The importance of the stone age setting in An Unearthly Child
It has often been said, not least by Verity Lambert and Waris Hussein, that it was a mistake to set Doctor Who’s first adventure amongst inarticulate stone age people. I’d argue that nothing could be further from the truth.
By the time the TARDIS arrives in the stone age, we’ve been in the company of the Doctor for barely ten minutes and not that much longer with Barbara, Ian and Susan. So far we’ve seen antagonism and confusion from the point these four main characters came together. For the audience, it was essential that they remained centre-stage for the episodes immediately following the debut, to allow their characters and a group dynamic to emerge from their interaction.
This is done beautifully over the three stone age episodes, with the Doctor’s remorse for having got his companions into such a dangerous situation rounding his spikier edges, but not his ruthlessness, while Ian and Barbara demonstrate the practical application of their more caring natures in acts of compassion for the cave people. Susan doesn’t get quite so much opportunity to develop, but she did have much of the first episode devoted to her.
The society of the cave people is about as basic as it could be and was surely chosen for the greatest contrast with the modernity of Ian and Barbara, and perhaps also with the future represented by Susan and the Doctor. These contrasts are important to the story, but so too are the parallels. The cave-dwelling tribe is no more ‘primitive’ to the schoolteachers than the schoolteachers are to the Doctor. The tribe can understand the uses of fire from anecdote and demonstration, but cannot fathom its technology (how and with what it is made), just as the schoolteachers can understand the function of the TARDIS once it is demonstrated but have no hope of comprehending how it works.
Unlike in most of the stories that follow, here the TARDIS travellers are rarely apart. This allows the dynamic of their group to be explored in contrast with that of the cave people. The power contest between Kal and Za is reflected, albeit to a lesser extent, by that of Ian and the Doctor. In parts two and three, they bicker about their next actions and the group lacks any real leadership. The Doctor defers to Ian but only under protest. Similarly, while Za is nominal leader of the tribe, Kal has strong support as a provider of meat and at times seems on the verge of seizing the leadership. By part four, Ian has acknowledged the Doctor’s authority, telling Za that he is the leader of their ‘tribe’. Shortly afterwards Kal and Za’s contest also ends, though this one with force, as Za kills Kal in brutal combat. In both cases, the more senior man retains authority against the challenge of the newcomer.
It’s also nonsense to suggest that the tribe’s ‘primitive’ society and limited vocabulary makes them uninteresting. Even though the tribe’s language is restricted, it is not inarticulate or dull. Their words are accompanied by gestures and actions, and from such a small vocabulary they talk in metaphors or create imaginative new terms from the words they know. Anthony Coburn’s script is inventive. Ash is called “dead fire” by Za and Horg recalls cooking as “meat and fire joined together”. Kal refers to a knife lacking bloodstains as not showing the things it does. These are not people without the ability to communicate new ideas in creative ways. Equally, whilst their characters are not complex, neither are they one-dimensional, with a series of credible traits. Hur’s obvious desire to be with Za, even when his leadership is looking rocky, shows they act on more than simple pragmatism and superstition.
The room given for exploration of the Doctor/Susan/Ian/Barbara dynamic, and the contrasts and parallels drawn between the two groups of characters, would have been impossible in a story with a more advanced society. That would have involved a greater level of exploration of the ‘host’ society and more complex and subtle guest characters than was necessary with the cave people. All of this would have robbed the four leads of the screen time which was essential for the initial development of their characters and denied opportunities for such basic contrasts and parallels to be drawn.
Setting this story amongst cave people was a clever and successful idea.
Images © BBC
This is a (very slightly) revised version of an article originally published in Panic Moon in December 2013.