10 Traumatic Doctor Who Facts You'll Wish You Hadn't Heard
4. There Were REAL Bones In The Cave Of Skulls
Doctor Who’s second serial, The Daleks, saw the Doctor face his most enduring enemy for the first time. However, debut instalment An Unearthly Child had sent the first TARDIS travellers to an environment that was arguably just as hostile.
The Daleks might be proper monsters, complete with grating voices and metal tanks, but cavemen aren’t much better – nor is prehistoric Earth much better than the petrified jungle of Skaro.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, things were pretty grim behind the scenes too.
Aside from the pressure of this being the first Doctor Who story to go before cameras, there was all manner of unsavoury set dressing to contend with: shrubbery ridden with insects, fur skins ridden with fleas, and, for the Cave of Skulls set, countless replica skulls – with some real bones thrown in for good measure.
Yep, that’s right: Doctor Who’s first ever story featured actual bones, sourced from an abattoir by designer Barry Newberry. As you can imagine, under those hot studio lights they didn’t exactly smell like roses!
It’s pretty shocking, and a stark reminder of how different production standards were in the '60s compared to today, where you would fully expect something like that to be a constructed prop.