Why I love… William Hartnell’s Doctor Who: Five Favourites
If I ever stop liking Doctor Who for whatever reason, just show me this picture.
I’ve been a Doctor Who since I was nine years old, i.e. the perfect age to fall in love with a TV show about fighting monsters, eating sweets, and flying through space and time. Tom Baker may have been my first Doctor - ‘Robot’ Part 2 on UK Gold, fact fans - but the real first Doctor was William Hartnell.
You’ve most likely encountered the first Doctor in a clips montage, or played by David Bradley (as when he unexpectedly bumped into Peter Capaldi at the South Pole, or had a chinwag with Jodie Whittaker inside her own head - it’s that kind of show). But Doctor Who 1963-1966 can seem a forbidding era of telly, even to the most die hard fans. It’s not just that it’s in black and white, or that some of it’s missing (see further below), or that it hails from an era of drama more fundamentally rooted in theatre than TV.
It’s because, well, it’s before Doctor Who knew what it was. It can’t even decide what genre it’s in: period drama, sci fi bobbins, slapstick comedy, Beckett-style weirdness… It tries them all. Heck, this is the only era of Doctor Who so far to include a narrated musical comedy set in the Wild West. What in the world is this show doing?! You’ve no idea what you’re getting from week to week.
And then there’s the Doctor himself: William Hartnell. A grouchy old man. Rather dull. Not much fun.
Unless you actually watch any of his episodes, of course.
(Video made by the brilliant Pip Madeley and guaranteed to make you grin.)
Because let’s be clear on this: William Hartnell is wonderful. More than that, he’s unpredictable. I don’t just mean that he sometimes got his lines wrong (at a time when if you made a mistake they had to leave it in), I mean that his take on the role is fundamentally exciting and dynamic. When somebody nicks the TARDIS, he’s just as likely to laugh himself silly as he is to bark with rage. He’s enthused with the thrill of discovery. He’s childish and petulant. He’s an old man who’s forgotten he’s an old man. (Fans of Wooden Overcoats: there wouldn’t be a Mayor Desmond Desmond without Hartnell’s Who!)
And when you add this magical portrayal to the freewheeling, genre-defying show that’s decided it can do whatever it wants, you have a recipe for some really quite wonderful television. So here are five of my own personal favourite stories from Hartnell Who. Not necessarily the best - but I adore them.
5 - THE ROMANS
OK, it’s no surprise that Doctor Who’s first excursion to Ancient Rome should be in this list (though while we’re here, may I interest you in my new sitcom about Antony and Cleopatra?). This 4-part serial from 1965 sees the Doctor and chums take a relaxing holiday in Rome AD 64, which rapidly goes wrong when schoolteachers Ian and Barbara are captured by slave traders, while the Doctor and Vicki are embroiled in a plot to assassinate the Emperor Nero.
What makes this even stranger is the serial’s tone, veering from the depths of despair to door-slamming farce. If anything, the broad comedy makes the world seem even more dangerous. The Doctor (posing as a lyre player, an instrument he cannot play) fools the Emperor with a cunning ruse that plays on his vanity, which is entirely delightful… while also reminding us that failure will result in immediate death.
But this also gets at why I love this, besides the Roman-ness: writer Dennis Spooner always ensured that his scripts gave something engaging for William Hartnell to do. Whereas in a lesser writer’s hands the Doctor was often left on the sidelines, fiddling with some electronics, in ‘The Romans’ he is constantly involved in the action, whether inspiring Nero with the idea to burn down Rome (yes really) or defeating an assassin in hand-to-hand combat (yes really). The Doctor is having the time of his life!
4 - THE SPACE MUSEUM
So it’s safe to say that this one isn’t a fan favourite. Another 4-parter from 1965, The Space Museum has the TARDIS landing in, well, a space museum. Our heroes discover their own lifeless bodies standing in glass cases as exhibits, and must work out how to prevent this ghoulish future from happening.
A terrific hook for a story, yes? The trouble comes (so fans say) with how that struggle is dramatised, which boils down to the Doctor and friends bickering in corridors, getting lost, and wandering into a war between a bunch of dull teenagers and the museum’s curators. The Doctor even goes to sleep for a whole episode. A dramatic highlight of the serial is Barbara losing her jumper.
So why am I talking about this? Because I like it. It’s comfort Who. We’re in the middle of Season 2, when it wasn’t unreasonable to suppose that we might enjoy hanging out with these people for the hell of it (and the next story began with a whole episode of them watching television, like an intergalactic Gogglebox). It’s a true family dynamic expressed as a disappointing day out, with adults Ian and Barbara sniping at each other while teenager Vicki gets so bored she sparks an armed revolution just to pass the time. The Doctor bamboozles his enemy with a slide show and footage of walruses. I’m having fun watching it all.
(Somewhat perversely, this is also the only story on this list with the Daleks in it - or rather, one empty Dalek on display in the museum. Which the Doctor hides in for a laugh. Yet again, yes really.)
3 - AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
There aren’t many serials from Doctor Who’s first season on this list; it’s purely a consequence of trying to limit myself to five (though ‘The Aztecs’ and the first Dalek serial narrowly missed out). I generally prefer Hartnell’s later stories when the scope of the series opened up. But with ‘An Unearthly Child’ we have the very first Doctor Who serial. The one that started it all. Schoolteachers Ian and Barbara investigate the strange behaviour of their pupil Susan and wind up in a junkyard arguing the toss with her grandfather, the Doctor. Who promptly kidnaps them and takes them to the Stone Age.
This is as far from the cosy dynamic of ‘The Space Museum’ as it’s possible to imagine. Just look at that photo: the Doctor and his crew (we can hardly call them ‘friends’ yet) look absolutely knackered. The three episodes set in the Stone Age - about the battle for dominance within a tribe of cavemen looking for the secret of making fire - are positively brutal. They’re genuinely frightening in a way that Doctor Who rarely touched upon again. Later scares in the series lurked firmly within the realms of fantasy, from vampires to Weeping Angels. Here, the terror comes from knowing a man might kill you because he’s scared and can’t understand you. And he won’t just stab you, he’ll cave in your skull with a rock.
Amongst this horror - directed with startling realism by British-Indian Waris Hussein - we have four people beginning an epic journey through space and time which has continued on and off for sixty years and counting. Stumbling desperately through a forest, terrified by man’s inhumanity to man, they have no idea that one day they’ll actually find these adventures fun. Yes, the scenes of actors earnestly grunting cavemen dialogue require a generous disposition to sit through, but there’s a uniquely mythic quality to this serial that will never diminish with the passing of time.
2 - THE MYTH MAKERS
Gosh, that was getting a bit heavy. How about another comedy? This time it’s the Trojan War, where the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS, meets Achilles, and gets promptly mistaken for Zeus! I can’t think of a better hook for a Doctor Who story. The only reason this story isn’t my absolute favourite is because it doesn’t exist anymore. Yes, all four episodes of ‘The Myth Makers’ were casualties of the BBC’s routine wiping of programmes deemed lacking in further commercial value. It’s the same reason that we don’t have, say, any complete serials from Patrick Troughton’s first season. So how did I watch this story?
I didn’t! I had the BBC Radio Collection soundtrack CD in 2001, narrated by Peter Purves (in fact, it was autographed by Peter too). We’re lucky enough to have the audio to every episode of Doctor Who, so even episodes we can’t watch anymore can still be enjoyed. Some fans have even created ‘telesnap’ slide shows as a visual aide to these ‘missing stories’, but for my money you can’t beat listening to them and imagining scenes in your head that would never have been achievable on a BBC budget.
But what about ‘The Myth Makers’ itself? It’s a comedy that ends in violent tragedy, written by Donald Cotton (who also wrote Doctor Who’s musical Western ‘The Gunfighters’ which ends in a very similar way). Deliciously, it treats the Greek heroes as if they’ve stepped out of a Python sketch or a Wodehouse novel. Odysseus is a braggart, Paris a coward with a petty streak (“Oh really Cassandra, you’re always going on and on about yourself!”), and King Priam is audibly rolling his eyes at everything his children say. I reckon there’s a good chance this one story, listened to when I was 13, had a greater influence on my writing style and sense of humour than any sitcom I ever watched.
Things take a turn for the drastic when the Doctor gives the Greeks the idea for the Trojan Horse, partly a) to save his own skin, but mainly b) to rescue his friends Vicki and Steven from Troy. The result is a massacre, treated with appropriate solemnity. ‘The Myth Makers’ uses comedy like a weapon, allowing us to grow attached to its characters on both sides of the war before scything them down in the finale. And until then, it’s properly, laugh-out-loud funny (like the Doctor’s sublime reaction to Achilles telling him “[Zeus], you come to me in the guise of an old beggar!”). This serial is a masterpiece.
1 - THE TIME MEDDLER
Yes, we’re back in another historical period - the Hartnell era specialised in these - but this time it’s with a twist. Normally in a ‘Hartnell historical’ the only sci-fi elements of the story are the TARDIS and its crew, as with ‘The Romans’ and ‘The Myth Makers.’ But this story dared to do something which was then considered quite shocking, yet has gone on to become one of the standard plots of the show: the enemy is also a time traveller! And he’s messing around with history! And the Doctor must stop him!
What keeps ‘The Time Meddler’ fresh and invigorating even today is the nature of the villain, known only as the Monk. A fellow from the Doctor’s own planet (neither ‘Gallifrey’ nor ‘Time Lord’ were in use for a good long while yet), he doesn’t have schemes for global domination, he doesn’t want to wipe out the human race, and he isn’t even particularly malicious. Instead, he’s like a naughty schoolboy, using time travel to play pranks and enjoy himself. He’s here in England in 1066, planning to help the Saxons win the Battle of Hastings so that William will never be a Conqueror. Why?
“King Harold, I know he’d be a good king. There wouldn’t be all those wars in Europe; those claims over France went on for years and years! The people’d be able to better themselves. With a few hints and tips from me they’d be able to have jet airliners by 1320! Shakespeare would be able to put Hamlet on television!”
That’s his motivation. And you know what? I find it eminently easier to invest in than, “I want to take over the world, mwahaha!” I find it hard to be interested in villains, particularly as a writer (I avoid them whenever possible), but I’m totally onboard with a well-motivated antagonist. You wouldn’t mind if the Monk won, because you just know the result would be tremendous fun. Ably played by Peter Butterworth, it’s no surprise that he was the first enemy besides the Daleks to make a return appearance the following season, and his dynamic with William Hartnell is lively and energetic. They’re a riot. (Also, it’s another Dennis Spooner script. Of course!)
A shout-out also to Maureen O’Brien as Vicki and Peter Purves as Steven, the Doctor’s companions at this point in the series. They made only a handful of stories together, but the three of them represent one of my favourite TARDIS teams: the two youngsters taking the piss out of each other like siblings, while the old man chuckles, shakes his head - and then gets them all into oodles of trouble!
Mandatory plug: I’ve written a few Doctor Who audio stories for Big Finish Productions, including two set during this era of the show. You can find ‘em here, including free downloads of their first episodes!