Written by Anthony Coburn | Directed by Waris Hussein | Produced by Verity Lambert | Original air date 12/14/63
I wonder how long the directors on Doctor Who will make actors hold a pose or make a face while the titles show up on screen - Hur's father awkwardly looking just off camera while the title cards do their thing is inadvertently amusing. Anyway, the Doctor and co. are quickly hauled back to the cave, where Kal accuses Za of murdering the old woman in front of everyone, and even pulls out Za's knife to try to prove it - but the Doctor points out it has no blood on it, then tricks Kal into pulling out his own knife, which is covered in blood. The Doctor shouts to drive Kal out of the tribe and starts throwing rocks at him, and with Ian playing along, the cavemen do so as well, as Za regains his composure and realizes there's a power vacuum for him to fill.
And we reach our true first instance of padding in Doctor Who. It was inevitable that it'd be this early on in the run (this is the first production block, still!), though I honestly thought it'd show up earlier, even in episode two. And while the padding here isn't too bad and will get much, much worse, this episode still involves the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan being thrown into the Cave of Skulls again, this time deciding to make fire to bargain for release. After starting a small fire, Za enters the cave and asks if Ian's name is Friend, which Ian says is correct. When asked if he's the leader of their tribe, though, Ian defers to the Doctor, which I found strange - why would he do that? The Doctor got them in this mess, was willing to kill Za in last week's episode to expedite their escape, and wasn't the one making fire. Why would Ian say he is the leader? Did Ian feel that'd put more pressure on the Doctor and not him? Was he being nice, offering a sort of olive branch to this strange old man who dragged him to the past? As fans, it feels right for Ian to say the Doctor is the leader, but the show to this point doesn't really support that position.
We then get a caveman fight scene where Za kills Kal, during which there are some amusing shots of the main cast reacting to the fight going on in front of them, including Susan and Barbara being terrified, the Doctor looking slightly disturbed and/or confused, and Ian looking... completely nonplussed. I love you, William Russell, but at least furrow your brow a little bit! Za, despite gaining the knowledge to make fire and killing off his main rival for power, does not let the group go. He's gone power mad, it seems, and thinks the four people would be better off with his tribe, refusing to let them leave the Cave of Skulls. We then get one of the more interesting images since the group left the TARDIS when Susan lights a skull on fire (sadly, metal didn't exist by this point, otherwise Susan could throw up the horns and maybe start headbanging or something. For real, though, what a strange thing for her to do, it almost seems out of character for a girl who at the end of this season will get such a stomachache she'll refuse to try to escape the guillotine), giving Ian the idea that they'd fake their deaths and while the tribe is distracted, make their escape. This is after the Doctor suggests they threaten to take fire away, further cementing how the Doctor is not the leader yet - Ian's idea works, while the Doctor's isn't even seriously considered by the group.
So, they escape, and then we have several shots of the four main characters being slapped with branches while they run in place. Doctor Who tries its best and I'm not going to hold out for super great effects in it, ever, but it's so painfully obvious and Carole Ann Ford oversells it while William Hartnell barely tries. It just doesn't work.
They make it back to the TARDIS and quickly dematerialize, while the tribe looks on. We get a reaction shot of Za as he watches the TARDIS disappear, but no dialogue from him - how he will explain what he saw to his tribe, no one knows (one assumes he'd claim they were sent by Orb or something similar). When the TARDIS lands, Ian and Barbara expect to be back in their own time, but the Doctor is incredulous at that suggestion, telling them since they took off before he could get coordinates and because he doesn't know the "secret code" (whatever that is a reference to, I have no idea), he has no idea where they'll land. He also admits he has no idea how to operate the TARDIS, which, I think has been retconned/is used to explain what the Doctor is talking about here - basically, he makes up a bunch of crap to cover up the fact that he has no idea what he's doing. The episode ends with Susan telling everyone the radiation levels of wherever they've landed is fine, and as they leave the TARDIS, we see the radiation meter reach a critical level, flashing a warning.
"Doctor Who" Puns so Far: 2 | Tomorrow: "The Dead Planet"
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