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| The William Hartnell Years 1963 - 1966 |
| Before 1963, all television was rubbish. Absolutely nothing, apart from maybe the Quatermass serials, was worth watching and to make matters even worse, Playstations hadn't even been invented yet. God. Imagine. Luckily, after some drunken party at the BBC, someone actually put a dodgy foreigner in charge of the mighty broadcasting corporation, the Canadian born Sydney Newman, who quickly realised that the telly was just full of crap, and so off he went and invented Doctor Who, so at least the family had something to watch before Jukebox Jury came on. Hooray! The show was originally envisaged to last just 13 weeks, but luckily for Doctor Who fans, the BBC could never really be arsed to replace it, and so it dragged on for 26 years. William Hartnell was the original Doctor Who, and in the early days, the character was very much a grumpy old bastard, not much of a hero at all, more the kind of bloke who was willing to eject his companions into deep space if they got on his nerves a bit, and who, in the very first story, was on the verge of clubbing a poor Caveman to death because he happened to be in the way. That kind of thing was toned down pretty quickly though, and Hartnell softened into a sort of loveable, if still slightly irritable, Grandad sort of figure. The unique thing about the Hartnell era is that it's the only time that the show did what it was actually supposed to do, which was to show us the Doctor and his companions travelling back in time as well as forwards. The show was originally designed to be semi-educational for children, and so it was decided that every other story would be a purely 'historical' adventure, with the Doctor getting caught up in famous events from history, with no science fiction elements whatsoever. And so, for three years, in glorious black and white, Doctor Who would not only battle Giant Ants from Outer Space, he would also take part in The Gunfight at The OK Corral, play chess with Kublai Khan and even get chatted up by a minging Aztec. |
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| Hartnell's Dolly Birds |
| Because the show was originally designed to be semi-educational, the Doctor's first ever companions were not dolly birds but....wait for it....schoolteachers! Sounds ghastly I know, but it actually worked very well, and besides, anything's better than Bonnie Bloody Langford. We also had Susan, who was supposed to be The Doctor's grandaughter. I say 'supposed to be' because many fans refuse to accept this, as it implies that The Doctor has got his knob wet at some stage, and that, I'm afraid is pure blasphemy. |
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| Monsters And Villains |
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| The Doctor's most famous enemies, The Daleks, appeared in the second ever story and instantly doubled the show's ratings and secured it's long-term future. It's interesting to ponder that if it had not been for the Daleks, then Doctor Who probably really would have lasted just 13 weeks, as the first story's ratings were actually quite poor. Sydney Newman, the dodgy foreigner who created Doctor Who, was furious upon hearing about the Daleks for the first time, as his first rule for the show's producers had been 'No Bug-Eyed Monsters', and upon seeing these alien pepperpots, felt that the producers were completely taking the piss. However, after their overnight success, he gracefully admitted he was wrong, and went back to washing dishes at the BBC Canteen. The Daleks were great in the 1960's. They would never again be so chilling and alien as this. In later years, they would degenerate into idiot puppets for Davros, but in the 1960's, they were ace. Sadly, they were created by money-grabbing wanker Terry Nation, who would plague the BBC with unreasonable demands for the next 40 years, even from beyond the grave, but more on him later. The Daleks weren't the only monsters to appear during the Hartnell era. Look, here's The Cybermen, who made their debut in Hartnell's last ever story. I Interestingly though, back then they just had a big sock over their heads. |
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| Hartnell Trivia |
The show was called Doctor Who because nobody knew who the Doctor was or where he came from. Yes, I know that sounds bleedin' obvious, but back then it meant something because you really didn't know anything about him or Timelords or any of that nonsense. In fact, it was six years before the Timelords were finally revealed in Patrick Troughton's final epic story. The Doctor made his only venture into cinema during the early 60's with two feature films starring Peter Cushing in the title role. They're a bit gay to be honest, but they're enjoyable in their own right and it's great to see big meaty Daleks in colour. Back then, the show was on for a mighty 44 weeks a year, only having a bit of a break during the Summer Holidays. Compare that to the 90's when the show was on, erm, once. |
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| Hartnell - The Good Things |
The show was just fabulous - the Doctor was never again so enigmatic and unpredictable, and the Daleks were never again so absolutely thrilling and terrifying. It's great to see The Doctor travelling in history which he never properly did again. In no other era of Doctor Who would you find yourself watching a comedy Wild West romp. For the only time (so far) in it's history, Doctor Who was broadcast on Christmas Day with it's silliest episode ever, featuring a spoof of silent films halfway through where everyone suddenly starts talking in subtitles. The episode finishes with Hartnell raising a glass of sherry to the camera and wishing everyone at home a Merry Christmas. Magic. Sadly now missing from the Archives. |
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| Hartnell - The Rubbish Things |
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Many of the Hartnell episodes will never ever be seen again as they no longer exist in any form, which is the greatest Doctor Who tragedy of them all. Apparently, during the 70's, the BBC got a bit cold one winter and started setting fire to all their old Doctor Who programmes, reasoning that nobody would be interested in them anymore. Blithering idiots. Luckily, the first few stories did survive this mass junking and so we are still able to see the first ever story and the first ever Dalek story in their entirety. Hartnell, God bless him, wasn't great at remembering his lines. In some stories, his performance seems to consist entirely of "Hmmmms" and "Aaaahs" and "Yes,Yes,Yes"s rather than the dialogue he had been given. |
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| It's The End, But.... |
| Hartnell was about 114 years old when he took on the role of the Doctor, and so it was inevitable that he would eventually begin to get a bit tired, especially as the show was on for 44 weeks a year. Naturally, he thought that the series would end as soon as he left and so felt that he was doing everybody a favour by carrying on with it for as long as possible. After three years in the role, Hartnell's health began to decline and he made the decision to quit the show. He was surprised to discover though that the BBC planned to carry on with Doctor Who and replace him with another actor. It's hard to imagine nowadays what a brave move that was by the BBC. These days, an actor gets replaced willy-nilly, I mean, how many fucking Lucy Robinsons were there in Neighbours? But back then, it was completely unheard of, and a huge huge gamble. It was an extra stroke of genius that The Doctor actually regenerated within the programme and thus his new body was explained to the audience. And so it was, after his first meeting with the Cybermen, that the Doctor complained of "this old body of mine getting rather old", laying down on the TARDIS floor and regenerating into Patrick Troughton. God bless William Hartnell though, the original Doctor Who. After leaving the show, his wife banned him from watching the new series, as he became too upset and emotional watching somebody else play the role he so cherished |
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