Our image of the first Doctor is a bit after-the fact, down to descriptions in 70s books and Achellios' use of reference photos from Toymaker and Three Doctors for his covers. As late as Master Plan, the Doctor can overcome an armed SSS agent and trained killer on his own. It's only after that that he becomes the frail old man. I like to think that he wasn't entirely deaged when the Time Destructor was put into reverse in Masterplan 12, but that's obviously retconning, not the intention at the time.
Well, my image of the First Doctor is based on actually seeing him in the surviving serials. When my PBS station showed Doctor Who starting in the '80s, it started with Tom Baker, but it eventually cycled back around to "An Unearthly Child," and they showed all the complete serials that survived from the Hartnell and Troughton eras. So I knew the First Doctor from, let's see, "An Unearthly Child," "The Daleks," "The Edge of Destruction," "The Keys of Marinus," "The Aztecs," "The Sensorites," "Planet of Giants," "The Dalek Invasion of Earth," "The Rescue," "The Romans," "The Web Planet," "The Space Museum," "The Chase," "The Time Meddler," "The Ark," "The Gunfighters," and "The War Machines," as well as "The Three Doctors" and the Hurndall version in "The Five Doctors." So really, I should've remembered that the Doctor could hold his own in a fight, but I didn't. We had much less of Troughton, by the way -- all we got was "The Dominators," "The Mind Robber" (minus the short first episode), "The Krotons," "The Seeds of Death," and "The War Games." Although they added "The Tomb of the Cybermen" to the rotation once it was recovered, and I think they may have shown it out of sequence as a special the first time it came out. There's also the life-force draining he was subjected to in "The Savages," not long before the end of his incarnation. That may have also contributed to his "body wearing a bit thin." (Although he was in fine form in "The War Machines" immediately afterward. That one's fun to watch, because Hartnell is on the top of his game for the first time in a while, and he seems exhilarated by it -- the actor, I mean, not just the character. It's a bit surprising that his health declined so quickly thereafter.)
The First Doctor isn't really the guy we think we remember him has - there's that lovely bit in the first episode of The Crusade where he not only takes on and beats an armed and armoured saracen, but the drops to his knee and finishes the guy off with a throat-chop!
the death of Little Nell People actually wrote to Dickens, offering their own young children to save Little Nell. BLIMEY. Death of Little Nell not cracking me up so much NOW. Not, of course, that any of US wouldn't joyously offer up our firstborn in exchange for ten more minutes of Ecclestonian happiness...
And there's the draft script for An Unearthly Child where Ian tries to tackle the Doctor, and gets thrown around the console room. Very Venusian aikido...
I have to agree with you, Christopher. I enjoyed Logopolis very much for the reasons you describe. Ditto for Castrovalva. I didn't enjoy the later much as a kid, but when I rewatched I thought both were very good. Mr Awe
I picked up The Tenth Planet in preparation for Power of the Daleks and enjoyed it. Despite their now laughable design and annoying vocalizations, the Cybermen still managed to carry off a sense of menace to our heroes. I enjoyed the both the animation of the fourth episode, and the tele-snap reconstruction, which effectively inserted what little surviving footage remains.
I think it's interesting how the original Cybermen are less robotic than later versions, more like the "organ transplantation run amuck" idea that Kit Pedler originally conceived for them. Sort of a medical body-horror thing going on there. Although their head lanterns and those huge, cumbersome "guns" are rather silly, as is the whole gaping-mouth talking thing. As for the voices, the singsong, computer-like delivery Roy Skelton came up with was kind of interesting and creepy once you got used to it, but there was one episode where Peter Hawkins came in and did some additional Cyber-voices without prior rehearsal and came off sounding much sillier and more awkward.
Yeah Hartnell's Dr was quite a nasty old bugger, his fav past time seemed to be bashing people over the back of the head with stuff, rock on cavemans skull in the first epsiode, plank of wood on crawling guy's skull in Time meddle, yeah seems best not to turn your back on him. lol
Planet of the Spiders is the last classic for me at the moment. My niece liked it but wondered why everyone was scared of toy Spiders lol
According to Saward, he had very little control over what writers he could use. One of his major complaints was that Doctor Who is a notoriously difficult show to write and many newer writers were not up to the challenge. To compensate for that, Saward wanted to use older writers like Terrance Dicks & Robert Holmes but JNT wouldn't let him. Meanwhile, I was just watching William Hartnell's first story, "An Unearthly Child." This time around, instead of watching it all in one sitting, I dragged it out to an episode per day. The story actually works a bit better that way. You can see the acting improve for the caveman actors over the course of 3 weeks. It's still pretty weak though. (When trying to figure out my least favorite Hartnell story, I usually switch between "An Unearthly Child" & "The Ark.")
I remember really detesting "The Web Planet" back in the '80s. I found it more tolerable on my recent rewatch, presumably because I spread out my viewing rather than watching it all in one night.
I subscribe to the belief that this was a one-part story and a three-part story. That makes An Unearthly Child undeniably my favourite Hartnell. (The story that follows it however...) The Ark is much better than The Tribe of Gum or whatever it should be called. At least there's a pretty neat idea behind it. The Doctor gets to see the consequences of his involvement, something the classic series seldom did. His claim that they've moved through time and not through space drives me crazy though.
Well, movement through space is always defined relative to a given frame of reference. Within the frame of reference whose origin is a point in the Ark, it would be correct to say that they hadn't moved through space. It's no more ludicrous than all the time-travel stories claiming that going from, say, 1890s London to 1950s London is not moving through space, even though the Earth is orbiting the Sun, the Sun is orbiting the galactic center, etc. I do think "The Ark" is a very imaginative idea, a clever use of the time-travel premise to explore the consequences of the TARDIS crew's interventions. It's a good premise that suffers in the execution due to production and budget shortcomings ("Take them to the security kitchen!"). Like the Monoid makeup -- it's a marvelously imaginative idea in principle to use a performer's mouth as the lids of a cyclopean eye, but the execution is less effective than the concept.
I'd say the Monoid make-up works better than their costumes, which just look absolutely impossible to move in. And then there's that bit towards the end of the story when that one Monoid tips Dodo off to their plans to betray the humans when he makes a snide, cryptic comment followed by maniacal chuckling. It's the kind of cheesy, over the top moment that makes me long for the subtlety of a Scooby-Doo episode. As for what to call episodes 2-4 of "An Unearthly Child" if we're counting it as a separate story, I think "The Cave of Skulls" would probably be the default. Many Hartnell stories share their title with that of the first episode of the story. "The Firemaker" also sums up the general plot of the story pretty well. I seem to recall a lot of British fans refer to it as "100,000 B.C." (Doctor Who Magazine also refers to "The Edge of Destruction" as "Inside the Spaceship.") Maybe, although I imagine that would only further highlight what a waste of time Part 1 is. But then, so many of Hartnell's longer stories have Part 1s like that. The TARDIS lands, everyone wanders around for about 20 minutes, and nothing actually happens until just in time for the end of episode cliffhanger. SEE: "The Daleks," "The Dalek Invasion of Earth," "The Chase." "The Web Planet" has probably the most laughable of all of these. Rather than taking the time to establish mood, it's mostly Barbara & Vicki arguing about the merits of aspirin while the Doctor burns Ian's tie. It also features one of Hartnell's longest on-screen flubs, when he seems to have completely forgotten his line. Or else he decided to insert an unnecessarily long character pause. It's hard to tell because both Hartnell & William Russell stay absolutely in character the entire time and the pause & Russell's smug bemusement fit perfectly with the context of the scene. (The Doctor has just realized that he doesn't know what's going on but doesn't want to admit it to Ian, so he's stalling for time, hoping he'll think of something impressive to say. Ian has already figured out that the Doctor is clueless and is enjoying watching him squirm while waiting for him to admit it.)
Jean-Marc L'Officier's 1989 The Programme Guide and 1991 The Terrestrial Index state that it's also known as "The Tribe of Gum," and there's a 1988 script book of it under that name. Apparently that was its working title at one point. http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Disputed_story_titles#An_Unearthly_Child
Not sure I get the point of the titles debate. Call a story whatever you want, but if you're trying to communicate effectively with people who don't bother with trivial fannish battles, you need to use the titles on the DVDs. Meanwhile, my wife and I listened to the Big Finish main range story Omega during a road trip today, and consequently I decided to watch Arc of Infinity tonight. Bit of a mess, given it had to find reasons to bring together Omega, Amsterdam, and Tegan, but nice location shooting. I like Davison's Doctor, but there aren't too many stories from his era that I consider personal favourites.
I'm currently two episodes into The Sensorites. Its pretty good so far. The aliens look ridiculous, but in an entertainingly cheap way. I like the relationship that The Doctor has with Barbara and Ian at this point. Having the TARDIS lock be so easy to steal was pretty funny, I almost want to see that happen again in nuWho