Doctor Who How Did They Get the First Doctor Again
Doctor Who's sensational closer to series 10, 'The Doctor Falls', saw our Time Lord hero (Peter Capaldi) seriously injured in a final stand against the Cybermen and on the brink of regeneration.
Fighting to hold back the inevitable, the Doctor was transported to an unknown destination by the TARDIS – where he was confronted by his very first incarnation, played by David Bradley.
This year's Christmas special – Capaldi's final episode with the show – will see the first and most recent incarnations of the Doctor team up, as Doctor Who also ushers in a brand new version of one of TV's most iconic characters.
But before all that, we've got a festive adventure with the OG Time Lord to look forward to. Here's everything you need to know about the first Doctor ahead of December 25.
"The original, you might say."
The first Doctor was Doctor Who's original lead, with William Hartnell fronting a total of 29 stories (totalling 134 individual episodes) between 23 November, 1963 and 29 October, 1966.
Yeah, they really knocked them out back in the '60s (though each episode of Doctor Who ran for just 25-ish minutes back then, about half the length of a standard episode nowadays).
Hartnell's take on the character is notable for initally being one of the most hostile and arrogant versions. We first find his Doctor dwelling in a junkyard on an an ordinary London street, where he's set up shop with grand-daughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford).
Yes, the Doctor had a granddaughter – and she's still referenced in the series to this day, with Capaldi's Doctor keeping a picture of Susan on his desk at St. Luke's University.
In Doctor Who's first ever episode, 'An Unearthly Child', we learn that Susan has been attending the local Coal Hill School in an effort to blend into 20th-century society, but her odd behaviour attracts the attention of two of her schoolteachers, Ian (William Russell) and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill).
They follow Susan home, only to find that her given address is a scrapyard –with a bright blue police box standing out amidst all the junk inside.
The inquisitive Ian and Barbara are confronted by an aggressive Doctor, who's determined to put an end to their snooping and preserve his and Susan's secret. In this first episode, Ian and Barbara are very much the heroes, with the Doctor presented as an enigmatic, and possibly dangerous, antagonist.
Either by accident or design – it's never quite clear – the Doctor ends up whisking Ian and Barbara away into time and space, and the pair end up joining him and Susan on their adventures across the universe.
Through his interactions with these humans, and further companions later down the line, the originally brusque Doctor mellows – he remains a force to be reckoned with, but quickly becomes less selfish, less quick to violence and more good-humoured.
Across Hartnell's three years on Doctor Who, we see the Doctor that we know and love today emerge. By the end of the first Doctor's era, the essentials of the character – whoever plays him – were established: his wit, his pacifism and his unselfish heroism.
"It's far... from being all over."
It's at the end of the first Doctor's era that Doctor Who is picking up with the character this Christmas.
Just before he encounters Capaldi's version in 'The Doctor Falls', the first Doctor is heard to grumble, "I will not change, I will not – the whole thing's ridiculous!"
This places that episode's closing scene as taking place during the final moments of Hartnell's swansong, 1966's 'The Tenth Planet' (a story which, appropriately enough, also featured the first appearance of the Mondasian Cybermen).
Though the exact cause of the Doctor's first regeneration is up for debate, he was seen to be unwell throughout 'The Tenth Planet' and, after thwarting the Cybermen's plot, stumbled from their spacecraft, dazed and bewildered.
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The Doctor's latest companions, Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills), would later find him passed out in the TARDIS, where Hartnell's prone form vanished... to be replaced by Patrick Troughton's second Doctor.
The climax to 'The Doctor Falls' then, as well as the entirety of the Christmas special, presumably takes place after the first Doctor wanders off and before Ben and Polly find him inside the TARDIS.
We'd always presumed that just a few minutes had passed between those two moments – and for Ben and Polly, they had. But for the first Doctor, it seems, there was one last adventure to be had – an experience that wil convince both him and his future self that it's OK to change.
"No-one's irreplaceable, eh ?"
After leaving Doctor Who, William Hartnell would return to the role of the first Doctor once more – for 10th anniversary story 'The Three Doctors', which saw him share the screen with his immediate successor Troughton and the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee.
Though the original script featured the first Doctor in a major role, Hartnell was by this point too ill to endure a sustained shoot. His contribution was eventually reduced to a series of pre-filmed cameo appearances.
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Hartnell passed away a little over two years later on April 23, 1975, necessitating a recasting whenever Doctor Who has wanted to utilise the first Doctor since.
For 1983's 20th-anniversary special 'The Five Doctors', Richard Hurndall took up the part – and it was actually Hurndall, not Hartnell, who first delivered the line often associated with the first Doctor: "The original, you might say!"
Hurndall himself died in 1984, with BAFTA winner David Bradley becoming the third actor to play the first Doctor as of 'The Doctor Falls'.
Bradley, of course, has previous with Doctor Who. Not only did he play unscrupulous space pirate Solomon in 2012 episode 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship', he's also played William Hartnell himself in the 2013 biopic about the origin of the series, An Adventure in Space and Time, lovingly penned by Mark Gatiss.
If anyone was to step into Hartnell's shoes as the first Doctor, Bradley would appear to be the obvious choice.
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"One day, I shall come back..."
There you have it – a quick refresher on the first Doctor and how he'll play into this year's Doctor Who Christmas special. But if you're a first Doctor novice keen to swot up further, or just a hardcore Whovian looking to revisit some classic adventures, we've got some recommendations.
• An Unearthly Child
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Where it all began – after schoolteachers Ian and Barbara are transported back in time by a mysterious alien 'Doctor' and his granddaughter Susan, the foursome find themselves fighting for their lives in the Stone Age.
This four-parter starts strong with a pitch-perfect series opener – and while the three episodes that follow don't quite measure up, this trip back to the time of the Cavemen is still a tense and gripping ride.
• The Daleks
In only the show's second-ever outing, Doctor Who's most famous monsters make their debut, as the original TARDIS crew land on the Daleks' home world of Skaro and find themselves caught up in the aftermath of a nuclear war.
'The Daleks' is an atmospheric sci-fi caper – though be warned, at seven episodes long, you'll want to clear a weekend to watch this one.
• The Aztecs
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Landing in 15th-century Mexico, Barbara works to convince the Aztecs to give up their practice of human sacrifice to the Gods, while the Doctor warns her not to interfere in history. A 'pure' historical – set in the past, with no sci-fi elements – 1964's 'The Aztecs' is quite wonderful and quite unlike the Doctor Who of 2017.
This four-parter allows Hartnell to show off not just his dramatic ability but also his comedic chops, with a sub-plot that involves the Doctor accidentally getting engaged to the charming Cameca (Margot Van der Burgh).
• The Dalek Invasion of Earth
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Facing off with his deadliest foes for a second time, the Doctor discovers that the Daleks have invaded Earth in the 22nd century and teams with human resistance fighters to reclaim the planet.
This six-parter, though, is best remembered for the departure of Carole Ann Ford as Susan (Doctor Who's first companion exit) and the touching speech that Hartnell delivers in the aftermath.
• The Crusade
It's a tough one to track down this. With much of 1960s Doctor Who falling victim to the BBC's wiping policy – either junking or taping over old television recordings – a fair chunk of Hartnell's episodes are missing from the archives, including half of this four-parter.
Your best bet is to pick up the Doctor Who: Lost in Time box-set, which contains the two surviving episodes and audio recordings of the missing chapters. The Crusade, which sees the Doctor caught up in a holy war between King Richard the Lionheart (Julian Glover) and the Saracen ruler Saladin (Bernard Kay) in 12th century Palestine is sublime, and worth enjoying however you can.
• The War Machines
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One of the few Hartnell stories to be set on contemporary Earth, 'The War Machines' pits the Doctor against an army of heavily-armed robots who storm the streets of London.
Anneke Wills and Michael Craze make their debut as the first Doctor's final companions, Ben and Polly, in a story which also features one of the all-time great Doctor Who cliffhangers, with the Doctor staring down a rampaging War Machine.
• The Tenth Planet
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The first Doctor's final outing and the Cybermen's first, as the metallic Mondasians storm a space tracking station in Antarctica. Tragically, the last episode – Hartnell's final regular outing as the first Doctor – is again lost, but was spectacularly recreated as an animation for the DVD release.
If you want some more insight into where the events of this year's Christmas special fit into the Doctor's timeline, 'The Tenth Planet' is an essential watch.
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