I was a late comer to Doctor Who. I didn’t really encounter it in my youth, and when I did stumble into it, I was stuck with a PBS station that somehow only had the Sylvester McCoy seasons, with scattered bits of the earlier Doctors.
I did start watching in earnest when the New Who came about. I’ll get into thoughts about them at another time.
Now is for the First Doctor: William Hartnell.
With a month of BritBox subscription, my husband is bringing me education on the early Who seasons so that I can at least keep my Doctors straight. So we start at almost the beginning with The Daleks.
(Note that due to copyright issues, An Unearthly Child serial is not available on BritBox).
Now there’s some obvious differences in budget, pacing, effects, and all that from 1963 to 2025. I’m not going to spend much thought on most of that, except to say watching people spend a lot of screen time running from place to place just to get there…let’s just say I’m glad TV doesn’t do that anymore.
Most surprising is how much is kept from those early episodes. The TARDIS noises. The up-and-down thing in the middle. The rough landings. The main gist of the theme song. Doctor and Companions, running through time and space, finding trouble. The way the Daleks talk and move and say “exterminate.” It’s all right there.
The Doctor himself is a gem, and it made me realize one thing I really liked about Ncuti Gatwa’s turn on the TARDIS. This Doctor is an explorer, and he revels in seeing new things. The Companions are the sensible ones (“Can we just go home?”) and are so sensible, the Doctor sabatoges the TARDIS so they can be forced to stay and explore some more. And this does backfire on him, causing the story to continue.
Things that were different that I wish New Who still had: the Doctor doesn’t know everything. He isn’t in control of the situation. He doesn’t have a magic screwdriver that is basically anything he wants it to be, and everything is more about figuring out what’s going on. Exploration is the key, where the excitement lies, and that gleam in his eye as he figures out how to get to the city to see what’s going on is just great.
The things that are jarring to a New Who watcher: The Doctor is a lot more casual about leaving people to their problems (and possible deaths). Talking people out of pacifism when necessary. The Doctor being a frail old man, and not an indesctructable alien.
Since we’re doing a watch aimed at collecting the more interesting arcs from each Doctor (at least to start with), we jumped ahead to Season 3: The Gunfighters. Which is weird in its own way (the musical interludes throughout got a bit grating), though I loved the very 1960s British take on the OK Corral, Doctor Who style. Though Steve and Dodo are not going to be listed among my favorite Companions. Well, maybe Dodo. She’s fiesty.
Any arcs from the First Doctor I should watch as well?