William Hartnell: The Beginning, End and In-Between
John Hussey continues his retrospective of the Hartnell era.
‘An Unearthly Child’
By Anthony Coburn (1963, 4 Episodes)
“Have you ever thought what it’s like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles…?”
The opening scene of the misty street accompanied by a wondering policemen and a junk yard containing a living Police Telephone Box was beautiful and really established what viewers were in store for. What I liked about ‘An Unearthly Child’ was the establishment of the central characters. Susan Foreman served as a beacon who provoked both concern and curiosity within Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, leading them to investigate further and ultimately plundering themselves into a world of adventure.
The First Doctor’s introduction was something of fascination because you didn’t know if you could trust him or not. He had an air of mystery shrouding him along with this extreme sense of authority which towered over the judgements of Ian and Barbara. Then the episode hit you with a full-on collision with the fantastical revelation that Susan and her grandfather were in fact aliens from an unnamed other world and time. This at the time was a great direction to take because it left the characters further in the shadows of our imaginations, giving the ‘Who’ in the title greater meaning.
I will admit ‘An Unearthly Child’ was my favourite episode out of the four-part serial with the other three being a tag-on to what was already an extraordinary story with a simple setting and story. The whole caveman thing established in ‘The Cave of Skulls’ was good and all but never fully had my commitment. That’s not saying the story was bad from this point on but I do believe for a first story they could’ve done better, but nevertheless it served its purpose. Then again this part of the story was irrelevant when you consider the first part of the story was the true introductory piece to the characters and show, with the rest of the serial establishing what happened next to the characters.
Za’s story about his obsession over leadership was reminiscent to the simplistic caveman behaviour and served a good juxtaposition against Ian and the First Doctor’s battle over righteousness; an example being the scene where Ian and Barbara opted to help Za despite the First Doctor’s objections. The story dealt with murder through Kal killing the Old Woman, something that is powerful in its own right (I mean an innocent elderly lady was killed in cold blood on tea-time television). The implication of death resides in the Cave of Skulls which showcased a chamber filled with cracked open skulls, a fate that was thought to happen to our heroes at the hands of the barbarians. The final confrontation between Za and Kal was a tense and somewhat disturbing scene as it depicted nothing but aggression through primal behaviour, finished off with a brutal choking/or implied neck breaking followed by Za savagely beating Kal to death with a rock.
The story was tense and the heroes’ only hope for salvation throughout the adventure relied on their knowledge for making fire. The story’s real danger was essentially the cavemen’s inability to understand morals and basic compassion. The interesting part about the serial was the comparison between the First Doctor’s statement about Ian and Barbara’s intelligence and the intelligence of the cavemen. After the First Doctor judged them through their inability to understand scientific facts outside of their comprehension he was met with an even earlier version of man with less intelligence and understanding, forcing his statement to be met with irony through him needing the help of the humans he previously offended.
‘The Keys of Marinus’
By Terry Nation (1964, 6 Episodes)
“I don’t believe that man was made to be controlled by machines. Machines can make laws but they cannot preserve justice. Only human beings can do that.”
Now some will be questioning why I haven’t chosen ‘The Daleks’. Though I agree that Terry Nation’s debut for his creations was an outstanding experience within television history, I wanted to go for something different.
‘The Keys of Marinus’ was Nation’s first of two scripts (the other being ‘The Android Invasion’) not to feature the Daleks. The story was unique in its ability to change genre and setting in every episode of the serial. Like with all of Nation’s scripts, the story was dark and filled with tension. What made the story great was the First Doctor was blackmailed into undergoing the quest within the serial. This journey took him across the planet Marinus in search for special keys to power up the Conscious of Marinus, a powerful computer that can control the minds of everyone. This concept was a scary thought because it gave the machine the power of the Gods and made man inferior, thereby allowing themselves to fall victim to the whim of artificial intelligence. The fascinating part was the implication that the machine wiped the mind of evil, with the stories villain Yartek trying to throw the machine into reverse in order to cause chaos.
Like a lot of the early adventures, the First Doctor wasn’t the centre of the story and didn’t lead the heroic action. This was left up to Ian and Barbara mostly, especially after the First Doctor became absent from the end of ‘The Velvet Web’ up until ‘Sentence of Death’. That made two consecutive stories that didn’t feature the Time Lord, but the thing was his absence didn’t matter and allowed his companions, minus Susan, to have plenty of character development. Susan was by far the weakest character who served as the ‘screamer’ or the damsel, bringing nothing to the story whatsoever. This is one of my many reasons why I believe her character was a wasted potential by the production teams poor choice in making her such a useless thing onscreen.
‘The Velvet Web’ was my least favourite part to the serial with it not having a lot of story progression and being rather dull. Barbara became the central character of the story after she escaped the hypnosis that had been placed upon our heroes, leaving her alone whilst the rest of her friends remained blinded by the lies in front of them. It was an interesting concept having hypnosis used by the Morpho to enslave the people of the city but other than that the story fell flat. ‘The Screaming Jungle’ on the other-hand was a much better story that had the jungle around Ian and Barbara come alive and try and kill them, reminding me much of The Day of the Triffids. ‘The Snows of Terror’ was a great tale showcasing the deceit and barbaric nature of trapper Vasor along with having a beautiful scenery presented as an isolated death-trap.
My favourite part of the story was ‘Sentence of Death’ and ‘The Keys of Marinus’ which had Ian placed on trial after being framed, placing Doctor Who into the mystery drama category as the First Doctor tried his best to discover the real culprit. This was great because it showcased the First Doctor opening up and defending his companion, displaying care and respect, something that was absent a couple of serials prior. It was clever how the First
Doctor manipulated certain facts in order to bring out one of the culprits into the open whilst Barbara utilised his wives blundering in words to identity her and the final murderer. What topped this story off was the clever resolution in defeating Yartek’s attempts to harness the machine through a simple plot-point introduced in ‘The Screaming Jungle’.
‘The Time Meddler’
By Dennis Spooner (1965, 4 Episodes)
“Just in case you still have ideas about your master plan, I’ve taken precautions to stop your time meddling. Possibly one day in the future, when you’ve learnt your lesson, I shall return and release you.”
I really like ‘The Time Meddler’ as it really went about to redefine the show and give a little bit more information about the Doctor in a way that allowed you to understand him further, but at the same time leave you in the dark about his origins. This was done through the introduction of another Time Lord.
Peter Butterworth’s performance was phenomenal. As a big fan of his work on the Carry On films, I already had an impression that he was a comedy actor so it was fresh to see him portray such a sinister and manipulative role. The beauty of his performance was the subtlety. Unlike the Master who comes across as a psychotic character bent on universal conquest, the Monk demonstrated a cunning nature that makes you question whether or not he was the villain of the piece. In fact the Monk doesn’t intend to do any real harm other than kill the Vikings, thereby allow King Harold a chance at victory against William the Conqueror. His sole purpose throughout the adventure was to commit time meddling, to which he bends time to his own design but in a way that bettered history rather than for his own personal goals. Though as an audience member we are aware that altering history is a bad thing but when done in the right way you do begin to question whether or not the Monk’s intentions at heart are all that bad.
What sealed the serial was the First Doctor’s darker presence caused by his anger over the Monk’s presence, resembling a vibe to the character that is demonstrated later on in his journey upon his encounters with the Master. The chemistry between the First Doctor and the Monk is always fascinating to watch and Hartnell and Butterworth play off each well and create great scenes together. Everytime they are onscreen you feel they are playing a long game of chess in order to out manoeuvre the other. The First Doctor even resorted to pretending he had a gun pressed up against the Monk’s back in order to gain the advantage. The end result of the adventure was the incredible resolution of the First Doctor exiling the Monk in 1066 as a form of punishment for his crimes. I suppose the sad part of this ending is the knowledge that I may never get to see the Monk’s return during ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’ were the meddling Time Lord attempted to gain his revenge, even at one point unwillingly forging an alliance with the Daleks. In the end the Monk ends up no better off than his fate in ‘The Time Meddler’.
‘The Tenth Planet’
By Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis (1966, 4 Episodes)
“What did you say, my boy? It’s all over? That’s what you said… but it isn’t at all. It’s far from being all over…”
The tragic part about this serial was the fact that the First Doctor didn’t really get a good send-off due to his lack of appearance and leadership throughout the adventure. From the get-go he’s very much a background character, allowing the supporting cast to do all the work and setting up the story.
The First Doctor conveniently joins due to his unexplained knowledge of Earth’s twin-planet Mondas. That was as far as his involvement went within Episode 1. Episode 2 saw him have some dialogue and a confrontation with the Cybermen. Episode 3 however saw him completely out of action and written out of the story due to a sudden and unexplained collapse. I will clarify that this move was done due to Hartnell’s illness, causing him to miss out on filming that week. It is also known that the serial itself was deliberately written in the manner it was to allow Hartnell space if sudden illness descended upon him. Episode 4 probably saw the First Doctor’s best confrontations with the Cybermen, but yet again he was taken out of the action until the very end when the situation had been settled and by that point he was too weak to continue, leading to his sudden regeneration.
As with the majority of Hartnell’s era, the companion took on the bulk of the heroic duties and this time it was left up to Ben Jackson. Polly was on hand to do certain requirements but mostly Ben took up position as protagonist. From what I’ve seen of Ben’s character he is likeable but certainly not my favourite companion. Nevertheless he shines onscreen and proves to be very independent in a situation. Through Ben’s actions he was able to disarm a missile attempt that could’ve potentially done more harm than good and also figured out the Cybermen’s weakness of radiation before finally buying enough time to allow Mondas to destroy itself.
‘The Tenth Planet’ did well at introducing the Cybermen onto our screens. Their blank expressions, their inhuman voices and grotesque look made them an adversary worth being scared of and certainly allowed the First Doctor to go out having faced an enemy that rivalled the Daleks. The Cybermen really got under the First Doctor’s skin, something that really complemented the ruthless nature of these cybernetic killers who thought emotion was a weakness and that it was their right to save the people of Earth, even going as far as saying Earth needed to be destroyed to allow Mondas to survive. Sadly their introduction was spoilt by their lack of action, leaving their minor threats seen on the base as the only indication of their terrible actions.
The true villain of the piece (in my eyes) was General Cutler. The man was portrayed as a stereotypical American commander, whose commitment to duty steamed a little too far, pushing towards doing what was necessary before rational thinking. In a nutshell he was an a-hole from the moment you laid eyes on him and became one of those characters you just utterly despised because of the actions he took. He went as far as manipulating his superior’s words in order to do what he was told not to, to the point of being blinded by family affairs and thus becoming selfish in order to win the day. Cutler even threatened the First Doctor, his companions and his own crew members with death due to them preventing his orders. Needless to say he got what he deserved in the end because he was just downright insane.
‘The Tenth Planet’ was a good episode but I feel it wasn’t the best send-off for Hartnell and ended him on a somewhat low-point. Also it was always very unclear why the First Doctor regenerated, making the frail old man’s departure somewhat lazy and simply didn’t allow him to shine in his last hour.
