By Jessica Holmes

Welcome back, class. I'm not sure why I'm calling you class. I'm not a teacher, but if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s waffling on at people who may or may not be listening to me. So, are we ready for some more Doctor Who? Our first serial just wrapped up, so it's time for a bit of a recap, and my thoughts.

We last saw the T.A.R.D.I.S having turned up in a desolate wasteland, observed by an unknown shadow. Where are we? Who was the shadow? Am I going to keep asking rhetorical questions?

Let's find out.

THE CAVE OF SKULLS

So, after the first installment I was rather looking forward to this one. I curled up with a nice cup of tea and a guinea pig – the best viewing partner.

The episode picks up where it left off in An Unearthly Child, with the shot of a shadow looming over the T.A.R.D.I.S. We cut away, and get to see who's casting the shadow: a rather grubby looking chap in desperate need of a good haircut. This is Kal, a Palaeolithic man, and contender for the leader of his tribe. Winter is fast approaching, their old firemaker is dead, and his son, Za, has no more idea of how to make a fire than any of the others. Control of the tribe will go to whomever becomes the new firemaker.

Kal and his mate, Hur, attempt to make fire. Close, but no cigar.

Within the T.A.R.D.I.S., Ian and Barbara are waking up, and much to the Doctor's (and my own) frustration, Ian is still under the impression that this is some sort of trick. The Doctor surmises that they all have travelled back in time. Of course Ian doesn't believe him, because apparently Ian's head is full of sawdust.

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"If you could touch the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?"
The Doctor

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I couldn't have put it better myself. (In fairness to Ian, if I met an old man with a police box that was bigger on the inside and could travel back in time, and found myself in a junkyard one minute and a wasteland the next, I'd think I was either being tricked or going a bit loony.)

The doors of the T.A.R.D.I.S. open up, and off we go!

The Doctor and Susan notice to their dismay that their T.A.R.D.I.S. still looks like a police box. The ship is meant to disguise itself upon arriving in a new locale, but it hasn't happened this time. It'll be interesting to see what happens when the Doctor gets around to fixing it.

Unbeknownst to the group, our hairy friend Kal has been watching them closely, and is making his approach.

The Doctor, meanwhile, decides that now is a good time to smoke his pipe. However, as he strikes his match, Kal pounces on him. My own doctor does always say that smoking is bad for one's health.

Remember, kids. If you use tobacco, we can’t guarantee a caveman won’t suddenly pounce on you.

The rest of the group don’t take long to notice his absence. Susan completely loses her head; to say she doesn’t appear to cope well with stress would be putting it mildly. I do hope she toughens up a bit.

Kal arrives at his tribe’s cave with the Doctor slung over his shoulder, a mighty prize for the Doctor can make fire from his fingertips. The tribe gets straight to bickering over who gets to learn fire. It’s a lot like a Commons debate. The Doctor would happily give them fire, if only to shut them up, were it not for the fact that he’s all out of matchsticks.

It seems like all is lost for the Doctor when the rest of the group come charging in…and are captured immediately.

So much for a daring rescue.

The episode ends with our band of travellers being sealed into the eponymous Cave Of Skulls.

An interesting touch. I can’t be certain, but that looks like a genuine human skull to me.

This one was a bit slow at the start, and though I'm not averse to a bit of political drama, I can't really see that a child would much care for it.

THE FOREST OF FEAR

A week later for us (and no time at all for our characters), we follow on with the group trapped, the tribe planning to force the Doctor to make fire at sunrise, and all hope, seemingly, lost.

In the cave, the tribe sleep. One, however, does not: an elderly woman whose name I don't think we ever learn, which is surprising considering she might be one of the most important characters of the serial. She’s an old-fashioned cavewoman. Who needs this new-fangled fire? Everyone got along before fire, didn’t they?

The old woman steals a knife and slips away from the tribe. Last week, she wanted to kill the travellers. Looks like she's about to follow through, but someone has spotted her: Za's mate, Hur. I admit I only know that’s her name from the credits, as I don’t recall anyone ever referring to her by name within the episode proper.

It’s sharper than it looks.

Back in the creatively named CAVE OF SKULLS, the travellers are working on an escape. They're not getting far with their hands bound, but are at least starting to work together.

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"Fear makes companions of all of us."
The Doctor

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Companions. I like that.

Susan is the first to notice the old woman entering the cave, with a scream so shrill my poor guinea pig almost leapt off the couch and ran all the way home to his sisters. I think my ears are still ringing.

Hur wakes Za, and her suspicions are the same as mine. She reasons that if they stop the old woman from killing the companions, the Doctor will reward Za with fire. However, in a subversion of expectations, it turns out we were wrong. With the old woman’s help, our heroes escape, but the old woman isn't so lucky.

Za pursues them into the forest. Barbara loses her head as the group realises they are lost, and the Doctor and Ian begin to bicker, in a way that oddly mirrors the 'cave-men', over which of them is the leader. Looks like some things never change.

The dreaded boar.

At the sight of a dead boar, Barbara helpfully screams the whole forest down, alerting Za to their whereabouts. Well done, Barbara. Again, I do hope that the women of the group completely losing their senses at the first time of trouble doesn’t become a recurring trend.

Bad news: Za isn't the deadliest thing in the forest. Luckily for Barbara, the never-seen beast finds Za before it finds her. Za’s caterwauling echoes across the forest, and though he's been pursuing them, Barbara insists on going back to help. The Doctor, much disgruntled, brings up the rear of the group, preferring to leave Za to his fate and make their escape. Still, he won't abandon Susan, so the companions double back and find Za, horrifically wounded.

Back in the cave of skulls, a phrase I find myself compelled to say in a dramatic voice, I'm relieved to find the old woman is still alive. She seems like the only cave-person with her head screwed on properly. My relief turns to dread when Kal finds and interrogates her. He's not pleased she helped them. Not pleased one bit.

In the forest, our companions tend to Za, and Hur has some difficulty with the concept of kindness, something I find confusing. Paleolithic people were not mindless ‘savages’. Any human society, no matter how different from what you’d consider to be ‘civilisation’, must be based on cooperation and mutual aid if it is to function. In less clinical terms, kindness makes the world go round, and wherever and whenever you are, people are people.

The companions administer first aid to Za.

The Doctor, however, doesn't seem to be feeling kind. In fact, Ian has to stop him murdering poor Za with a rock. I like a grumpy hero, but not one who murders people. It has to be said that the Doctor doesn't seem like a terribly nice man, let alone a good one. I hope he softens up over time.

The companions move off, taking Za with them on an improvised stretcher, but back with the tribe, trouble stirs. The old woman is dead, and Kal is quick to accuse Za of the crime.

And it's in this frame of mind that the tribe surround our companions as they approach the T.A.R.D.I.S. It doesn't seem like everyone's going to make it out of this adventure in one piece.

So close, but so far away.

I enjoyed this episode more than last week’s, in spite of the quibbles I had. It was simply more exciting, with some good plot twists.

THE FIREMAKER

Here we come to the conclusion!

Our companions have been caught and brought back to the tribe, where Kal formally accuses Za of killing the old woman with his knife. But Kal didn't count on one thing—the Doctor.

The Doctor notices that there is no blood on Za's knife. Kal insists it's a bad knife, and almost like toying with a small child, the Doctor manipulates him into taking out his own knife to prove his is better. I can’t say whether this says more about the Doctor’s intelligence or Kal’s general lack of it. Sure enough, Kal’s knife is covered in blood.

The Doctor is on the case.

The tribe, egged on by the Doctor, casts Kal out into the wilderness, and Za seals the companions back into the cave of skulls. How's that for gratitude?

Hur, however, seems to have a brain cell or two to rub together, and fills him in on what the companions did for him after the beast attacked. Za becomes less hostile, but he still needs fire if he wants to lead. I think the old woman might have been right: the more I see of this tribe, the less I think they can be trusted with fire.

Za goes to the cave to speak with the companions, who are currently working on getting a fire going. The tribe believe that if they sacrifice the companions to the sun ('Orb'), it will give them fire. No need for that—Ian just managed to kindle a small flame.

Kal on the verge of learning a painful lesson: Fire hot.

However, Kal isn’t about to give up without a fight. He arrives at the cave, and attacks Za for control of the fire. In the ensuing fight, it's quite hard to tell what's going on, with the similar costumes and makeup for our two cavemen, but the scene itself looks good, with the flickering firelight dancing off the vicious fighters.

Za gains the upper hand.

In the end, Za is victorious, and emerges from the cave with a torch, having won the battle for leadership. However, though he has what he wanted, he decides to keep hold of the companions, and with them, a steady fire supply, so they take matters into their own hands.

Time for a cunning plan. It’s so cunning it will take your breath away:

Get a torch. Get a skull. Put the skull on the torch. Hide.

That’s it, that’s the full extent of the plan. Our companions make a break for it when the cave-people are too busy being scared out of what little wits they had.

Za, quick on the uptake as always, realises that the skulls on sticks are not any sort of demonic entity, and the tribe gives chase in a scene that, I'll be honest, is clearly limited by the confines of the studio. Lots of close-ups on panicked faces without any reference as to how close behind the tribe are. It doesn't do much for the tension.

The companions at long last make it back to the T.A.R.D.I.S. and take off. But where to? Who can say? Suffice it to say, it doesn’t look like Ian and Barbara are making it back to modern England any time soon. In fact, they land in a strange-looking forest, bone-white trees all around, and leave the T.A.R.D.I.S. after Susan checks the radiation meter and sees that it reads unthreatening levels.

However, it looks like they're in for a nasty surprise. Unseen by any of them, the needle is creeping up…

Final Thoughts

All in all, this trip in the T.A.R.D.I.S. was quite enjoyable, but didn't quite live up to the promise of its first instalment. Our characters are beginning to emerge, and though I like Ian and Barbara, I admit I find Susan a bit annoying, and the Doctor, though still my favourite by virtue of being the most interesting, could do with a lesson or two in humanity.

A positive aspect I'd like to note is the lack of an obvious 'goodie' outside of the main group. The politics of the cave are an ugly mess, and our companions are just unlucky enough to be stuck in the middle of it. I think there might be a metaphor in that, somewhere. It occurs to me now that though Za has fire, he still doesn’t know how to make more. What's going to happen to the tribe when the fire burns out? Is this group of early humans doomed?

So, though some bits were slower than others, I think we can safely say there's enough promise to stick with the series. I want to see more adventures from this crew of varying intrepidness, and I look forward to the next serial.

What's coming next, do we think? Another planet? The alien sand the Doctor promised? Or perhaps it could be our own far into the future. Or not so far, if you're feeling pessimistic.

I'll leave you all to mull it over.

Until next time, then!

3.5 out of 5 stars