Bluffer’s Guide to Doctor Who: Eps 2–4: 100, 000 BC
Doctor Who fans rejoice as they can finally say the show isn’t as good as it used to be.
This is… the one with the cavemen.
100, 000 BC (a.k.a The Tribe of Gum, but commercially known as An Unearthly Child) (30th November — 14th December, 1963)
Writer Anthony Coburn. Story Editor David Whitaker. Producer Verity Lambert. Director Waris Hussein.
What Happens:
Exposition: Za’s tribe is unable to make fire. Za regularly tries to make fire while Kal — a newcomer — goes and hunts.
Rising Action: Kal sees the Doctor light a pipe and kidnaps him, believing the old man able to make fire. But the Doctor can’t without his matches…
Climax: Za and Kal fight over the kidnapped time-travellers.
Denouement: The time-travellers narrowly escape and the TARDIS leaves.
Things to Say:
- Susan’s reaction to the Doctor’s kidnap — Is this their first misadventure? Also, that important notebook won’t be seen again.
- TARDIS not called TARDIS. Always “Ship”. Nice mirroring that happens: Entrance into Stone Age from regulars’ POV, inside the Ship, how that looks, feels. Exit from Stone Age, from guest actors’ POV, outside Ship, how that looks, feels.
- It’s Doctor Who getting used to the adventure serial — Ep 2 is capture, Ep 3 is escape, Ep 4 is go back, confront the problem. The problem will come when that three-part structure is applied across four — six episodes.
Don’t Say:
- “They should colourise this,” because if Za’s wounds were in colour, there’s no way it would keep its PG rating.
Hot Takes:
- Different factions with their philosophies on fire reflect the different philosophies about the TARDIS: lead to destruction, pursuit of progress, should be secret, can’t be real. We can make a bigger deal about all this, and we should be wary: While TARDIS is SF to Ian and Barbara in the same way that fire is SF to the Tribe, the whole society trying to understand new technology is not a story Doctor Who has done yet. It’s not Quatermass, A for Andromeda, H.G. Wells either. Audience not likely to read story that way (the two also feel so disconnected). Patterns are there, these stories are linked. But it’s overstated in fan academia.
- Also overstated, Doctor Who’s educational remit. No-one has actually thought about how that would work. What do we learn about the Stone Age? The sand is cold, they wore furs, argued over fire, worship the Sun? How much of that is true? I’ve read books that suggest they worshipped ancestors and had a strong matriarchal system. None of that is present. We don’t even learn how to make fire!
- The cavemen are played as savages who speak like Tarzan but Coburn’s dialogue has them eloquent, capable of rhetoric, making metaphors, subtext. They’re clearly not meant to be “ugh” but real, psychologically-developed people. Misstep from Hussein and the actors, there.
- Hartnell’s Doctor: Ep 2 he’s desperate. Ep 3, he’s cruel, paranoid. Ep 4, cunning, a planner. Him proving Kal’s the murderer show’s the character’s ingenuity, wit. The character is there except the non-violence, as he then starts throwing stones at the murderer. Hartnell’s strongest moments: doing all three with other people being the opposite.
- Sexism — hysterical Susan and Barbara; Ian and the Doctor doing all the brave things because Susan and Barbara are “girls”. Worth pointing out that this is what ‘Twice Upon a Time’ is parodying with its sexist First Doctor, except here it’s not that the Doctor is sexist, the show is.
Between You and Me
In the late 1960s/early 1970s, when the BBC sold Doctor Who to other countries, they omitted these three episodes. When David Whitaker adapted The Daleks into the show’s first novelisation, he created an entirely new opening scene, removing this story completely. It’s unloved. When Scott Gray wrote a sequel comic strip in Doctor Who Magazine called ‘Hunters of the Burning Stone’, it actually felt radical because no-one, no-one, finds much in this story. Big Finish haven’t even released a sequel to it (Then again, Big Finish haven’t released sequels to a lot of Hartnell historicals, so maybe that’s not as damning as I might think). The story isn’t great, and it comes between the fantastic opening episode and the first story featuring the Daleks.
Still, there is something in these episodes, even if its undermined by all the cavemen scenes. We do see our four regulars connect and bond. Their differences and thus their characterisations shine through (even if it means that the enigmatic Susan has been replaced with screaming Susan).
When I was 8 years old, I loved that radiation cliffhanger. And I still do.
Further/Recommend Reading: