The First Doctor's era (1963-1966)

William Hartnell

• Hmmm? by Robert Smith?

Hmmm? by Robert Smith? 15/8/01

The time has come. We've been scattered and disorganised for far too long, but it's time for us to rise up everywhere and proclaim our love for an era of the show that has been criminally neglected. Hear me, siblings! We've whispered in the corridors, we've held secret meetings and we've denied everything when questioned, but I call on you now to stand firm with me. Together, we can be strong. Together we shall have mastery over other fandoms throughout all of Spain. Er, space.

Hello, my name's Robert and I'm a William Hartnell fan.

I'm not afraid to say it. I really, really like the Hartnell era. No, not just the early anti-hero phase, not just the nineties revival of Ian and Barbara, not just the Daleks when they were a force to be reckoned with, not just the tantalising backstory that's so close to the surface without quite being revealed - I'm talking about the whole package. The scope. The potential. Even The Web Planet. I love it all.

What's astonishing about the Hartnell era is the way it keeps playing with the format. The series was built on three basic templates: backwards, forwards and sideways, but the Hartnell era keeps tinkering with that. We might think we've got The Romans pegged as the historical story slotted between the futuristic Rescue and the alien Web Planet, but the series was doing its first all-out comedy story and shamelessly mixing slapstick with clever wordplay while sending Ian into slavery. The Ark seems like a fairly bog standard future story, but there's that astonishing cliffhanger to episode 2 that only the Hartnell era could get away with.

The early historical stories are rightly famed for their attention to detail and effective use of the BBC's best resources. It doesn't get much better than The Aztecs, one of the most solid stories ever produced, which manages to be visually impressive to boot. The Crusade is so strong it has parts of dialogue in iambic pentameter. And just when we think we're in for a history lesson about Vikings and King Harold, one of the Doctor's own people pops up, complete with a TARDIS.

The 'sideways' stories vary greatly, but on the whole they're exceedingly interesting. From tense psychological drama and macabre games to high concept ideas like shrinking the crew and jumping a time track to pad out an otherwise average story, the era kept trying to surprise the viewers. Today, The War Machines is one of the more polished Hartnell stories and the one most in tune with what we think of when we imagine a Doctor Who story, but compared to everything around it, it was quite a departure for the series. Interestingly, that makes both present day Hartnell adventures (not counting the first episode) 'sideways' stories, where the series was attempting something it had never done before.

The futuristic stories are grand in their scope, even if they've dated a little now. There's a deliberate "all aliens, all the time!" story in The Web Planet. There are chase/quest stories like The Keys of Marinus, The Chase and The Daleks' Masterplan, which manage to stretch the meagre budget to a different location every episode. Something like the city on Mechanus would have taken an entire story in any other era, if for no other reason than budgetary, but in The Chase it's just one backdrop among many.

Oh, and just when you think you've seen it all, they throw in a one episode Doctorless story... that has absolutely nothing to do with the next story to be screened. That's astonishing. Can you imagine the outcry if JN-T had tried that?

There's only one base-under-siege story and that's the final one. It set a template for the next era of the show, that would in turn set a formula for the series which would become synonymous with 'good'. Yet, although later eras worked out that all they had to do was find something that worked and stick to it (monsters infiltrating isolated bases, UNIT action, possession and Hammer horror, soap opera character studies etc), the Hartnell era kept moving. For an era usually dismissed as slow and boring, its developmental pace was light years ahead of the rest of the series.

Hartnell himself is quite unlike any of the other Doctors, despite the attempts of many later actors to emulate his portrayal. He's the most human Doctor by far - he's full of very human feelings and emotions, he gets tetchy when people don't listen to him, but he also laughs in sheer delight when he overhears Vicki talking about how amazing he is in The Rescue. He's irascible, he's arrogant and he's frequently wrong - but he's lovable. He's a cross between your lovable old granddad and that crazy guy who lives down the street you you're not supposed to talk to. When Jon Pertwee or Colin Baker try the same thing they just come across as rude.

It's interesting that those who saw the series on first viewing are invariably diehard Hartnell fans, but the rest of us keep placing him somewhere near Colin Baker in our favourite Doctor polls. Hartnell couldn't make the transition to the video generation the way the other Doctors did - but he was never meant to, of course. The series was supposed to be watched one episode at a time, once a week. And viewed like that it works far better than we'd think. Take The Sensorites (please). Few can argue with its reputation as a yawning plodder, where our heroes are threatened by old men who can't stand loud noises and are afraid of the dark. Pass me the sofa. And yet... I caught episode 5 on its own on SPACE one day, when I wasn't expecting it. I already had the story on tape, I'd seen it once in a single sitting and hadn't exactly been enthralled - but episode 5 had me riveted. Hartnell wandering around the caves talking to himself was great. Watched in isolation, the way it was originally structured, even the dull episodes of the Hartnell era are enjoyable.

Hartnell's comic timing is fantastic. The Gunfighters works precisely because Hartnell is so good at carrying off the jokes. His interactions with the Monk and Nero are hilarious. When all is said and done, Doctor Who's greatest strength is its humour and the Hartnell era can hold its own. Richard Hurndall tries hard to create his own version of the first Doctor in The Five Doctors, but the opening scene with Hartnell in it only shows up how much better the real first Doctor was in his prime. That's a beautiful speech and one of the show's finest... and, of course, it was almost entirely ad-libbed by Hartnell himself.

Surprisingly perhaps, there's still life in the Hartnell era - in the form of the novels. The books have been quite polarised in terms of characterisations: the first, sixth and seventh Doctors have thrived in the transition to the page, whereas the other Doctors have eluded most writers. The seventh Doctor could move forward in the NAs and the sixth Doctor had a large gap that writers could explore, but it's the first Doctor who has survived best in his original form. Partly this is due to the pacing: novels aren't action set pieces, like in the Pertwee era, nor do they live or die on the personality of the lead actor, as in the fourth Doctor's era. They have a steadier, more thoughtful pace, where investigation and characterisation are far more prominent - which suits the Hartnell era magnificently. We've seen the revival of the Hartnell Historical as a literate style and it's just as powerful now as it was then.

The Hartnell era presents us with a universe of almost limitless scope. It's often said that Doctor Who is a show where anything is possible, which makes it even more of a shame that the series relies on formula so often. The Hartnell era looks like an anomaly today, but it's perhaps the closest realisation of just what Doctor Who could be when it really wants to. It's enormous, it's loopy, it's funny, it's dated, it's downright strange sometimes, but I can't help loving it.