Series 1 Episode 2: The Cave of Skulls

Serial: An Unearthly Child
Episode: 2 ("The Cave of Skulls")
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Anthony Coburn
Director: Waris Hussein
Original Air Date: 30/11/1963 

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME PREHISTORIC (GENDER) POLITICS?

The Tardis has landed in Generic Cave(wo)man Times, and everyone looks grubby and/or beardy. There is an Old Woman (known only as Old Woman) who is the voice of the status quo and who is having none of this newfangled fire business. Which is just as well because Za, son of a great firemaker, is having no luck swizzling a phallic object between his fingers to get the spark going. Not that his ladyfriend (imaginatively named “Hur”) seems to mind. She spends most of the episode hovering at shoulders in a vaguely Lady Macbeth sort of way, communicating mostly in whispered political commentary and not batting an eyelid at the fact that she is to be given either to Za or to Kal (the interloper and Za’s rival in leadership/firemaking/woman-owning) by her father.

I must admit I quite like Hur. That a woman is seen as a man’s property is (no shit Sherlock) not cool, and obviously the fact that it’s meant to be prehistoric times doesn’t make it any less so, but it is at least realistic. And within that paradigm, she does manage to stir it quite a lot to her own advantage. I’d like one of the Tardis travellers to comment on the gender politics, though. I mean, one of the great things about, say, Life on Mars or Ashes to Ashes, is that the present-day character is always there to roll their eyes at the sexism etc., which is what prevents it all being an ode to less-PC times gone by.

Meanwhile, in the Tardis, it’s Babs waking Ian up from the floor and asking him if he’s all right, which is pleasant. And it’s Susan saying “lean on me” to Ian as he staggers out of the Tardis, clearly having had a bit of a bump on the bonce. It’s the little reversals that are so pleasing.

As far as accepting the reality of their situation goes, it’s also pleasingly non-gendered. It’s not that Ian (who initially refuses to believe that they have travelled in time) takes a rational view and that Barbara (who believes before she sets foot outside the Tardis) takes an irrational view, it’s just actual character development. Ian seems to get very bogged down in trying to understand everything and failing (sometimes at the expense of engaging fully with his environment), whereas Barbara accepts that there are elements she does not understand yet manages to engage with the situation at a level she’s comfortable with, which is often just at the level of subjective experience. (For instance, she has no problem in grasping the concept of the chameleon circuit when Susan explains it, despite not seeming particularly concerned as to how it works.) It’s more a scientist/historian distinction than a male/female one.

Oh dear, though, here comes screechy Susan. The Doctor has been nabbed by Kal following his ostentatious lighting of a pipe out in the open (how about that, the first person to be captured in Doctor Who is the Doctor himself), and his absence has brought on a fit of hysteria that is totally unnecessary. I can only half argue that her shrieking fit is channelled into action (i.e. running to find him) because at one point she appears to propel herself rather pointlessly into a sandbank. Yes you would panic if you were fifteen (how old is Susan in Time Lord years, anyway?) and your grandfather had been taken away, but surely going to pieces almost immediately is a little excessive.

Meanwhile, the AmDram/RSC Reject Cavemen are at it again. Their oratory skills seem to be terribly advanced. Kal has even mastered anaphora. Hur comes up with the first sensible suggestion we’ve heard since Kal brought the Doctor in (after asking “will my father listen to a woman?”), which is that they should just wake the Doctor up and see if he can indeed make fire. Interestingly, following the derisive conflation of old men with women in terms of irrelevance by some of the other cavemen, the Doctor plays up to the “old man” image in the hope that it will get him off the hook.

OH LOOK IT’S SUSAN TO THE RESCUE! Oh no, wait, she just ran in screeching “grandfather” and then spent the next full minute screaming at full tilt because the cavepeople managed to restrain them all. Great job, kiddo.

Za and Hur’s dad have a fairly ugg-ish spat over Hur. Za says “the woman is mine” a couple of times, and her dad says “my daughter is for the leader of the tribe”. Hur, who clearly likes the look of Za, twists her dad’s arm by telling him that if he gives her to Za, then Za will remember him in the cold and give him meat so he doesn’t starve. So again, fairly horrendous in that she doesn’t object to any of this, but pretty cool that she is the one in control of the situation. The Old Woman intones reactionary wisdom along the lines of “there were leaders before there was fire”. Can’t help feeling that the Wise Old Man trope is a lot kinder.

We finish with our heroes in the Cave of Skulls. Barbara is coughing, either because of “the stench” of which the Doctor complains or because she’s about to do that awful thing women in Sci-Fi do, which is to say to the strongman character “I’m frightened”. Which she does, as Ian leans over her prone form in a manner suggestive of ease of tonsil-tennis access. I don’t have a problem with people being frightened. I’d be frightened. Fear is not a gendered thing. But it only ever seems to be the women saying it to the men in these situations, and it does rather make me cringe.

OMG TREPANNING, HOW WILL THEY EVER ESCAPE?

*Eeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaooowwww ooo-EEE-oooooooooo-WOOOOOOOO-oooooooo*

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Yes.

Is/are the female companion(s) dressed “for the Dads”? No.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (while running from peril)? Yes (No).

Is/are the female companion(s) captured? No.

Does the Doctor/a male companion/any other man have to rescue the female companion(s) from peril? No.
 

Is/are the female companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? Yes.

Does a female companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? Yes.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? Yes.

Does a "present"-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? No.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.  

Verdict

A lot more sexism than the last episode, but still nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. It's only towards the end that we descend into screaming and such. Hur's character is problematic, but has not been dealt with completely thoughtlessly; it's not like the past sexism isn't being flagged up in the episode, even if it isn't always challenged. However, though she accepts the patriarchy without question, she manoeuvres freely within it to her own advantage, and does not herself seem unaware of gender bias ("will my father listen to a woman?"). It also begs the question as to whether sexism is ever held to be self-evident in TV drama - is there a convention that demands it always be acknowledged? Just an interesting thought. Also, apart from the "I'm frightened" bit, I do quite like Barbara as a character. Which is a nice thing to rediscover, seeing as I've not watched Hartnell-era Who for years. Bring on "The Forest of Fear".