1St Doctor - Hartnell Era

[Sindatur]

The Web Planet -

I Love this Serial, it's awesome.

Put yourself into the time period and accept the effects and costumes and pair that with a Play atmosphere and a Shakespearian delivery, and it just comes across as so excellent.

This is a really cold and brutal story. The Bee People come to free the Ant Slaves and the other insect Slaves and get conquered themselves.

All scripts get recycled, and this isn't a story I believe we've seen for NuWho, so, I'd love to see this script redone in NuWho (It'd be new to most NuWho only fans).

It doesn't need to be insects, just the story of coming to free someone else who's subjugated and getting conquered yourselves.

Oh, and those short bugs with the dangling scilia that shoot lasers like K-9, very chilling, they look like giant parasitic Skin bugs, like Crabs or Lice or Chiggers or something <SHIVER>

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

WHICH BOOK?!?!?!??!

The very first Doctor Who book ever published is David Whitaker's "Doctor Who" ("in an exciting adventure with the Daleks" as the subtitle on the cover would have it - that was obviously seen as a selling point back in 1964!) Like many tv novelizations in those days, it's not a slavish copy of the original script, but a loose adaptation of the first Dalek story. Whitaker writes it first person from Ian's point of view. Because it was the first (and back then was probably thought it would be the only novel), he takes the liberty of constructing an entirely new opening to make it a rounded, complete story in itself - telling how Ian meets Barbara, Ian and the Doctor on a foggy night on Barnes Common before getting whisked away to Skaro. The book was subsequently republished by Target as "Doctor Who and the Daleks" but they retained all the original opening so it remains incompatible with "Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child".

 

[The Wormhole]

So basically, what the novelization did?

Novelization of what? My novelization of "An Unearthly Child" had the full cave man story in it.

I've never read the novelization of "The Daleks".

Yeah, the novelization of The Daleks. Like already explained above, it starts with a new beginning introducing Ian, Barbara, Susan and the Doctor. The Doctor then takes them all off to Skaro, and from there things follow similar to the television story.

This is among six of the Target novelizations which have recentally been re-printed by BBC Books, so it should be available at your local book store, or any website that sells books.

I recommend these books. I'm about half-way through the set right now. Although I'm not usually a fan of novelizations (why read something I can easily watch?), these books are rather interesting to read. Plus, three of the re-prints are novelizations of missing episodes, so it's not like you'll be able to watch those particular stories anytime soon.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Very cool. Thanks.

 

[Davros]

So basically, what the novelization did?

Novelization of what? My novelization of "An Unearthly Child" had the full cave man story in it.

I've never read the novelization of "The Daleks".

Yea, there ya go, straight from the Junk Yard to Skaro, that works

iirc That's how the Target Books novelization goes.

[somebody beat me to it.]

WHICH BOOK?!?!?!??!

The novelization of the first Dalek story. Sorry for not being clearer above.

 

[VDCNI]

I really like the first story, yes the plot is thin but it has a better grasp of character and dialogue than The Daleks. I'd say the acting is a lot stronger as well with the guest cast a level above most of those playing the Thals.

Overall I love the Hartnell era, it is very high quality all in all. Hartnell is great (most of the time) and most of the companions are top notch particularly Barbara, Ian & Vicki.

 

[Anachronus]

I have been impressed by the quality of the Hartnell episodes so much that I don't mind, much less notice the quality of the effects.

 

[Stevil2001]

Just came across this series charting a fan's attempt to watch through every Doctor Who story from the beginning with his wife, who's only seen a few eps of Classic Who. Very amusing read, and I'm now using it to pick out stories to watch myself. So far I've watched The Time Meddler, and I'm about to start on the Myth Makers. However, because I've read their opinions on the episodes I'm a bit spoiled so I'm debating whether to just look at the scores at the bottom.

But that will spoil the commentary!

Adventures of the Wife in Space is amazing.

I recently watched The Aztecs with my own wife, and I enjoyed it. It's a type of story Doctor Who has never really done since, and it's surprisingly morally complex. Also Jackie Hill is amazing.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I have been impressed by the quality of the Hartnell episodes so much that I don't mind, much less notice the quality of the effects.

What about the fact that they seemed to only do one take, so if Hartnell flubbed a line, they just let him correct it and kept filming?

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

I have been impressed by the quality of the Hartnell episodes so much that I don't mind, much less notice the quality of the effects.

What about the fact that they seemed to only do one take, so if Hartnell flubbed a line, they just let him correct it and kept filming?

Hartnell wasn't the only person to flub his lines. I don't see how it's any different to a live theatre performance.

 

[Anachronus]

I have been impressed by the quality of the Hartnell episodes so much that I don't mind, much less notice the quality of the effects.

What about the fact that they seemed to only do one take, so if Hartnell flubbed a line, they just let him correct it and kept filming?

I flub my lines all the time so it doesn't bother me.

 

[Sindatur]

I have been impressed by the quality of the Hartnell episodes so much that I don't mind, much less notice the quality of the effects.

What about the fact that they seemed to only do one take, so if Hartnell flubbed a line, they just let him correct it and kept filming?

Hartnell wasn't the only person to flub his lines. I don't see how it's any different to a live theatre performance.

Yea, I just accept it as part of his performance. The First Doctor had a stuttering problem, and had to correct himself often

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I have been impressed by the quality of the Hartnell episodes so much that I don't mind, much less notice the quality of the effects.

What about the fact that they seemed to only do one take, so if Hartnell flubbed a line, they just let him correct it and kept filming?

Hartnell wasn't the only person to flub his lines. I don't see how it's any different to a live theatre performance.

It isn't different, but it also isn't theater. I always found that odd. The special effects never bothered me. In fact, iconic things like the Daleks were built well. But it always struck me as odd that they never redid the take. Trust me, I'm not knocking the early show, the Dalek invasion of Earth is one of my favorites. I'm just poking fun at something I found odd.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

It isn't different, but it also isn't theater. I always found that odd. The special effects never bothered me. In fact, iconic things like the Daleks were built well. But it always struck me as odd that they never redid the take. Trust me, I'm not knocking the early show, the Dalek invasion of Earth is one of my favorites. I'm just poking fun at something I found odd.

Do I take it you're not familiar with a lot of 1960s and 70s British videotaped tv drama? It's all like that - closer to televised theatre than it is to a miniature movie. Actors learnt the entire piece, rehearsed it for a week, and then performed it straight through like a play. Doctor Who is really very typical of the genre - in fact it's one of the more accomplished productions, when you consider that they're doing complicated practical and electronic effects live right there on the night. Personally, it's a style of performance I really like.

 

[Stevil2001]

It's not a stylistic thing, keep in mind-- videotape was so expensive, they simply couldn't afford to redo a take. Though I once read that Bill Hartnell would shout 'fuck' sometimes to force them to stop a take if he didn't like how it was going.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Oh yeah, wasn't meaning to imply that it was a deliberate choice. However, it is true that tv drama started out being broadcast live, exactly as a televised stage play - and even when taping became possible in the late fifties, continued in exactly the same way. It led to a style of television production such as I've outlined - something part way between theatre and film - very much its own thing. (Obviously there were tv shows shot on film as well, but I'm not talking about those here.) Even in the 70s as tape became cheaper and video editing easier, it was still largely done in the same way. Actors learned the script, rehearsed it together, and then went into studio to record it. Even though they could now shoot it out of order, whole scenes were still recorded as one piece, the actors going through it as in a play, and the director shooting using multiple cameras and cutting between them - creating the edit live as it were. They were still doing this into the 1990s. There's an immediacy and intensity about it that is really absent from most modern tv.

 

[Stevil2001]

^ Oh, I knew you know. But it hadn't been explicitly stated, and I thought it was worth doing.

I saw a cool video by Andrew Ireland where he recreated the first half of "Tooth and Claw" using Hartnell-era techniques: two long takes with a couple filmed inserts, in a tiny studio using multiple cameras. It was pretty extraordinary.

 

[Ubik]

The William Hartnell era is much better than the Matt Smith era.

 

[DWF]

The William Hartnell era is much better than the Matt Smith era.

I can certainly agree with that.