1.1: 100,000 B.C.
- Doctor: William Hartnell
- Companions: Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright
- Creators: Verity Lambert (Producer)
- Season 1
What's the rating?
Mostly crap.
What's interesting about it?
As discussed in An Unearthly Child, the first 10 minutes of the first episode of this story are really a continuation of that episode, after which it becomes a new story. During that ten minutes we get the first utterance of the phrase "Doctor who?," cleverly enough from the Doctor himself.
We also see the first time the TARDIS fails to change shape, now stuck as a police box. This single item is interesting…it gives a significance by not having the Doctor in control; in spite of his being hundreds of years old, this is the beginning of the story for him as well as for us.
After the first 10 minutes, the story is three episodes of endless cave man politics, which means endless talk of making fire.
While I don't recommend the story, it's still amazing for a show aimed at children -- depth of character, amount of conflict, complexity of the story. Undermined by intelligent women constantly turning into screaming messes at the drop of a hat.
Better stuff is down the pike.
What are others saying?
Most don't find this story very interesting, though some make a big deal out of a moment where The Doctor considers braining a cave man.
- Wife in Space (score: 4/10)
- I sometimes wonder why I like the people of this miserable planet so much: 100,000 BC (Tardis Eruditorum blog)