The Cave of Skulls (100,000 BC Episode 2)

The one where the Doctor lights a pipe and gets abducted by cavemen...

After waiting an entire week (or in the case of those watching back in 1963, just a few moments since the repeat of episode 1), the story resumes by reminding us where the police box has landed, and that a hirsute stranger is watching. But then our curiosity is deprived of more as we cut to a bunch of well-spoken cave dwellers trying to light a fire.

Director Waris Hussein populates the cave set with an awful lot of extras (18 uncredited supporting artistes, in fact) to create the idea that this is quite a large tribe of pretty desperate people (ten men, nine women and four children). Za is trying to conjure fire, as his late father did before him, but when the tribe turned against his father and killed him, the secret of firemaking was lost. Za is hoping to become undisputed leader of the tribe by sparking up again, but his methods range from the amusing (shouting at a stack of twigs) to the desperate (rolling a bone between his palms and sprinkling dust over it).

The viewer - desperate to know what's going on back in the TARDIS - is made to watch this growing power struggle between savages. It's a power struggle for both leadership and honour, but also the prize of a woman, Horg's daughter Hur. Whoever makes fire first becomes leader, and will be rewarded with Hur. Will it be Za, or will it be interloper Kal, who has recently rocked up and inveigled his way into the tribe by bringing them meat and skins? Meanwhile, Za desperately shouts at his twigs...

At last we return to the TARDIS, where the Doctor reveals that his yearometer reads zero (it obviously has no minus figures) and that the air outside is breathable and radiation-free. It strikes me that if the Doctor really believed it was the year zero, he could nip outside and watch the baby Jesus being born, but instead he believes the instrument to be broken.

The landscape outside is revealed to a groggy Ian and Barbara on the scanner. "There you are, a new world for you," announces the Doctor, proudly. And then we get that spine-tingling moment where Ian refers to their host as Dr Foreman, and William Hartnell's eyes fill with magic as he says: "Hmmm? Doctor who? What are you talking about?"

It seems Barbara is much more open to the fantastic truth of what has happened than Ian is. Ian is, after all, a man of science, and demands concrete proof that they have changed both location and time period. Even when he's outside, on the surface of a prehistoric world, he refuses to believe what his senses are telling him. Barbara insists pragmatically: "The point is, it's happened", but Ian merely responds: "Yes it has, but it's impossible to accept!"

Barbara is also quicker to accept the functions of the TARDIS. She can see that they have moved location, and so presumes that a shift in time is possible too. After all, they're inside a police box that looks like a Magnet kitchen inside. "I can't help it," she admits. "I just believe, that's all."

Waris Hussein's imaginative direction continues when the TARDIS doors open and we see outside for the very first time, through those giant, bump-and-go doors. It's a clever idea by set designer Barry Newbery to have this continuance of environments from inside to outside, something that doesn't happen so much in later years. There's a lovely shot when Barbara stares out through the doors, looks back momentarily at an incredulous Ian, then wanders out after the Doctor regardless. As a history teacher, the possibility they have travelled in time must be intoxicating for her.

Outside, we get more spine-tingling camera acting from Hartnell when he realises the TARDIS hasn't changed shape. "It's still a police box! Why hasn't it changed? Dear, dear, how very disturbing." This is the first time the audience is presented with the idea that the TARDIS can alter its appearance, and as Susan explains later, it's meant to change to match its environment, like a disguise. It's been an Ionic column, a Sedan chair... but why has it stuck as a police box? The concern shown by both the Doctor and Susan at the Ship's lack of metamorphosis is emphasised, but then oddly dropped completely. It feels like it ought to be a plot point picked up later, but it never really is. Not for many years...

Curiously, just as An Unearthly Child ended with an indistinct threat just off camera (to be mirrored at the end of The Dead Planet in a few weeks), this episode features the desiccated remains of an indigenous creature (in this case, a horse's skull), which will be mirrored by the discovery of a dead Magnadon in the second serial.

When the Doctor lights up his enormous pipe and gets abducted, the viewer is treated to Susan's very first hysterical fit. It's the first of many of Susan's meltdowns at the slightest suggestion of danger or risk during their travels, and it must be said that Carole Ann Ford misjudges her performance and overdoes it considerably here. She's virtually incoherent and even resorts to collapsing pathetically into a sandy hillock. "Calm down, Susan!" insists Ian. Get used to it, Chesterton...

Back at the cave the tribespeople are witnessing the Paleolithic equivalent of a TV Presidential debate. Za and Kal wage a war of words in their effort to become leader, and Anthony Coburn's cod Shakespearean dialogue adds some nice colour to proceedings. "I will have to spill some blood to make people bow to me," Za grimaces into camera. "Tomorrow, I will kill many bears!"

Kal seems to have the upper hand though (and the better chest), what with his neat turn of phrase and the fact he's got a firemaker up his sleeve. "Za will give you to the tiger," he warns. "Za will give you to the cold. Za rubs his hands and waits for Orb to remember him." What a bitch!

As soon as the Doctor comes round, Hartnell is on his toes like a prizefighter. The Doctor immediately begins talking for his life, promising as much fire as the cavemen want, but then finding he's lost his Swan Vestas. He scuttles around the tribe in a manner reminiscent of Peter Capaldi. There is a palpable feeling of tension in this scene. The Doctor is in very real and violent danger here, emphasised by the steady drumbeat score and the fact he has a knife held to his jugular at one point.

Rescued by Ian, Barbara and a screeching Susan, the Doctor then saves his very first human life. As Ian is about to have his head caved in by Za's axe, the Doctor declares: "If he dies, there will be no fire!" We then get a lovely, if uncomfortable, moment where Kal seems to take a shine to Barbara, becoming the first of many who will come to admire the schoolteacher's feminine wiles.

Thrown into the well-dressed Cave of Skulls (it's a cave and it's got lots of skulls in it), our bound heroes try to catch their breath. Ian tenderly asks Barbara if she's been hurt, reinforcing the special bond between them that we've seen from their very first scene last week. And then they notice that all of the skulls around them have been split open, perhaps in some kind of prehistoric trepanning project.

Episodes 2 to 4 of 100,000 BC are often criticised for being dull and disappointing. But while it's true that a trip to the Stone Age isn't the most exhilarating of first adventures for our heroes, The Cave of Skulls shows that, for what it's worth, there's plenty to enjoy here. Hartnell, again, gives a powerful performance, and Derek Newark and Jeremy Young give enough credence to their parts to make the tribe's power struggle convincing. And through it all, Waris Hussein continues to bring imagination to the direction.

First broadcast: November 30th, 1963

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: William Hartnell plays to camera so brilliantly in this episode, proving again what a great actor he was before the illness diminished his talent.
The Bad: While Derek Newark, Jeremy Young, Alethea Charlton and Eileen Way manage to convince as prehistoric power brokers and pawns, poor old Howard Lang is just a little too thespy to make Horg work as well.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: The Forest of Fear...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: An Unearthly Child (episode 1); The Forest of Fear (episode 3); The Firemaker (episode 4)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/an-unearthly-child.html

An Unearthly Child is available as part of the Doctor Who - The Beginning box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Beginning-Unearthly-Destruction/dp/B000C6EMTC