Friday, December 26, 2014

Target - An Unearthly Child

The patrolling policeman actually spots the police box in the junkyard, and assumes the proprietor has bought it legimately. We learn that he subsequently forgot the box in all the excitement surrounding the disappearance of the proprietor, and his granddaughter, and two teachers from her school.

Barbara has 'a habitual expression of rather mild disapproval'. Ian is 'a cheerful, open-faced young man' and they're friends because he's the only teacher who ever dares tease her. And he reflects that it's typical of Barbara to want to confront Susan's grandfather and lecture him on his responsibilities.

Ian explains, to us rather than Susan really, that the Hon Aubrey Waites calls himself John Smith because 'it's not so fashionable to be upper class these days'. Susan by the way has 'a rather elfin face' and 'a distant, almost unearthly quality'.

In the parked car scene we get one of Terrance's late era parenthetical explanations, about British pre-decimal coinage. I wish he wouldn't do that. But he also gets the idea of time travel into the foreground by having Ian say that Susan seems to see Space and Time as equally easy to travel in.

The Doctor's face is 'old and lined, yet somehow alert and vital at the same time'. He helpfully suggests that one of the teachers watches the yard while the other goes for the police, and Ian assigns Babs to sit in the car and do the watching.

In the TARDIS, Barbara asks the Doctor if he's Dr Foreman. 'Not really. The name was on the notice- board, and I borrowed it. It might be best if you were to address me simply as Doctor,' he responds.

Za's father was named Gor. And Mother (who is literally Za's mother) secretly despises Za for not having her killed as tradition demanded. She did watch Gor making fire, but he always kept his back to her so she couldn't see precisely what he was doing with his hands. The narrator adds that, although Gor intended to give the secret to Za one day, he'd held back because 'a son can be a rival, too.'

Za's opposition to Kal isn't just self-interest - it's based on the highest motives, the narrator tells us. Za is a responsible leader who organises the hunting parties properly and ensures that the women and children get their fair share of the kill; but he knows Kal is just out to get as much as he can for himself.

When addressed as 'Dr Foreman', the Doctor definitely doesn't say 'Doctor who?'

Susan says the Doctor's dropped notebook contains codes to 'some' of the machines in the Ship, not 'all'.

Za asks if the strange creature, the Doctor, that Kal has brought in is good to eat. During Kal's subsequent 'Do you want fire?' speech, the Doctor reflects that 'even in the stone age, there were still politicians to deal with.'

In the Cave of Skulls, the Doctor calls Ian Mr Chesterton. Ian isn't mollified by this piece of careful old-school etiquette, because when Susan tells her grandfather not to blame himself, he thinks 'Why not. The old fool's quite right, it is all his fault!'

During the escape attempt through the forest, Ian is trying to remember what animals might be about in this historical period - 'Not dinosaurs, at least, though that was a common mistake.' Sabre-toothed tigers are on his list, and it's indeed one of those that's stalking them, as he deduces from its claw marks on the dead animal.

Kal and Old Mother's scene is different: she proudly boasts of setting them free, and is rewarded by having her death put in the foreground.

After the Doctor tries to kill Za, Ian thinks 'Just how much ruthlessness was the Doctor capable of, if he felt it might save his own and Susan's life?' Perhaps to release this tension, he throws the Doctor's 'You surely...?' diction back at him - ''You surely don't expect one of the girls to do it?' And he's rather politer to Susan when requesting her to lead the way.

Kal's cover story to the Tribe is a bit more sophisticated - rather than saying that Old Mother is just taking a nap in the Cave of Skulls, he says 'She sits silent ... she would not move or speak.'

At the episode 3 cliffhanger, the tribesmen don't emerge from hollows in the sand - it probably wouldn't look nearly so good on the page - but from behind the TARDIS.

The Doctor specifically argues to the Tribe that it's Kal's uncontrollable anger that makes him a bad and dangerous leader.

On the return to the Cave of Skulls, the 'this place is evil' remark is transferred to Barbara, and she utters it when she sees Old Mother's body still lying there.

In the exchange with Hur about the strangers coming from the other side of the mountains, but that there are no tribes there, Za thoughtfully adds 'So we thought. But we were wrong.' There are some other slight expansions in his recapitulation of what they've learnt from the strangers.

The firemaking is very much a co-operative exercise. The Doctor provided the theory, and adds 'the practice calls for strong wrists and unending patience, and I have neither.' Babs remembers the need for tinder, Susan finds the stone, Ian contributes the physical work, the scientific explanation and a warning that it'll take a long time to work.
Za makes clear that Orb is the sun, and that being 'returned' to Orb means being sacrificed.

The timing of Horg's speeches in relation to the position of Orb is different - in the first scene someone remarks that 'Orb will soon rise in the sky,' and the second is 'as the first rays of the sun struck the stone', which is odd because Horg still says 'Orb is above us'. Not that it makes any practical difference.

When dissuading Ian from leaving the cave with the fire-bearing Za, the Doctor calls him 'Chesterton', indicating their growing familiarity.

Za very practically orders the Tribe to gather wood to keep the fire going while he's off hunting.

When Ian is reproaching himself for giving them fire, the Doctor reassures him that he did the only possible thing. All the following scenes are given expansion: for example, when Za returns and starts talking about water in hollow stones, Barbara thinks hysterically 'He's trying to make conversation'. And the skull gets into the fire because the Doctor moodily kicks it in there.

It's not Hur, but an anonymous guard who first sees the flaming skulls and fetches the Tribe. And Horg has a final speech: 'The strangers have died! Their ghosts have come to punish us.'

There's more suspense in the chase back to the TARDIS: the time travellers reach the clearing where Za killed the tiger, and see the Tribe's torches right behind them.

As the TARDIS disappears, Za thinks that the strangers must have come from Orb after all.

On landing on the lifeless planet, the Doctor specifically says that they need to explore in order to fix their precise current co-ordinates, so that he can take Ian and Barbara back home.

The business with the radiation meter entering Danger is just the same, and the narrator seizes the opportunity to explain the other Danger in store, giving us a quick infodump about Skaro, the Thals and the Kaleds:

They had changed their name as well as their appearance. The Doctor was about to meet the creatures who were destined to become his greatest enemies. Out there on Skaro, the Daleks were waiting for him.


No comments:

Post a Comment