, urged by his wife, pursues them. In the forest, however, he is wounded in an attack by a wild animal, and Ian and Barbara come to his aid. However in doing so, they allow the tribe to catch them and bring them back to the Cave of Skulls. At that point, Ian makes fire for the tribe in hopes of being released. The leader Za refuses, hoping they will join his tribe. Eventually the group sets up the spectacle of burning skulls on sticks and makes a break for the Tardis, narrowly escaping the pursuing tribe.
Review:
For a variety of reasons, this initial episode was a very uncertain start to this very successful franchise. The season began in 1963, shot in a murky black and white, just three years before Star Trek was released in the US and in technicolor. While technical sophistication would never be Doctor Who's strong point, in comparison to its contemporaries, the brightly lit Perry Mason or Andy Griffith, it seemed to reflect the styling of something shot 10 years earlier. I also got the impression that the most effort was spent on the set design of the interior of the Tardis. The rest of the episode was all styrofoam caves and boulders, with dripping water and wind as background noises.
My intention is not to be needlessly critical, but this seemed to be a very slow start to so auspicious a series. The greater weakness of the episode was the rather static storytelling of the whole narrative.
The main story of the plight of the stone age tribe felt rather static
and drawn out. If the story meant to interest us with the struggles
between Kal and Za it largely failed. I'm also unconvinced that this
entirely imaginative portrayal of paleolithic life had any historical
value at all. We don't have any idea what a stone age existence looked
like so this is all simplistic speculation. In short, the cave man
story was boring. Our party is made captives, escapes, is kept captive
again, and escapes a second time, finally making it to the Tardis.
Neither the Doctor nor Susan contribute anything of import, while Ian
passes on a few words of wisdom and Barbara models compassion by saving
the injured Za.
The majority of the story concerned the internal politics of this stone age tribe, rather than dealing with our main characters, but in doing so it established one of the basic premises of the show. Most of Doctor Who is about him as an observer of other people's stories. It isn't about a grand quest that he himself must complete. He generally doesn't go to these worlds with things that he wants to accomplish. He largely has no deeds to do, and no where that he has to be. Instead, he stumbles into a complex situation and spends much of his time figuring out where he is and what is going on.
His position as an outside observer can be a strength, giving a perspective that provides a solution. This can also be a weakness, however, when the Doctor can be entirely passive, merely watching what is happening as seems to be the case with the cave men. In the end, it is Ian who give the tribe the fire, and Barbara who goes to help the injured Za. This is a tension that the entire series attempts to balance, and sometimes struggles with; is the Doctor the prime mover in creating the narrative's resolution, or is he simply a passive observer, offering us a window into these unusual science fiction worlds.
The other tension that the story must negotiate is the position of the companions. At their worst, companions are simple narrative devices that function to ask questions that the audience needs the answers to, (what's that, Doctor?) or as plot devices to get captured, feel confused or frightened, or act irrationally. In this episode, Barbara is called on to scream, and be overwhelmed with emotions, providing some of those basic functions. At their best, companions offer insights into solving the problem, and bring a humanizing element to the often bizarre stories they are thrown into. Not only can they ask the questions but also provide the answers. At the least, the audience must sympathize with the companions, because they often don't really understand what the Doctor is feeling.
Throughout this first story, we aren't sure who we are supposed to identify with. Is the irascible Doctor a hindrance, or the prime point of contact for the audience? At least in this episode, we more closely associate with Barbara and Ian.
There is an interesting moment when Ian and the Doctor clash about marching orders and then later when challenged by Za, Ian defers that leadership of his "tribe" belongs to the Doctor. It's a moment of development for Ian, where he recognizes the Doctors wisdom. And I think that also affected the Doctor as well. Earlier, the cave men were about to kill the Doctor when Ian plunged in to his rescue, and while he only succeeded in getting himself and the others captured along side the Doctor, at least he did forestall the Doctor's execution. It is the character of Ian who has the most nuanced development here
This first episode had the seeds of the great show that Doctor Who would become. However, it constantly felt unsure of itself. My overall rating is 2 stars out of 5.
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