Cave of Skulls

I actually enjoyed this story much more than I remembered doing so way back when I first saw it on video. A lot of it comes from the characters taking the whole thing seriously. Barbara, for instance, had only dressed for some light child stalking so being introduced to time travel, bounced back in time by a mad jerk, and threatened with death by a bunch of cavemen actually distresses her and it’s a distress I respect. The modern show has been so focused on FUN that it has irritatingly glossed over the grimmer shit, like Amy’s uterus. If I went on a Doctor Who adventure and the Nimon ate my testicles you could be fucking sure the next episode would be called “Getting Gabe New Testicles of the Daleks”. You have a magic time machine, you fuckwit, you can regenerate, you fuckwit, you can fix my ability to reproduce and I will be understandably upset until you do. Nothing dissolves Barbara’s ovaries here but having a primordial human shove a sharp thing in your face because you won’t make fire is distressing. I know, I grew up in housing commission.

So the episode begins with feral Ringo Starr sneaking up on a TARDIS and something else I didn’t see coming, the outside from the inside. FUCK! I should go back and edit the last one so I say it only happens in this episode otherwise my authority as knower of this shit is lost forever, like when Jo Grant exploded at the end of Clamour of the Autons. But anyway, The Doctor/Doctor Foreman/Doctor Who...