The William Hartnell Era
An Overview
This is the start of the flight through eternity and, even almost 50 years later, I think there is something special about these first footsteps. The strength, and the brilliance, of the William Hartnell era is the sheer variety, the sheer ambition of it all. This is Doctor Who just starting out, trying new things and giving it a go. Anything went here and they didn't let a low budget or a lack of time limit their imagination. Did it always work? No, because nothing is perfect. Was it worth the effort though? Yes, it most certainly was. We've got trips to the future, trips to the past, trips sideways even. Doctor Who has always thrived on change and that started straight away, never knowing what type of story you were going to get next. It feels like a journey, a trip of a lifetime, long before 2005, but that is the most perfect way to describe this show (why did it take so long to coin it?). A trip of a lifetime that began way back in 1963, it's gone up and down along the way for sure, but the light has never fully gone out, from the moody black and white swirls of the titles, and the hypnotic, eerie sounds of the theme music, as An Unearthly Child started, this show was something special. For all that I love about later titles and tweaked versions of the theme, this is the one that really is timeless, that really does stay fresh forever. This is all inspired stuff! There is nothing quite like that first shot, a dark, fog shrouded London street, moving into the junkyard of Totters Lane and the blue police box, that Ian later comments is 'alive', sitting their humming; the crotchety old man coughing as he wanders in through the junkyard doors, the stumble into the vast and gleaming TARDIS control room and the flight through eternity at the end of the episode. The wonder and the mystery here gives us a feeling that is difficult to achieve again, it can't be replicated in the same way. It's remarkable though, that they manage to evoke some of that feeling again in Doctor Who - The TV Movie, in Rose and in The Eleventh Hour (well, it does for me, at any rate!). If there is one moment that I would like to have been there at the time, it is undoubtably that November night, on the 23rd, back in 1963. It must have been magical.
Season One is a Flash Gordon, boys own adventure serial, and yet it has snippets of H.G Wells The Time Machine and, in Season Two's Dalek Invasion of Earth, The War of the Worlds too, amongst many roots that make up this era. Doctor Who has always borrowed from all kinds of sources and it happened right from the off. It's all a continuing tale, as each story runs into each other, so that you move from present day London, to the stoneage, to The Dead Planet Skaro in the far future, sideways in the TARDIS and into the past to join Marco Polo on his journey to Cathay. The pure historicals are, on the whole, pretty unique to the Hartnell era. I really like them, they make learning history so much more fun than in a text book and are just as exciting as any of the futuristic stories around them. The BBC excels at historical drama and an earlier time period on Earth is just as alien as a world far beyond the sun. The visions of the future, in the futuristic stories, is of it's time, especially with the big banks of computers in the TARDIS, but then, I like that. It's a vision that will always date, a statement as true for the sixties as it is for 2011. A good story is a good story, whether it's presented as past, present or future. The flaws can easily be forgiven, so long as it entertains.
The Doctor is very much a figure of mystery here, he's truly alien, he's grumpy and moody and looks down on Ian and Barbara. Hartnell is quite briliant at playing him. He can do comedy, just as much being angry and tetchy (see The Romans and his singing in The Chase!); he has a caring, grandfatherly side too. I love the acting that Hartnell does with his eyes, rolling them about, and all the intricate little movements he does with his hands; and the slip ups when he speaks and the being doddery, that isn't just the actors ill health, as many might first believe, it's very much his acting skills shining through and him creating his character of the Doctor. He's a grandfather to us, the first Doctor and he was the benchmark for all the others to follow. William Hartnell should not be forgotten, for creating the hero that we all love and turn to in times of trouble, for hope and strength. If he hadn't set up this loveable character, that everyone developed great affection for, none of the others would have followed. Without a great lead character, the series would not have lasted.
The companions who travel with the Doctor as just as important, as it is through them that we relate to this mysterious alien and, for the most part, this era is well served. From the start much of the story is about the companions; the first story arc of the series is Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright trying to get home to Earth. They are very much reluctant travellers at first, but they and the Doctor gradually warm to each other and develop a mutual respect and affection. I love this first group of TARDIS travellers. Susan is, regrettably, slightly the weak link at times, in my eyes. I do like the concept behind Susan Foreman, who starts off as the unearthly child of episode ones' title, it works very well initially. However, I think it was a wasted opportunity that she turned into pretty much a screamer, in the end, they lost that unearthly quality far too quickly, and I can see why Carol Anne Ford decided that it was time to leave and not renew her contract. It is fitting that her final story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth is a strong one for her, in that it shows her awakening as an adult and falling in love. The new companion, Vicki, is created in very much the same mould as Susan, and yet I think I prefer her character, she's a bit more believable as a screamer to me, perhaps because she isn't supposed to be as otherworldly and mysterious as Susan was supposed to be. Much like Susan, she begins childlike and matures over the course of her adventures before she too falls in love and leaves at the end of The Myth Makers. I do like the relationship that they have with the Doctor, him being a grandfather and them filling the role of granddaughter. He has a lot of affection for Vicki, fuelled in part, perhaps, by the fact that he is missing Susan. Steven Taylor is a strong male companion who works well as the action man of the series; a stowaway in the beginning, Steven provides a good foil for Vicki. What I like about Steven as a character is that he has very high values, and morals, and a good sense of right and wrong. It coincides with a short, but thought provoking period, of the show, that gave us the likes of The Ark. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot to say on Dodo Chaplet, the other companion who travelled with Steven as I don't really know a lot about her character. She was underdeveloped and wasted, which is a great shame for the actress Jackie Lane who played her. She just doesn't gel for me and I definitely see her as the weak link among the early regulars. Much better are Ben Jackson and Polly Wright, young and vibrant, fitting into the swinging sixties, although I have to say they are more suited to the second Doctor than they are to the first, who they barely travel with in the end. They signal the beginning of the end of the era, for me, and the rejuvenation of the series that was just around the corner, the change of focus to monsters and bases under siege.
The William Hartnell era laid the foundations that have allowed Doctor Who to continue strongly up to the present day. It set the flexible format that has done the programme so well and tested the waters with what was possible to achieve. It is amazing when you look at just how varied this time of the show is. I have a real fondness for it.
The stories, in my favourite order
I should say that I don't give stories ratings, out of 5 or out of 10, and I don't rank them based on acting, direction, set design or anything like that. I list them based on how much I enjoy them, it's as simple as that. The Savages and The Smugglers are both missing at the moment, as I have still to listen to them (they will be added in due course).
The War Machines
The Keys of Marinus
The Chase
The Daleks’ Master Plan
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Marco Polo
The Daleks
An Unearthly Child
The Massacre
The Aztecs
The Crusade
The Time Meddler
Galaxy 4
Mission to the Unknown
The Edge of Destruction
The Myth Makers
The Romans
The Reign of Terror
The Tenth Planet
The Ark
The Gunfighters
The Rescue
The Web Planet
The Space Museum
The Celestial Toymaker
Planet of Giants
The Sensorites
The stories - My Ramblings
‘An Unearthly Child’
A magical fairytale. A fog shrouded street, patrolled by a policeman. Doors creaking open, into a dark, cold junkyard (well, the atmosphere feels cold to me here!), dolls, ancient furniture and picture frames lying around and a police box ‘humming’ gently, in the corner. And something interesting beckons us. It works because it all feels so normal, and yet, at the same time, not quite right, and is simply, but cleverly, done. It’s really quite marvellous actually. Everything looks normal enough, to begin with, before turning into something extraordinary, by the end of the first episode.
The ’unearthly child’ of the title is every bit so - not knowing that the UK doesn’t have a decimal system, finding the science at school is beneath her, talking about time as the fourth dimension and noticing a mistake in a book on ‘The French Revolution. Looking around herself as she enters the junkyard, saying that her grandfather doesn’t like strangers; this is definitely a girl with something to hide (even if she is just meeting a boy, well, she might be!) and her teachers Ian and Barbara, are right to be suspicious, even if it’s out of curiosity as much as concern. She is every bit the mystery, perfectly fitting her characters’ concept, and it’s a shame that this accept was watered down over time, as each story progressed. Here though, it’s just perfect.
In the scene with Ian and Barbara sitting in Ian’s car, in the dead of night, you do ask yourself, just what is going on here? (as they do). It becomes even more of a wonder when they follow Susan, can only find the police box and Ian proclaims ‘it’s alive!’. In our first encounter with the Doctor, he really isn’t a very nice man at all, he’s a bad tempered soul who mocks and laughs at his future companions! Has the character appeared more alien in Doctor Who? Perhaps he has, perhaps he hasn’t, but this was the first time and boy does it work. You’ve no idea how he’ll react, especially if you have no knowledge of the series (as in the case of those very first viewers). It’s wondrous to enter the TARDIS for the first time and travel back in time. The way they did it, with the sound effect of the TARDIS dematerialising, close ups of the main characters faces, mixed with the ‘howlaround’ visual effect, and ending with the TARDIS resting on an ‘alien’ landscape, a shadowy figure arched over it; it’s so effective. I don’t think they ever did it as well as that again. I can only imagine the astonishment this scene must have engraved upon 1963 eyes. I wish I had been there, it’s all I can say! I wish I had seen it fresh and not knowing all I did about Doctor Who, when I finally did see it. All the same, it’s still an astonishing thing, it gives you that warm feeling of butterflies, of something really special. It’s H.G Wells and Jules Verne. It’s The Time Machine, quite clearly. It’s also something very new and very unique.
The first episode is the special one, definitely, but I wouldn’t say for one moment that the following three are not up to standard. It’s inspired that our first trip takes us to visit cavemen (that can talk good English, I have to point out!) and their quest to make fire; it seems so natural to me. It’s a story about fear and respect; a group of people, the cavemen and the Doctor and his companions, who don’t completely understand each other and are, perhaps, unwilling to try. The stand out here is that we see a really very frightening side to the Doctors’ character, when he is willing to contemplate hitting someone over the head with a rock. Is this the hero we will come to love? Our sympathies might well lie with Ian and Barbara!
All in all, this is an extremely good start. The journey has begun and, as the ending shows, we’re not sure where it is going to take us next, only that it is taking us into more danger. Great stuff! An Unearthly Child is a gem of British television history.
An Overview
This is the start of the flight through eternity and, even almost 50 years later, I think there is something special about these first footsteps. The strength, and the brilliance, of the William Hartnell era is the sheer variety, the sheer ambition of it all. This is Doctor Who just starting out, trying new things and giving it a go. Anything went here and they didn't let a low budget or a lack of time limit their imagination. Did it always work? No, because nothing is perfect. Was it worth the effort though? Yes, it most certainly was. We've got trips to the future, trips to the past, trips sideways even. Doctor Who has always thrived on change and that started straight away, never knowing what type of story you were going to get next. It feels like a journey, a trip of a lifetime, long before 2005, but that is the most perfect way to describe this show (why did it take so long to coin it?). A trip of a lifetime that began way back in 1963, it's gone up and down along the way for sure, but the light has never fully gone out, from the moody black and white swirls of the titles, and the hypnotic, eerie sounds of the theme music, as An Unearthly Child started, this show was something special. For all that I love about later titles and tweaked versions of the theme, this is the one that really is timeless, that really does stay fresh forever. This is all inspired stuff! There is nothing quite like that first shot, a dark, fog shrouded London street, moving into the junkyard of Totters Lane and the blue police box, that Ian later comments is 'alive', sitting their humming; the crotchety old man coughing as he wanders in through the junkyard doors, the stumble into the vast and gleaming TARDIS control room and the flight through eternity at the end of the episode. The wonder and the mystery here gives us a feeling that is difficult to achieve again, it can't be replicated in the same way. It's remarkable though, that they manage to evoke some of that feeling again in Doctor Who - The TV Movie, in Rose and in The Eleventh Hour (well, it does for me, at any rate!). If there is one moment that I would like to have been there at the time, it is undoubtably that November night, on the 23rd, back in 1963. It must have been magical.
Season One is a Flash Gordon, boys own adventure serial, and yet it has snippets of H.G Wells The Time Machine and, in Season Two's Dalek Invasion of Earth, The War of the Worlds too, amongst many roots that make up this era. Doctor Who has always borrowed from all kinds of sources and it happened right from the off. It's all a continuing tale, as each story runs into each other, so that you move from present day London, to the stoneage, to The Dead Planet Skaro in the far future, sideways in the TARDIS and into the past to join Marco Polo on his journey to Cathay. The pure historicals are, on the whole, pretty unique to the Hartnell era. I really like them, they make learning history so much more fun than in a text book and are just as exciting as any of the futuristic stories around them. The BBC excels at historical drama and an earlier time period on Earth is just as alien as a world far beyond the sun. The visions of the future, in the futuristic stories, is of it's time, especially with the big banks of computers in the TARDIS, but then, I like that. It's a vision that will always date, a statement as true for the sixties as it is for 2011. A good story is a good story, whether it's presented as past, present or future. The flaws can easily be forgiven, so long as it entertains.
The Doctor is very much a figure of mystery here, he's truly alien, he's grumpy and moody and looks down on Ian and Barbara. Hartnell is quite briliant at playing him. He can do comedy, just as much being angry and tetchy (see The Romans and his singing in The Chase!); he has a caring, grandfatherly side too. I love the acting that Hartnell does with his eyes, rolling them about, and all the intricate little movements he does with his hands; and the slip ups when he speaks and the being doddery, that isn't just the actors ill health, as many might first believe, it's very much his acting skills shining through and him creating his character of the Doctor. He's a grandfather to us, the first Doctor and he was the benchmark for all the others to follow. William Hartnell should not be forgotten, for creating the hero that we all love and turn to in times of trouble, for hope and strength. If he hadn't set up this loveable character, that everyone developed great affection for, none of the others would have followed. Without a great lead character, the series would not have lasted.
The companions who travel with the Doctor as just as important, as it is through them that we relate to this mysterious alien and, for the most part, this era is well served. From the start much of the story is about the companions; the first story arc of the series is Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright trying to get home to Earth. They are very much reluctant travellers at first, but they and the Doctor gradually warm to each other and develop a mutual respect and affection. I love this first group of TARDIS travellers. Susan is, regrettably, slightly the weak link at times, in my eyes. I do like the concept behind Susan Foreman, who starts off as the unearthly child of episode ones' title, it works very well initially. However, I think it was a wasted opportunity that she turned into pretty much a screamer, in the end, they lost that unearthly quality far too quickly, and I can see why Carol Anne Ford decided that it was time to leave and not renew her contract. It is fitting that her final story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth is a strong one for her, in that it shows her awakening as an adult and falling in love. The new companion, Vicki, is created in very much the same mould as Susan, and yet I think I prefer her character, she's a bit more believable as a screamer to me, perhaps because she isn't supposed to be as otherworldly and mysterious as Susan was supposed to be. Much like Susan, she begins childlike and matures over the course of her adventures before she too falls in love and leaves at the end of The Myth Makers. I do like the relationship that they have with the Doctor, him being a grandfather and them filling the role of granddaughter. He has a lot of affection for Vicki, fuelled in part, perhaps, by the fact that he is missing Susan. Steven Taylor is a strong male companion who works well as the action man of the series; a stowaway in the beginning, Steven provides a good foil for Vicki. What I like about Steven as a character is that he has very high values, and morals, and a good sense of right and wrong. It coincides with a short, but thought provoking period, of the show, that gave us the likes of The Ark. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot to say on Dodo Chaplet, the other companion who travelled with Steven as I don't really know a lot about her character. She was underdeveloped and wasted, which is a great shame for the actress Jackie Lane who played her. She just doesn't gel for me and I definitely see her as the weak link among the early regulars. Much better are Ben Jackson and Polly Wright, young and vibrant, fitting into the swinging sixties, although I have to say they are more suited to the second Doctor than they are to the first, who they barely travel with in the end. They signal the beginning of the end of the era, for me, and the rejuvenation of the series that was just around the corner, the change of focus to monsters and bases under siege.
The William Hartnell era laid the foundations that have allowed Doctor Who to continue strongly up to the present day. It set the flexible format that has done the programme so well and tested the waters with what was possible to achieve. It is amazing when you look at just how varied this time of the show is. I have a real fondness for it.
The stories, in my favourite order
I should say that I don't give stories ratings, out of 5 or out of 10, and I don't rank them based on acting, direction, set design or anything like that. I list them based on how much I enjoy them, it's as simple as that. The Savages and The Smugglers are both missing at the moment, as I have still to listen to them (they will be added in due course).
The War Machines
The Keys of Marinus
The Chase
The Daleks’ Master Plan
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Marco Polo
The Daleks
An Unearthly Child
The Massacre
The Aztecs
The Crusade
The Time Meddler
Galaxy 4
Mission to the Unknown
The Edge of Destruction
The Myth Makers
The Romans
The Reign of Terror
The Tenth Planet
The Ark
The Gunfighters
The Rescue
The Web Planet
The Space Museum
The Celestial Toymaker
Planet of Giants
The Sensorites
The stories - My Ramblings
‘An Unearthly Child’
A magical fairytale. A fog shrouded street, patrolled by a policeman. Doors creaking open, into a dark, cold junkyard (well, the atmosphere feels cold to me here!), dolls, ancient furniture and picture frames lying around and a police box ‘humming’ gently, in the corner. And something interesting beckons us. It works because it all feels so normal, and yet, at the same time, not quite right, and is simply, but cleverly, done. It’s really quite marvellous actually. Everything looks normal enough, to begin with, before turning into something extraordinary, by the end of the first episode.
The ’unearthly child’ of the title is every bit so - not knowing that the UK doesn’t have a decimal system, finding the science at school is beneath her, talking about time as the fourth dimension and noticing a mistake in a book on ‘The French Revolution. Looking around herself as she enters the junkyard, saying that her grandfather doesn’t like strangers; this is definitely a girl with something to hide (even if she is just meeting a boy, well, she might be!) and her teachers Ian and Barbara, are right to be suspicious, even if it’s out of curiosity as much as concern. She is every bit the mystery, perfectly fitting her characters’ concept, and it’s a shame that this accept was watered down over time, as each story progressed. Here though, it’s just perfect.
In the scene with Ian and Barbara sitting in Ian’s car, in the dead of night, you do ask yourself, just what is going on here? (as they do). It becomes even more of a wonder when they follow Susan, can only find the police box and Ian proclaims ‘it’s alive!’. In our first encounter with the Doctor, he really isn’t a very nice man at all, he’s a bad tempered soul who mocks and laughs at his future companions! Has the character appeared more alien in Doctor Who? Perhaps he has, perhaps he hasn’t, but this was the first time and boy does it work. You’ve no idea how he’ll react, especially if you have no knowledge of the series (as in the case of those very first viewers). It’s wondrous to enter the TARDIS for the first time and travel back in time. The way they did it, with the sound effect of the TARDIS dematerialising, close ups of the main characters faces, mixed with the ‘howlaround’ visual effect, and ending with the TARDIS resting on an ‘alien’ landscape, a shadowy figure arched over it; it’s so effective. I don’t think they ever did it as well as that again. I can only imagine the astonishment this scene must have engraved upon 1963 eyes. I wish I had been there, it’s all I can say! I wish I had seen it fresh and not knowing all I did about Doctor Who, when I finally did see it. All the same, it’s still an astonishing thing, it gives you that warm feeling of butterflies, of something really special. It’s H.G Wells and Jules Verne. It’s The Time Machine, quite clearly. It’s also something very new and very unique.
The first episode is the special one, definitely, but I wouldn’t say for one moment that the following three are not up to standard. It’s inspired that our first trip takes us to visit cavemen (that can talk good English, I have to point out!) and their quest to make fire; it seems so natural to me. It’s a story about fear and respect; a group of people, the cavemen and the Doctor and his companions, who don’t completely understand each other and are, perhaps, unwilling to try. The stand out here is that we see a really very frightening side to the Doctors’ character, when he is willing to contemplate hitting someone over the head with a rock. Is this the hero we will come to love? Our sympathies might well lie with Ian and Barbara!
All in all, this is an extremely good start. The journey has begun and, as the ending shows, we’re not sure where it is going to take us next, only that it is taking us into more danger. Great stuff! An Unearthly Child is a gem of British television history.
© Robert Morrison, 2019
The copyright in all material appearing on this website remains with the author. No part of this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
The copyright in all material appearing on this website remains with the author. No part of this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.