Comments: Well. It’s hard to know what to say, isn’t it? I mean, the story isn’t exactly hurtling along at a breakneck pace, but I suppose I’d have to allow that it’s moving faster than it did last episode, but then that wouldn’t be hard. I do like the idea of the cavemen exercising stone age politics in a way today’s political parties would be proud of, and in fact there’s little real change. Scapegoat? Check. Hated enemy? Check. Heinous crime for which hated enemy and scapegoat must be brought to justice/killed? Check. Power play? Check. Sloping brows and dull, dead eyes? Check. Political manifesto? Check. Quite funny. The forest is hilariously bad, the trees looking like a breath of wind would knock them over, and it’s also amusing that the budget wouldn’t stretch to seeing the actual attacker of Za, or maybe such an attack was deemed too violent for children’s TV. Yet they had no problem showing an old woman being murdered. Interesting.
The acting is, to be fair to all involved, abominable. Nobody comes out of this covered in any sort of glory, the Doctor and Barbara sharing the wooden spoon for the worst performances yet, while Susan is all but conspicuous by her absence. Za is a joke, and only Hur displays any sort of charisma, and she’s supposed to be a cave woman! The idea that the travellers would help the caveman instead of just legging it for the TARDIS is laughable, but there’s certainly a dark undercurrent in the episode that speaks to a series that surely was aimed more at adults, even if they laughed at and dismissed it initially.
Diagnosing the Doctor
I said last time the episode had, if anything, lowered my opinion of Hartnell’s Doctor, but it was up in the clouds compared to where it is after viewing this. There’s not the slightest shred of human compassion in him (I know, but you know what I mean) and all he does is fight with everyone. He’s clearly happier to run and get back to the safety of the TARDIS, and I honestly would not have put it past him to have dumped them all if he could and legged it. It’s only his advanced age that prevents him leaving them behind to their fate. His old body needs their young ones to save it, and he has to go along with their plans, though he definitely does not like it. He displays none of the later kindness, humour and determination to be a protector of the weak that his successors will, and I’ve seen nothing yet to convince me that he dos not deserve the title of the very worst of the Doctors. First is not always best, and I just don’t see myself liking him, ever.
He’s also, let’s be honest here, either thick as ****e or arrogant to a fault, as he seems unable to comprehend the most basic logical premise, maintaining, as I said earlier, that Barbara is screaming at shadows when in all likelihood there is something in the forest, something dangerous. He just dismisses her fears in a way no later Doctor would, or indeed, no rational, thinking person. I also don’t like the clear intimation, when he picks up the rock as Za lies on the stretcher, that he intended to kill the caveman, thus relieving his Companions of the burden, both literal and emotional, allowing them all to escape. Again, no Doctor worth his salt would ever consider killing an unarmed man who was, at the time, no danger to him.
And once again, I have to ask, what in the name of Tom Baker is he doing wearing pyjamas? Under a topcoat? Are they/is he just trying to emphasise how old and decrepit he is? At least later Doctors would have their own sense of style and sophistication. He just looks like he escaped from a mental institution. And also what’s with the nineteenth-century-schoolmaster-grasping of the lapel (see picture above)? I mean, come on! This is (or was) 1963, the Summer of Love, Swinging London and all that, not Dickens’ time! Man is he out of touch, even for nearly sixty years ago.
Yeah, I have to push him into minus figures here. He’s just that bad.
Doctor: First (William Hartnell) - S01E03 - -10/100 (that’s minus ten out of a hundred)
Charting the Companions
Not a lot to say really. A complete role reversal as Barbara becomes Dale Arden (shut up), Ian becomes the Great White Hunter and Susan becomes all but invisible. If there is a leader, I guess you have to admit it’s Ian, but much of this is merely based on exigency: he’s a man, he’s relatively young and strong, and of course he’s British. So he gets to be in charge, even having a knock-down fight (for the British, of course) with the Doctor. But Barbara’s hysterics are, well, hysterical, and even more so her sudden conversion to a calm woman of action. They really expect us to believe this stuff? Thank God I was only five months old.
Susan: 0/100
Ian: 10/100
Barbara: -5/100 (that’s minus five)
So Ian certainly comes out head and broad shoulders as the winner here, though he should really lose points for that stupid almost-breaking of the fourth wall, but hey, I’m not that much of a bastard. Let him have his time in the sun. It’ll be dark soon enough. As he says in the caption to the intro, his career doesn't exactly hit the stratosphere after this.