Baptism By Fire

Librarian in the TARDIS - Unearthly Revisited, Part 2

Title: The Cave of Skulls
Written by: Anthony Coburn
Team TARDIS: First Doctor, Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright
Adversary: Kal and the Cavemen (sounds like an 80s punk-rock band, doesn’t it?)
Originally Aired: November 30, 1963

Synopsis (basically the same as yesterday)

Again - screencaps from Tragical History Tour

My Review:

"The Cave of Skulls" is really a story of two halves. There's the wrap-up of what was left over from "An Unearthly Child" - convincing the audience that, yup, we've time-traveled. And then… there's the caveman storyline. Which, I'm going to freely admit, I've never been that invested in. As far as I'm concerned, the cavemen serve only two purposes: (1) To prove that the TARDIS can travel in time (see also: "The End of the World") and (2) to create drama and conflict for the four main characters to interact with. The whole thing with making fire - eh, not that important. At least, not in and of itself. Mostly it’s there just to make Team TARDIS look good on their very first outing.  Which makes sense, when you have this core group of the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara that you're going to be following throughout this series, you want the audience to connect with them.  You're not terribly concerned about these periphery characters that are just there to propel the story onward.

But that doesn't mean there’s nothing here to love. Most of fandom may just skip over these three episodes, but I've got plenty to say about them. So, let’s get going!

A New World For You

The Gallifreyans: Just another day at the office. The humans: ...the hell??

Once the cavemen characters have been established, the story cuts back to the TARDIS. Ian and Barbara are slowly coming back to consciousness from their first trip through the time vortex, and the Doctor and Susan are at the console, blissfully pretending that nothing out of the ordinary has happened. From this very first shot, you can tell that this isn't the first time the Doctor and Susan have done this. The image is very much that of Captain Kirk and his crew on the bridge of the Enterprise or even Han Solo and Chewbacca piloting the Millennium Falcon. Just another trip through time and another day to check the instruments. I seriously love that sight of complete normalcy on the part of the Doctor and Susan, but Ian and Barbara are in the background helping each other up with looks on their faces of "What the hell just happened?" It's one of my absolute favorite things about this serial!

I have no reason to include this picture other than I like it.

Now, through the last review, I often referred to Ian and Barbara together. They work together, they came to the junkyard together, they were kidnapped by the Doctor together. They're fantastic individual characters, but I love their interactions together. That being said, I love how this first scene establishes that there are times when they are such very different people. No where does this happen better that when the Doctor and Susan are trying to convince Ian and Barbara that they're not in 1963 London anymore. Barbara believes them a lot quicker than Ian does. There's even a sense that Barbara is eager to get out of the TARDIS and see things for herself. Ian… not so much. He's actually more argumentative about it - vehemently insisting that this has all been a trick and there's no way they could possibly be anywhere except the junkyard (or maybe he's a bit worried about leaving his car parked out on the street for who knows how long - that's just me reading between the lines). You really can't blame him at all - Ian's a scientist. He's made his life around experiments and scientific proof and what he can see in front of him. He doesn't trust anything he can't see, hear, or touch, so it's no wonder that he doesn't believe what the Doctor is telling him until he's actually outside the TARDIS doors - but he's also reluctant to go there. At least, until Barbara asks him if he's coming.

Remember how I said I wasn't going to fangirl-squee over Ian and Barbara anymore? You know I was lying, right?

(Side Note: Something I never noticed when I've watched this before is when the TARDIS doors open out into the wilderness, the Doctor takes off his hat. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but he almost does it out of respect and reverence - as if William Hartnell did it on purpose to mark the historic moment when the TARDIS opened up onto an alien landscape for the very first time. Or maybe his head was itchy. Who knows?)

Disguising Itself Wherever It Goes

Nope. Definitely not Shoreditch anymore...

And here we get another brilliant piece of Doctor Who mythos - the TARDIS Police Box. That little moment when the Doctor first sees that the TARDIS hasn't changed and he's mumbling "how disturbing" it is, that used to bother me. Like William Hartnell wasn't quite putting his all into those lines. But then I thought about it some more and it makes more sense. Up until now, the Doctor has been the epitome of confidence in his time-and-space ship. Confident to the point of condescension, especially when he's dismissing Ian's protests that none of this can be possible. But then something goes wrong, and suddenly the Doctor's been wrong-footed. Suddenly, he isn't the smartest person in the room. He doesn't know why the TARDIS hasn't changed, but he doesn't want to admit that he might not be totally in control of the situation. So, he's going to run off and look for rocks or plants or whatever.

It falls to Susan to provide explanation. And seeing as how the Doctor's off… wherever... and Ian's still wondering "What the hell just happened?", Barbara is the one who's more keen on the newness of everything she's seeing. For reasons that aren't as easily explained as Ian's scientific skepticism, Barbara just soaking up this experience. She doesn't have a rational explanation, but she's more willing to go with it. She even admits that she doesn't really know why - she just believes that this is what's happening. So, it's fitting that Barbara is the one that figures out that the TARDIS is supposed to disguise itself wherever it goes. And, she actually sounds impressed by it. That one line is just so Barbara - she's rational and intelligent, but willing to accept new things that's she's presented with and add them to her ever-growing knowledge of the universe. It's something that I totally love about her character - and it makes her a perfect foil to Ian. In fact, that's probably the point when Ian starts to accept everything that's happened - he probably wouldn't have if Barbara wasn't willing to roll with it all.

Fire Will Kill Us All

I said that I wasn't too into the caveman storyline, and I'm really not. But I do have to talk about the end fight scene. Actually - before that. When the cavemen bring in the Doctor and the Doctor's laying unconscious on the rock, it's only when the Doctor wakes up that the scene gets interesting. Coming from New Who, I have no problems believing that this incarnation of the Doctor is still so very young and inexperienced. It's one thing to show off your shiny, futuristic toys to confuse people. But get him away from the TARDIS and all of his equipment - there's not much to him other than bluster. This is a Doctor early-on in his travels and he hasn't quite mastered the art of Social Interaction (compare this to later stories like "The Reign of Terror" when he convinces the jailer at Conciegerie Prison that he's some government official - well, a fluffy hat will do that). I know I'm coming at this backwards and a 1963 audience wouldn't have had that interpretation, but it's still something of note.

Caveman Negotiation 101 clearly wasn't covered at the Time Lord Academy.

Then, the cavalry arrives! For all the talk that Ian is the action hero (and he is, don't get me wrong!), it's interesting that Susan is the first one to jump one of the cavemen threatening her grandfather. Since realizing her grandfather was missing, Susan's been pretty much in a blind panic. I don't know how her travels with her grandfather have been up to this point, but I get the impression that she hasn't been separated from him very much, if at all. Plus, we're not sure of the circumstances of how they left their home planet. In many ways, Susan is probably a very lonely girl. I don't mind that she screams and panics a lot - many fans kind of dismiss her as just a screamer. But given everything that's implied to have happened to her (admittedly we don't know much - though I do know Big Finish has had some fun with pre-Unearthly Child stories), I really don't mind that she gets scared easily. In fact, I would be worried if she didn't get scared.

So, Team TARDIS gets captured by a bunch of irate cavemen who just want some fire (remember how Ian didn't have matches in the last episode? Boy, oh, boy he probably really wishes he had some now) and… what's this? The Doctor apologizes for getting all them into this mess? The condescending jerk that kidnapped Ian and Barbara and took them thousands of years into the past so they could get tied up and tossed into some smelly, disgusting cave?

Would you two on the left stop being all adorable and crap?? It makes it my job even more difficult!

That, my friends, is called character development. And there'll be more of it in the next episode!

***
Next Time, on Librarian in the TARDIS: Unearthly Revisited -
Part 3 - In which there is an enormous amount of running involved.

Previously -
Part 1 - All There in the Manual

All There in the Manual

Librarian in the TARDIS - Unearthly Revisited, Part 1

Title: An Unearthly Child
Written by: Anthony Coburn
Team TARDIS: First Doctor, Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton (joins), Barbara Wright (joins)
Adversary: There really isn't one! (not for the first episode, at least)
Originally Aired: November 23, 1963

Synopsis (from TARDIS Wikia) -
Susan Foreman is a mystery to teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, seemingly knowing more than she should about the past... and the future. Their curiosity leads them to follow her home one night, only to find that her 'home' appears to be a deserted junkyard. In the junkyard, they discover a police telephone box and a strange old man, who claims to be Susan's grandfather, and calls himself the Doctor. The journey of a lifetime is about to begin...

My Review:

I'm baaaaaack!

While my 50th Anniversary reviews of Librarian in the TARDIS are complete, the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary celebrations are far from over. This Saturday is The Day of All Days and what other fitting tribute would there be than to revisit the story that kicked off this fantastic story of a strange old alien and his time-traveling police box?

I thought about reviewing “An Unearthly Child” all together as it’s own little Bonus Review, but the more I thought and wrote about it (just from memory - I hadn't watched it for a while), I realized that every episode is packed with so much detail and nuance and I didn't want to miss anything good. And I’ll probably get other chances to discuss and dissect this story (and others like it), but the thoughts I had felt right for the 50th. So, without further ado - let’s get started with Episode 1!

(Screencaps from Tragical History Tour)

A Mild Curiosity in the Junkyard

I came to Classic Who in an interesting way. I mainlined New Who in a little over a month, watched the Paul McGann TV Movie, then found a copy of “The Five Doctors” on YouTube that incorporated elements from New Series (and probably gave a fanboys a fair number of heart attacks, now that I think about it). After the glorious sampler plate of “The Five Doctors,” I wanted to dive into Classic Who headfirst. Problem was, I wasn't sure how to begin. I knew there were any number of points I could start with, but honestly - I was intrigued by Susan. I didn't know much about her, other than she was the Doctor’s granddaughter and how cool would it be to get some of the Doctor’s personal background? (how precious was I?) I took the same attitude I did with New Who (and that I do with any new show that I start watching), that I really ought to start from the beginning so I can get all of the background and have a good foundation for these characters and stories. I don’t like missing out on inside jokes and references, quite honestly.

So, First Doctor it was. I located a copy of “An Unearthly Child” (*cough*) online and went to town.

Well - I first went to the junkyard.

One wonders how close this guy came to being the Doctor's first human companion.

The initial opening shots of the junkyard (complete with the police officer that recently became the longest-running character in the show, thanks to a certain little tribute trailer) are, quite simply, a brilliant choice for starting things going. Director Waris Hussein deserves all kinds of praise for this because it would have been so easy to start with the ordinary, everyday scenes of Coal Hill School and then ramp-up to the fantastical revelation of the TARDIS. But starting with the little tour of the junkyard (with the theme tune still playing hauntingly in the background) sets up for the audience that all is not normal in this sleepy little corner of London. There is a mystery to be solved and we the audience are clued in on it right from the beginning. This is not going to be a typical educational show for kids - this is going to be spooky and intriguing and FUN! And, even though I knew it must be coming, I got a real thrill out of seeing the police box through the fog and that strange, tell-tale humming just beneath the surface.

Now that I think of it - why a junkyard? The TARDIS had camouflaged itself as a Police Box - it could have easily been set out on the street corner, right? But the junkyard is another brilliant choice - either by the director or the writer, I really don’t know who it was but they were genius for doing that (I wonder if anyone’s ever asked that question). Junkyards have their own creepy atmosphere - it’s a place where no one ever goes, full of things that nobody wants anymore. It could be dangerous to go inside, even. It’s like putting the Wardrobe to Narnia in the Spare Room that no one uses - it’s a place that is unclaimed, unused, unorganized. Anything could happen (and it probably will).

Phew - two whole paragraphs on the first minute of screen time! Boy, I’m glad I split this thing up!

“Thank You For The ‘We’”

Now that the mystery and atmosphere of the show has been sufficiently set up, it’s time to bring in the mundane and ordinary - a tried and true formula that has been a storytelling staple for Doctor Who for 50 years. Coal Hill School. Just your average, run-of-the-mill secondary school with a bunch of average, run-of-the-mill students racing to get out of the building as the final bell rings before their average, run-of-the-mill teachers give them more homework or get after them for running in the hallways. Average. Run-of-the-mill. Nothing to write home about. Nothing at all.

Now, when I hit “play” on “An Unearthly Child,” I had no idea that the Doctor had ever traveled with more than one companion at a time. Well, that’s not entirely true - I’d been floored when I saw “The Five Doctors” and saw that the Doctor was accompanied by (what I thought he was at the time) a redheaded guy who probably worked in investment banking (that would have been Turlough. Seriously - I was completely clueless). So, I was more than a little surprised when the story didn't start with Susan, as I expected, but with her teachers.

To be perfectly, 100% honest, I had never even heard of Barbara Wright or Ian Chesterton. Which is really weird to me now because I’d known about Sarah Jane Smith and I’d heard of Tegan and Nyssa and Peri and Ace and the Brigadier and Jamie and Susan, but the Doctor’s first human companions were a complete surprise to me. Looking back, I like that Ian and Barbara were a surprise to me - probably because I was going into Classic Who thinking that I knew all the backstory the show had to offer and there was no way that I could be surprised in any major way (in my defense - I was still so very new at this and I didn't have any veteran Whovian standing by the guide me in this).

This will be the only time I fangirl-squee over these two this entire week. Seriously. The ONLY time.
(Yeah, you know I'm lying).

But what I totally love about these initial scenes with Ian and Barbara is how fast I went from “Who in the world are these two?” to “Holy crap! They’re amazing!” And really, they haven’t even done much - just expressed concern over a student that they've both had problems with. But you do get the sense that, while they’re both very set in their ordinary lives, they also have a lot of potential to be absolutely magnificent. It’s much the same with Rose Tyler when the series came back. And this isn't the first time (as I’ll point out here in a bit) that Russell T Davies took cues from the Classic Series when he was crafting New Who. Ordinary people with ordinary lives on the brink of an extraordinary adventure.

Something else that I hadn't clued into until much later, but that I really love, is that from the get-go Ian and Barbara have a really strong relationship with each other. Whether you “ship” them romantically (as I do) or if you just think they’re good friends, there is an unmistakable bond between these two that carries the first few stories (and, arguably, much of the first season) and that bond immediately creates a bridge between the story and the audience.

I know I’m getting ahead of myself here, but there are moments when the Doctor is being downright unpleasant and unlikeable that it’s really jarring (especially if you’re coming from New Who). But then Ian and Barbara say something to each other about it you’re back on board with the story.  For myself, it was reassuring that I was still watching the same show that I'd fallen in love with - there was an unspoken promise that this irascible old man would most certainly become the character that I knew and adored, I just had to give him time to get there. And really, that’s what kept me watching throughout these four episodes - I was still getting used to the different format coming from New Series Doctor Who and I hadn’t quite gotten my feet under me (so to speak). But I had Ian and Barbara to connect me to the rest of the story and as long as they were doing awesome things (which is pretty much all the time), I fell right in with everything else. They’re two of the absolute best companions ever in Doctor Who - and I’d even argue the foundations for these two characters are the basis for all future companions.

“What Are You Doing Here?”

So, Ian and Barbara go poking around in the junkyard looking for Susan (no way she could possibly be in that old police box... that's humming?) And - eleven minutes into the first episode - the title character arrives, waving his scarf around to clear the dust and examining all the junk lying around the place. Ian and Barbara (rather politely) ask this mysterious old man if he’s seen a young girl and the old man completely blows them off. It’s obvious the Doctor is hiding something - and Susan doesn't make it easy for him to keep his secret hidden, still calling out to her grandfather from... somewhere?

William Hartnell’s first appearance as the Doctor sets the tone for his character beautifully - indeed, it sets the tone for how the Doctor is going to treat Ian and Barbara, at least for the foreseeable future - but it also gives him room for character development. They’re bothering him. They’re in the way. They’re going to expose his closely-guarded secrets. Still, underneath all that bravado and bluster lies the beginnings of a spark of that very first Team TARDIS. Even before their characters truly know each other (as far as the story’s concerned), William Hartnell, William Russell and Jacqueline Hill positively sparkle in this first scene together and you just know that this is the start of an amazing team (well, I was excited about it, anyway).

The start of a beautiful friendship (eventually...)

A Thing That Looks Like a Police Box

One of the coolest things about the Doctor Who’s revival in 2005 is how much stuff Russell T Davies not so much “borrowed” as outright stole from “An Unearthly Child” when he wrote “Rose.” Both episodes start out with the Doctor’s soon-to-be companions in their normal, everyday lives. Both progress as the result of these normal, everyday lives being disrupted by the smallest weirdnesses. And both introduced the inside of the TARDIS - not in this grand, upscale camera shot, but by the companion’s initial reaction. The audience saw Barbara’s face before we saw the inside of the TARDIS and the same thing would happen with Rose 42 years later. It’s a genius move to create a sense of wonder in the audience, by first creating a sense of wonder in the characters we've already connected with (Hey, don’t fix what ain’t broke!)

Audiences and companions' first entrances into the TARDIS, from 2005 and 1963

And here comes The Exposition! In general, exposition can be really boring if not handled well, but for setting up the whys and wherefores of how this new science fiction program will operate - I have a damn hard time imagining that Verity Lambert and company didn't set up the entire Doctor Who mythos right from the very beginning. Even though I've heard stories about how most everything was done on the fly and by sheer luck and coincidence, the story is told with such utter confidence in everything that’s going on, you absolutely believe that there is already a plan to reveal the Doctor and Susan’s home planet and the circumstances of their exile. Sure, they don’t outright mention Gallifrey or Time Lords or regeneration (and those things wouldn't even be invented until years later), but coming from New Who, I feel like there’s a certain amount of mystery to be explained later. Indeed, there’s an unspoken promise that it will be explained later, but right now we've got the universe to explore!

Not exactly an average Parent-Teacher Conference, is it?

Here’s kind of an odd example of what I’m talking about - I've recently gotten into the show Person of Interest. Over the show’s first season, most of what we learned of the reclusive-yet-lovable genius billionaire Harold Finch was directly tied into the background of the Machine he built for the government that spies on people. We learned very little about his personal life that wasn't related to that project. But in Season 2, we do get more of his backstory that we knew must be there, but it was never a point of discussion in Season 1 because there were other things going on that directly related to the premise of the show.

The Doctor is very much a Harold Finch-type character - reclusive, eccentric, standoffish at first, but just a big squishy teddy bear once you come to know him. We know he’s protective of his granddaughter (and rightfully so - we don’t know the nature of the Doctor and Susan’s exile, but we know enough that the situation is dangerous for them both).

I've really got to talk about Susan here. Because what makes this Team TARDIS work is the connection that Susan has to her grandfather, but also the connection she has to 20th century Earth and, by extension, her schoolteachers. While the Doctor insists that he merely “tolerate[s] this century but [doesn't] enjoy it” in this first episode, Susan has already fallen in love with this planet, its customs and people. I have no doubt that love eventually inspires the Doctor to adopt Earth as his second home planet. There are other reasons that come later (in these reviews, in fact!) that the Doctor would start to soften his attitudes about Earth, but it wouldn't have happened at all if it wasn't for the innocent and sincere curiosity that Susan exhibited from the outset. Susan’s heart and tenacity make her a very unique companion - these qualities don’t get exhibited much in other companions (I think you could make a case that Jamie is that way - possibly even Rose, in some ways) and that really endears her to me. Here’s a young girl whose was obviously very close to her grandfather. She’s got his same desire to explore new worlds and she gladly tagged along for the ride when he ran away from Gallifrey. She enrolled in a primitive school on a primitive world in order to more fully understand the people of this planet - which, that has courage written all over it. And she doesn't shy away from a challenge. Sure, she’ll have moments where she’s scared out of her wits - who doesn't? But you have to admire a girl for trying new things!

Wanderers in the Fourth Dimension

And here’s the moment of truth. Ian and Barbara try to leave the TARDIS, but the Doctor locks the doors and takes off with them still inside - looking positively horrified at what could possibly happen next. Not much is said after the TARDIS takes off - there’s an extended sound effect of the TARDIS taking off, Ian and Barbara are knocked unconscious (because of the stress of first-time time traveling? Heck, I don’t know - it never happens again), scenes of London fall away as the ship rockets off into space and time...

...and comes to a stop on a desolate, rocky plain with a menacing shadow stretching across the landscape. The credits roll and the theme tune plays. Jaws are picked up off living room floors across the UK. For the second time in two days, history has just been made. This time it’s not an assassination an ocean away, but one scrappy little family tea-time program that’s going to be the talk of the town - a program that won’t soon be forgotten.

(Okay, I’m just imagining how things would have been for the average television viewer in the UK in November 1963 - but it’s as good as anything else, right?)

We're not in Shoreditch anymore...

There’s just so much packed into this one little 22-minute episode that I could have gone on and on about characters and story and plot elements. The writing is tight and engaging, there’s just enough mystery left to keep you excited for the next part - which will be the topic tomorrow. While “An Unearthly Child” has the reputation of being a stellar piece of television and the succeeding three episodes... not so much, I’m certain I can find something compelling to talk about in each one. Hell, it was good enough for the audiences to stick around before the Daleks finally showed up.

(Aw man... I wanna go watch this episode again!)

***
Next Time, on Librarian in the TARDIS: Unearthly Revisited -
Part 2 - Caveman politics - bah! Let's talk character development!