Ranking Hartnell- 24-21
William Hartnell is a Doctor who I never had much interest in before I started a marathon watch of Who from the start. Like many people I had made a lot of assumptions based on receive wisdom. That he would be an unlikeable crotchety old man, that his run was full of still and stagey historicals, that he flubbed all his lines. How wrong I was, because Hartnell is brilliant. It's true that at the start he is hard to like, savage, cruel, selfish, rude, but he mellows over his first season and reveals himself as one of the funniest of Doctors, with a twinkle in his eye while never losing a streak of darkness.
He also has some excellent companions, particularly Ian and Barbara who quickly became one of my favourite Tardis teams, then later Vicki, Stephen and Polly. The less said about Ben and Dodo the better, but mostly its an era that isn't afraid to be bold and exciting in a way that it is seldom credited with. Just as fans of the revival tell newcomers to "not skip 9" I would really urge those looking at the classic series to give Hartnell a chance. He can be hard to like initially but stick with him, or just jump into one of the high ranking ones here.
That said, there are some poor stories and that is what mostly will be dealt with in this post. The five stories I watched from this era that, to be honest, I actively disliked.
24. "The Web Planet" (Season 2)
It has been really fashionable among Who
fans and critics recently to defend "The Web Planet" and give revisionist takes on it, often praising it's ambition, mood and conception, and making out in some cases that it's actually a masterpiece. But aside from all this hipster analysis and projection of what could have been, it's really hard to get away from the fact that it's awful. It looks dreadful (a combination of vaseline on the lenses and school play quality costumes), is frequently laughable in it's attempts to crowbar George Mieles and interpretive dance into what is usually more of a SF thriller, and, worst of all, is incredibly boring. It's the only serial I have never been able to finish and is stretched out to 7 arse numbingly tedious episodes.
23. "Galaxy 4" (Season 3)
Another dull adventure with boring characters doing boring things in a boring setting. The big twist has been done elsewhere far better and is predictable from the start. The only mercy is that it's only 4 episodes long. Why this was animated over the supposedly brilliant lost stories in this season is mind boggling.
22. "10000 BC" (Season 1)
Doctor Who's first actual adventure after the pilot is a bleak and dull affair where he and the companions spend most of their time being imprisoned in and escaping from the same cave a bunch of times while cavemen have endless circular conversations about the secret of fire. On top of all that, Hartnell is really unpleasant in this story. Cruel, cold, selfish and violent.
21. "The Sensorites" (Season 1)
The first episode is pretty well done, a creepy and atmospheric sort of proto base under siege where the crew are menaced by a telepathic alien, but after that it descends into endless contrivance, a nonsensical plot about water poisoning and endless scenes of Sensorite political discussions. Again, this feels like one of those concepts that the show will do a lot better again in the future, but it really is very very dull.
