After discussing a strange pupil, Susan Foreman, teachers Ian and Barbara follow her to a junkyard. They meet her grandfather, the Doctor, and force their way inside a police box with frightening results.

The enigmatic Doctor, afraid that schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright will reveal his secrets to the people of 20th century Earth, has taken them and his granddaughter Susan back to the dawn of human history. There, the four travellers are dragged into the savage politics of a tribe of cavemen who have lost the secret of making fire…

Prisoners of the earliest humans, the TARDIS crew are caught in a deadly power play for leadership of the tribe.

The TARDIS crew must make fire for the early humans to stay alive. But once they do, they may not be allowed to leave!