William Hartnell
(1908-1975)
The first Doctor's era
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William Hartnell(1908-1975) |
The first Doctor's era |
He Made it All Possible by John Riordan 15/12/97
The "Doctors" section of the Guide is starting to feel like a smile that needs serious dental work; two or three teeth pushing against each other in some places, and a big gap where a front tooth should be. I have therefore decided to repair the gap by reviewing William Hartnell.
The simple fact that he was the first actor to play the Doctor makes him, in some ways, more influential than any of his succcessors. Having gotten in on the ground floor, as it were, he was in the advantageous position of establishing a basic blueprint for the character. This blueprint, of an arrogant, wise and forthright eccentric, was one to which all of his successors had to conform in one way or another. Hartnell, of course, didn't invent the character, but he did give the Doctor his subtle definition. A less skilled actor might have been tempted to play him as an absent-minded professor whose sole purpose was to elicit cheap laughs.
This broad characterization could easily have been the Doctor's fate after An Unearthly Child if Hartnell hadn't carefully combined comic and dramatic elements in his portrayal. The First Doctor's stories tended to become more serious over the course of his tenure, making it appear as though the show's writers took a cue from Hartnell and worked to accomodate the persona he had made.
Hartnell's successors revised, reinterpreted and in some cases improved on his portayal but couldn't ignore it. Neither would they have had the opportunity to do so had William Hartnell's mastery of his craft not secured Doctor Who's initial success.
Evaluating Hartnell by Daniel Callahan 7/1/98
In order to evaluate someone?s work, the environment in which that work took place must be understood. William Hartnell, along with Patrick Troughton, worked under some of the harshest conditions that can be expected on actor: to learn twenty minutes or more of dialogue after less than a week?s rehearsing, to work alongside actors ranging from excellent to middling, and to deal with a range of technical cues. Add to this the hot studio lights and the shooting schedule that demanded everything be in the can in under four hours. We have read the accounts of William Hartnell?s bad temper, his pushiness, his raging tantrums... most of which are true. He had a driven and tortured nature, the onset of MS, and the pressures of being the lead-- and perhaps he just wasn't a great human being.
Given these conditions, I stand in awe of Hartnell?s acting ability. In episode after episode, Hartnell convinces me he is the Doctor. The only on-screen evidence that he is merely an actor comes with his line-fluffs. And yet I would challenge any couch-potato critic to audition for a community theater production and act half as well as Hartnell. It?s cliched but true: he makes it look easy.
Hartnell, like the other actors who have played the Doctor, have not been the Olivier?s, the Brannaugh?s, or the Gielgud?s of our time. In the words of Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, they are second rank actors (not second rate, but not made of the finest stuff inherent in great actors). But, by God, William Hartnell is among the best of the second rank.
I don?t envy those who worked with him. I?m much happier to have the luxury of being a fan and watch his near flawless technique. Line-fluffs aside, he doesn?t make many mistakes. Only Patrick Troughton equals his professionalism and perfection. While the other Doctors made good on-screen, they never had it so difficult and yet make it look so good. And thanks to the free rein given to him by one of Doctor Who?s most brilliant producers, Verity Lambert, Hartnell changed his character from a mean and difficult man to a difficult but irrepressibly sympathetic and magic figure. How many actors can say they developed their character, the lead character, and helped save a floundering series? Yes, the Daleks were integral, but would the Daleks have worked without Hartnell (at least in that first story)? Probably not.
So why go nuts over Hartnell? He worked under near impossible working conditions and created a brilliant character. That?s sufficient for me.
A Review by Stuart Gutteridge 11/7/00
I wouldn`t go as far to say I have a favourite Doctor, because I rate them all differently, but William Hartnell is certainly the definitive. Yes this is largely this is because he was the first and set the blueprint to be followed. He was able to switch from being a stern "victorian" type to a kind grandfather figure and of course endeared himself to fans everywhere. This is most obvious in the way he portrays The Doctor, particularly in his first two seasons, whether it is in the rapport he shares with his co-stars (which comes across on the screen) or his determination to alter scripts which he felt were unsuitable for younger viewers. In short, he believed in the character and despite sometimes working under terrible conditions, he helped to create the genesis of the show we are all fans of today -- Doctor Who.
He started it all... by Joe Ford 17/5/02
A few days ago I was bored. Seriously bored. I whacked on my CD The Massacre, even though I knew it wasn't as good as the perfect post production Big Finish audios. Or so I thought. After listening I was shocked for two reasons. One was how on earth I didn't realise how GREAT the story was and the second came during the speech William Hartnell makes at the stories close as Steven walks out and leaves him. I was lying on the bed and unexpectadly tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was mortified to realise how I'd forgottern (due to my recent fascination with the pros and cons of the JNT era) that William Hartnell IS The Doctor.
He was the original. He had nobody to live up to. He shaped the programme with his enigmatic portrayal of an alien exiled from his home planet. William Hartnell didn't just act a part, he commanded the viewers attention.
His first clutch of stories are fascinating in retrospect. Could you imagine if the Doctor had remained as spiky and (dare I say it) unlikable as he was in say An Unearthly Child (kidnapping Ian and Barbra to protect the secret of the TARDIS) or The Daleks (prepared to leave the Thals to their fate with the Daleks)? Maybe the show would have turned out quite differently but as it was by the end of season one he had mellowed considerably reaching his peak in The Aztecs (never before has a Doctor so entertained me…from his marvellous 'romance' with Cameca to his compelling arguments with Barbara).
There are so many moments that define Hartnell's interpretation. His flair for comedy was second to none, his scenes with Nero in The Romans are divine and the visit to the dentist in The Gunfighters is all down to his impeccable timing. Even in serious stories he added some wonderfully funny moments (In The Rescue he realises he can't pretend to Ian and Barbra that he landed on Dido on purpose and it is simply wonderful and he simply steals the show in The Myth Makers with his grand portrayl of the great god Zeus!).
The first team up of The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan is perhaps as perfect an ensemble you can get. They were like a family, travelling through time, not entirely trusting each other but complementing each other perfectly (and the stories too, particularly the historicals). Hartnell was not above poking fun at the character with many brilliant scenes of The Doctor outraged as his companions won't let him out of their sight as if he was the 'grand child'!
It was his more reflective moments that made him such a fascinating figure. His desperate plea to Barbara in The Aztecs ("What you are trying to do is utterly impossible! I know! Believe me I know!"), willing to let his grandaughter go now she has a new man to look after her ("Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine") and even his quiet moment after Ian and Barbara have left him ("They've gone…come along my dear it's time we were off…"). And of course the afforementioned speech in The Massacre. Never before has The Doctor seemed so lonely, so desperate for someone to understand and yet so resolute in his actions. It is a superlative climax to a near flawless story.
True some of his last performances aren't as satisfying but that’s mainly due to his health preventing him having a large chunk of the action but he still kept up his trademark pomposity and hilarity. Standing up to the War Machine is a fine cliffhanger and he has a great speech to the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet ("Emotion. Love, hate, fear. Have you no emotion sir?").
And right up to the completely shocking moment when he regenerates he remains mysteriously compelling.
Hartnell WAS The Doctor. We should never forget that. Both Colin Baker and McCoy said they wanted to take on some of Hartnell's characterisation and why? Because he was a wonderful man with a gift for characterisation. All I have to do is think of his "hmms" and "dear boys" and it brings a smile to my face.
And he was the ONLY Doctor who could fluff up his lines and make it so damn brilliant. And that my friends takes genius.
Do not readjust your television set... by Tim Miner 7/11/02
When it comes to Doctor Who reviews, I'm the nearest equivalent of a "Longtime listener, first time caller." I read lots of reviews, digest them, formulate my own opinions, make a mental note to write my own review... and promptly forget to. But, when it comes to William Hartnell... I can't hold my tongue any longer.
For those wondering whether or not to continue reading, I'll give you a thumbnail: I am an unabashed First Doctor fan. Despite watching Tom Baker and Peter Davison for a year before seeing An Unearthly Child on my local PBS station, it was Hartnell that made me a Who fan for life. It boils my blood when fans bash him.
Still there? I hope so. If you're a Hartnell detractor, I'm going to tick you off.
I seem to be in the minority. Most Whovians seem to regard the Hartnell years as a chore to watch, a duty-bound exercise of any self-confessed, die-hard Who fan; the vegetables that must be consumed before the desert. This attitude seems to rub off on new fans and perpetuate itself. In order to understand the whole of Who, you must endure at least one Hartnell episode to say you've seen it - and you will probably come away with the understanding that the First Doctor was self-centered, egotistical, moody, easily irritated and a bit of a bumbler.
If that's what you get: Congratulations. Not only have you perfectly described all the incarnations of the Doctor, you've also boiled the multi-layered and complex performance of an incredibly actor into a sound byte you can feel good about as you move on to the "real" classics of Doctor Who, namely, the Tom Baker years. Rubbish.
Hartnell is the real deal and the others, as great as they are, stand in his shadow.
The following sentiments in reviews of William Hartnell episodes send me into convulsions (only slightly moreso than ovetures of how much more violent Colin Baker was or how fantastic Ace is) because they are extremely short-sighted and, sometimes, self-delusional:
Without a very driven, gifted and committed actor to start the show off. It would have remained a 13-episode program. Think about the concept: A strange, selfish, alien old man and his granddaughter traipse about time and space in a phone booth. It's ridiculous. But he (and his cast mates and production team) made it work despite all odds. It's like he's family. You love him, but you're not always sure why because he can be disagreeable. But the more you're around him, the more you see what's inside him and what he's capable of.
The First Doctor IS irritating, self-centered and insatiably curious. And, he IS an anti-hero at the beginning of the series. But, aren't most people? Hartnell gives us a reason to like him. He keeps us cheering for him even when he's endangering his own friends.
Through his performance, Hartnell creates a character that we easily gravitate to, inspite of and often because of his flaws. He develops a true sense of mystery about the Doctor that draws us in. And, he is unpredictable. Unlike any other Doctor, we really don't know what he'll do in any given situation, what his true motivations are or that he'll really get aorund to saving the day. (A trait the series had to work hard to reinfuse itself with in the latter McCoy days).
His performances are multi-layered. One moment you love him, the next you can hate him. He is confusing and inconsistent. He makes the Doctor someone we can believe in, not just a one-dimensional do-gooder. He's extremely falible. He's not a demi-god, selected by desiny to roam the universe in search of women tied to railroad tracks. He was a scientist, a vagabond wandering for the love of wandering, but also a homesick man who left home under mysterious circumstances and secretly hopes he'll get back.
He is passionate. Hartnell never mails in his performances. He's always bought in, giving it his all, making it his own. No other actor had quite the mischievious twinkle he had. He took seriously a character that would have been all too easy to send up from day one. But he went the other way and forced us to take him seriously. In fact, it was his effort to solidify the Doctor in the minds of the audience who took his actions and his passions seriously that made it possible for Tom Baker to begin deconstructing the Doctor's character in humorous ways. Baker's comedic bits are funny because they often fly in the face of who we know the Doctor really is.
Try and think of any of the other actors taking the role of the Doctor first. To my mind, only Troughton could have pulled it off - and then it still would have been a stretch. The Second Doctor (amazing as he is) is a reaction to the First. Troughton's lighter characterization may not have worked if he hadn't been able to juxtapose himself to Hartnell. It could easily have been "Box Car Willy in Space."
And, as for criticisms that Hartnell's episodes are dated, boring, silly, ridiculous - again, what show are you watching the rest of the time? I'm begging you to watch the shows in the proper concept. It was the 60s for Pete's sake. Use your imagination and enjoy!
More than any other, Hartnell's episodes revel in the idea of space and time, alien cultures, homesick companions. They are often wildly creative - rarely sticking like episodes back-to-back. The Massacre following The Dalek Masterplan, anyone? And, behind it all was the performance of a man who appeared to love every minute. Hartnell exposes the pure fun of playing the Doctor. Equally at home on an alien world or in a historical court, he is beguiling. Despite the popular analogy, he's not so much your grandfather as the crazy, free-spirited uncle you've daydreamed about traveling cross-country with. You won't have much money, but you'll make it.
Hartnell worked with a gifted cast and for my money, it didn't get better than Barbara and Ian, two characters able to stand up to the Doctor and DO something. He had writers who clearly enjoyed a concept that allowed them to stretch their imaginations. But he was the lynch pin. He made it work - and it's still working. Line fluffs that would have made other actors look like idiots, he made them endearing and the kind of stuff we still talk about.
What really ticks me off about fan attitudes toward William Hartnell isn't that they dislike him. But, rather, that they often dismiss him as unimportant and undesirable. If you give him a real chance and you dislike it, great. But, to sweep his contributions under the rung with the label of "his Doctor was an old, difficult man" doesn't do justice to the man that transformed Doctor Who from ridiculous children's concept to the longest running show in SciFi history.
The First Doctor will always be my favorite. I only wish he had made more.
Bill, you were the man.
A Character Study of The 1st Doctor by Ronald Mallett 11/4/03
The 1st Doctor: resourceful, cranky, wise, selfish, stuffy. The original was all of these things. His character was conceived at a time when wisdom could only be equated with age (and preferably white Caucasians!). To have presented a young man as the BBC later did with Peter Davison and still have expected the audience to believe he was hundreds of years old would have been a cultural impossibility. But what made the 1st Doctor great was that William Hartnell circumvented many of the clich? attached to aged people. I don't believe Peter Cushing did the same in the Dalek movies, as he came across as a kind of comic book imitation of the original. In his own naughty way, The 1st Doctor was often more hip than his young charges.
Verity Lambert, the first producer of Doctor Who has asserted that the 1st Doctor appealed to the young because he was essentially a anti-authoritarian figure. There was certainly the odd sparkle of devilment in his eyes! He was the only Doctor to actually kidnap two of his companions! In An Unearthly Child we are left to wonder did he intend to kill the wounded savage? There was a ruthless streak in him which normally emerged as razor sharp cunning. Unlike the younger and fitter Doctors, the 1st Doctor's major weapon was his mind. Conveniently there was always a younger man around to take on all the physically arduous tasks! His frail form often served to put his enemies off guard. His companions knew that despite his cranky demeanour, he had a heart of gold and always came through for them. In The Web Planet, Barbara states: "You'll find the answer Doctor, you always do!" The character of the 1st Doctor would remain highly influential - all subsequent Doctors drew something from him. That's not to say they all stood with their noses in the air with their hands on their lapels muttering, "Mmmmmmmm.... Chesterton my boy!", but Hartnell was able to firmly place his feet in the concrete at the very conception of the character.
Hartnell's Doctor is definite proof that it is unfair to compare the different interpretations of the character. All the Doctors were prisoners of the confines of their own eras. His stories were slow and ponderous but the character of the 1st Doctor rose above such restrictions. Richard Hurndall's gallant effort at playing the 1st Doctor in The Five Doctors still fell somewhat short of Hartnell's standard and illustrated how effortless he had made it look playing such a complex and compelling character. Edison once said that he'd sacrifice the rest of his life if only he could travel 500 years into the future and spend three days there! Many fans would gladly have sacrificed many tedious seasons if only Hartnell could had have been 20 years younger when he took on the role and had been able to make a proper return in The Three Doctors and the latter anniversary story. Sadly he was an old man when he was playing the part and not always well and his performance sometimes suffered. Some 'fans' turn their noses up to black and white Who but given competitive storylines and effects, there is no doubt Tthe 1st Doctor would be better appreciated.
The Best by a Long Shot by Antony Tomlinson 14/4/03
Like anyone born after 1963, my experience of William Hartnell's time as the Doctor has come about through spending absurd amounts on books, videos and CDs rather than any memories of sitting in front of a crackly black and white TV set, watching BBC1. Despite the lack of any nostalgic link to the era, however, Hartnell has grown to be my favourite Doctor by far. Indeed, I could quite happily cope with the erasing of every Doctor Who story after 1966, as long as I could still get my regular fix of Hartnell-era Who.
Hartnell played the character with absolute sincerity - there is not one moment where you feel you are watching an actor playing a part (a phenomenon that I think only Patrick Troughton and Paul McGann have managed to match). He is intense, and utterly convincing (even when he fluffs his lines). Furthermore, there is far more to William Hartnell's portrayal of the Doctor than any other to date. That said, at a superficial level, the First Doctor has a range of character quirks as charming as those of any of the other Doctors - his tendency to end each question with an intimidating "hmm?", his failure to remember his companions' names, his habit of soliloquising and his absolute refusal to ever admit he was wrong, even if this means denying everything that he has previously said.
Key to his outer character is his air of intellectual superiority. One result of this trait is that we get to enjoy countless examples of hubris as his cunning plans go awry, such as the moment in the The Myth Makers where he is almost sent hurtling into the air on the back of a giant paper aeroplane as a result of his scheming. It also means that we have the spectacle of an individual so confident in his abilities that he remains completely unfazed by adversity - "I suppose you think you're very clever" says the thug in The Reign of Terror, as he motions to bludgeon the Doctor's brains out. "Well" replies the Doctor, "without any undue modesty, yes."
But beyond these foibles, Hartnell's Doctor is a far more unpredictable character than any of his successors. Unlike Tom Baker's cuddly craziness, the First Doctor really does come across as genuinely mad. Sometimes this is a rather benign dementia, such as his gasps of "can't you sense the... evil?" at the beginning of The War Machines, as he points, shaking, at the Post Office Tower. Other times he seems utterly inhuman, laughing sadistically at the twisted embryo of a dead Dalek at the end of The Dalek's Master Plan, seemingly oblivious to the hideous demise of Sara Kingdom, his supposed friend.
In fact, Hartnell's is the Doctor that can perhaps least be dismissed as a "typical English eccentric". He is more reminiscent of one of those irascible French professors that you find in Charlotte Bronte novels (and his love for France is of course well documented). He is certainly passionate - his affection for Cameca in The Aztecs is clear, as is his highly possessive love for Susan and his other companions. He is also violent. Despite his vow never to take a life except in self-defence, he is not averse to hitting people with shovels, throwing them out of windows and beating them with his stick if it is going to get his way.
His selfishness is also well documented. Unlike later Doctors, who acted as self-appointed super-heroes, this Doctor just wants to do his scientific research and to get away with the minimum fuss. If - as in An Unearthly Child - his ship is invaded by curious natives, then he'll just have to take them away with him. If these natives then try and stop him exploring an alien city (The Daleks) then he'll lie to them, even if it puts everyone's life in danger. The First Doctor's motives are scientific research and survival - not interference. He doesn't want to get involved in local issues (as in The Keys of Marinus) and he certainly doesn't want to change the course of time, even if it will save lives (The Aztecs and The Massacre). And this tension between the scientific world view of the Doctor and the basic humanity of his companions is a source of some of the most wonderful drama in the series' history.
Of course as well as exploring the darkness of the character, Hartnell is also a wonderful comedian. His interaction with his companions (particularly Ian and Steven) is a joy, and his comic timing is perfect - just see his performance in the dentist's chair in The Gunfighters, or his interaction with Peter Butterworth in The Time Meddler, or indeed any of his scenes from The Romans.
Hartnell was blessed, of course, by the variety of story types during his tenure. Unlike poor Patrick Troughton, who got stuck with the same action-packed "base under siege" plot for most of his run, Hartnell got to explore the character through comedies (The Chase, The Romans), intelligent science-fiction stories (The Ark, The Tenth Planet), powerful historical dramas (Marco Polo, The Crusade) and pure action adventure (The Dalek's Master Plan). The variation in themes meant that these early stories - even the bad ones - were rarely stale (unlike much of the tediously repetitive Jon Pertwee era, for instance).
Despite his genius, however, Hartnell has not always been held in high esteem by Doctor Who fans. The lack of a nostalgic link is, of course, part of this, as is that fact that so many of his episodes are missing (although the same could be said for the typically more popular Troughton). Part of the problem is, I think, that to watch the early stories requires the viewer to become used to a rather different style of television. From 1967 onwards, Doctor Who was styled as a small screen version of a sci-fi action/horror movie, aiming to be fairly realistic, despite its tiny budget.
Before 1967, however, Doctor Who was more like a stage play that had been televised. Thus, like a stage play, the Hartnell stories feature people supposedly out of earshot standing very close to each other, people pretending to die after they've fallen from very small heights and rather unconvincing fight scenes. For, like a stage play, the action in the Hartnell stories tends to operate via theatrical conventions rather than any attempt to make the action appear realistic - and this is a stylistic difference that may have to be got used to.
Nevertheless, this is a good time for the First Doctor. The variety of moods and themes in Hartnell's stories are a valuable asset in this video/CD age, when people expect something new from any Doctor Who story that they buy. Furthermore, the fact that the Hartnell stories were more theatrical than cinematic has helped the transition of missing episodes onto CD (while Troughton stories like The Moonbase and The Web of Fear have ended up sounding like someone smashing pots and pans together).
So there we are - William Hartnell, the original and still the best.
A Review by David Rosenthal 20/7/06
William Hartnell was the First Original Doctor. Ever since we were introduced to him in An Unearthly Child, he had a very mysterious past, just vague mentions like "Do you know what it's like to be exiles?" He had a grandaughter Susan, who we still don't know if it's biological or just because she was an orphan and he took her in.
He had this crankiness and this kind grandfatherly figure type. In his era we didn't know about Gallifrey or even Time Lords they weren't invented yet. He did encounter one of his race, the Meddling Monk, in two stories. He had light comedy The Romans and of course introduced the Daleks in The Daleks.
Unfortunately he had to leave because of arteriosclerosis. His last story was The Tenth Planet, which introduced the Cybermen, and he regenerated into Patrick Troughton the first in the series history. Thank you William for being the originator of the Doctor. It wouldn't have been succesful without you.
A Review by Harry O'Driscoll 2/10/10
There are many of people out there who would gladly say that watching the Hartnell era is a bore and cannot be compared to the more young and dashing Doctors. But I think that William Hartnell is the second most underrated Doctor there is (the first being Colin Baker), and it is always a pleasure to see the First Doctor, even if it may not be a pleasure to see the stories he has been in.
The First Doctor is immediately a Grandfather. Not just to Susan but to his companions and to us. He always held his companions close at heart and would do anything to get them. Whereas other Doctors like Jon Pertwee would use physical violence and some like Tom Baker would use their devilish wit, this Doctor used his mind to run rings around those who stood up against him. Although not as physically able, he was a dangerous enemy and a father figure to those who knew him well.
William Hartnell's performances are absolutely genuine and he makes it seem effortless. Who cares if he fluffed a few lines when he carries off the performance of the grand old man of the universe so well? Even in this early stage, you can see traces of future Doctors. Hartnell laid the foundations for the other Doctors to build upon and it is a shame how his contribution must go unrecognised after packing so much enthusiasm, kindliness, power and mystery into the Doctor.