Anyway, the first 'chapter' of the episode is called, "An Unearthly Child". Of course it starts off in that creepy almost pedophile way that only Doctor Who can become. The Doctor's granddaughter, trying to 'fit in' to hide that she is a time traveler, is attending high school. Now this is an irritating part of the episode, because it raises the question as to why she is going to school in the first place. I doubt very much that the government has hammered a little sign to the TARDIS door to the affect of: Let your little girl slave attend school or we will take her away and put her in a foster home where she will live with people who care about her. Who actually believes that she is his granddaughter? *snicker*
I digress, but to continue. Of course, she is a misfit in school and sticks out like a sore thumb. So if she is attending school not to raise suspicions about her identity, she is failing abysmally. Two of the teachers think her life story has too many holes and try to track where she lives and speak with the grandfather. Enter stalker mode. Two teachers start following a teenage girl to find out where she lives! Brilliant stuff, eh? That's what I thought, too.
Okay, so they find where she is living. The TARDIS is tucked away in some dark corner of a junk yard. Yiipppeee!
The Doctor is pretty irate that they have managed to track him down, which I would be too probably. No one likes to be stalked. In a series of weird events, the two teachers end up in the blue box. Ah yes, the box IS bigger on the inside!!!!
So what does he do with them? An ordinary person would kick them out of their house with something to the affect of "Go to the devil", but instead he decides to kidnap them and take them to some place to prove that he is a time traveler. I don't know why he felt the urge to prove this. If someone declared to me that he was a time traveler, I would give him a cookie and murmur, "That's nice dear, pass the mashed potatoes?" Oh wait, that has already happened to me.
Okay, so why is she called the "Unearthly Child"? I don't feel as though this was properly addressed by anyone. She is a timelord? How can she be? Confused. Maybe I dislike her because she is actually a thirty something year old woman, pretending to be a fifteen year old.
Does he take them to a nice time in space full of lollipops, chocolate and giggling babies? No. He takes them all the way back to 100,000 BC, a time when they are scratching their armpits, fighting with rocks and speaking in stunted sentences.
Incidentally, he tries to light his pipe [who smokes pipes, anyway] and this starts a chain of events. Basically the barbarians want the travelers to teach them how to create fire, because their fire man is dead.
There is a ludicrous amount of running around [obviously they are running in place], arguing, close up on scruffy faces, stilted sentences, jumping around, taking of prisoners, escaping, taking of prisoners again, fighting with rocks and axes, fighting with bare hands, killing, taking of prisoners yet again, sweaty faces, grunting, eating of lice, wearing of furs. You name it, they had it. And yeah, it describes the next three chapters in a nutshell.
Incidentally, that was a real human bone they were rubbing to create a fire. I can't believe I've gone this long without Doctor Who in my life.
My hubby and I were joking about the title: The Cave of Skulls. Did someone put a skull in the cave and declare, "No longer called cave! Cave of Skull!" Someone comes along and throws another skull in there. "Damn! Must now call Cave of Skulls!" What's next? Cave of 1000 skulls! If only we could count that high! Anyway, I did notice that the skills were stacked very geometrically in the little recesses. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it zen like.
Here the doctor character is a little strange. He is portrayed as this useless, scheming, mysterious, non-caring kind of guy. If you've seen the more recent episodes of the show, the Doctor is portrayed as this serious hero, who saves the world simply because he's that freaking awesome. To see the doctor in a different light is disturbing to say the least. At one point, the doctor attempts to bash in the head of one of the cave men. Wow.
It was interesting how the Doctor still manages to save civilization by teaching them how to make fire. He really is that amazing.
This leads me to wonder something else. I have been told that this show was intended for children for educational purposes. This plot line was dark, violent, and contained mature themes. To distract the barbarians and escape, they take skulls [those were people at one point] and place them on flaming torches. Susan even laughs maniacally!
Somewhere in Christopher Robin's head, Winnie the Pooh is crying in his honey pot.
I also want to say that the choice of the two companions with The Doctor and Susan are interesting. The woman is kind of ordinary, and the man dresses like Mr. Rogers Neighborhood but has the charm of a stick.
How long do you think it will be before The Doctor dumps them for Pamela Anderson and Jenna Jameson?
My husband made the interesting observation that his companions refer to the TARDIS as a 'ship'. This is not what it is called later in the show.
According to Wikipedia, this episode was supposed to be the second, and an episode called The Giants was supposed to be the first. Really The Giants sounds a lot funner than 100,000 freaking BC, don't you think?
This wasn't a very satisfying episode in and of itself and it was a strange way to start off a show, but maybe it will be better in the whole scheme of things.
On to the Dead Planet
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