by Paul Robert Scott
Today, we consider the Doctor as a madcap, if not frequently handsome hero with many different faces and lives under his belt. We are used to seeing a new regeneration every few years and witnessing the moments when a new Doctor will examine and compare himself to his previous incarnations. Yet in the beginning there was only one man who could truly call himself The Doctor. The original, you might say.
Today, we consider the Doctor as a madcap, if not frequently handsome hero with many different faces and lives under his belt. We are used to seeing a new regeneration every few years and witnessing the moments when a new Doctor will examine and compare himself to his previous incarnations. Yet in the beginning there was only one man who could truly call himself The Doctor. The original, you might say.
The first Doctor, played by William Hartnell, entered the hearts and minds of the public in a very different manner to what we would become used to. Starting from the very beginning in ‘An Unearthly Child’, he was portrayed as cantankerous and often selfish, with a tendency to treat his enemies with a cold level of malice. He even purposefully kidnapped his initial pair of human companions, Ian and Barbara. There was, however, a soft spot in his heart for his granddaughter, Susan, who he treated with a certain level of guarded affection. He was, in the end, a far cry from the heroic figure he has grown into over the years.
Over the years that William Hartnell portrayed the Doctor, he did of course grow as a character. Over time it was realised by the BBC that viewers would find the character more approachable if he had a slightly softer demeanour and indeed, it is true that later companions would find it much easier to coexist inside the TARDIS with the old man. He also grew a little more witty and playful, so much so that in the ‘The Romans’ he proclaimed that he enjoyed the simple art of fisticuffs, after smashing a vase over a would-be assailants head and throwing him out of an open window.
Over the years that William Hartnell portrayed the Doctor, he did of course grow as a character. Over time it was realised by the BBC that viewers would find the character more approachable if he had a slightly softer demeanour and indeed, it is true that later companions would find it much easier to coexist inside the TARDIS with the old man. He also grew a little more witty and playful, so much so that in the ‘The Romans’ he proclaimed that he enjoyed the simple art of fisticuffs, after smashing a vase over a would-be assailants head and throwing him out of an open window.
As the prototype Doctor, there were of course aspects of his personality that every incarnation of the Time Lord has shared. His arrogance and tendency to proclaim his own superiority are the first, but through the First Doctor the character also gets his love for adventure. When the series first began, The Doctor and Susan were said to be in exile from their own people, and while it was clear that they had already done a little travelling together, the old man that Ian and Barbara discovered seemed far more interested in keeping out of the way than gallivanting around the galaxy. It can often be argued that it is through his interactions with his companions that the Doctor develops and in the early episodes of the show this is first evident, as the amazement that Ian, Barbara and Susan share at each new time or planet steadily rubs off on him. Most of all, however, the First Doctor maintains the same aura of mystery that is quintessential to the character. For the entire time Hartnell was in the role, the audience gleaned next to nothing about the Doctor except for the fact that he was from another planet. It would take until the end of the second Doctor’s reign to discover what his people were even called.
There is no doubt that the show owes its fifty years of longevity to the invention of Regeneration, along with the limitless format of the blue box that can go anywhere, but without William Hartnell leading the way the show could have just fallen flat. It was Hartnell that captured lightning in a bottle with his performance as a grouchy yet still inherently lovable old man. As petulant and stubborn as a toddler, yet still as ancient and wise as you could expect from a man of his years. In the end, other Doctors will always come and go, but there can only ever be one original and every variation since has remained true to that one singular, defining attribute: a mysterious man, in a blue box, with one question on everyone’s mind – “Doctor Who?”
What's your fondest memory of Hartnell's Doctor?
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