This is a post in the Tor.com Twelve Doctors of Christmas series. Click the link to peruse the entire series.
William Hartnell was an alien.
Okay, perhaps not literally (although I admit I have no definitive proof either way), but as an actor creating a role for the very first time, he certainly knew how to portray the otherworldliness that’s now become such a quintessential element of the Doctor’s personality.
I think it’s easy for people to underestimate the impact that this had on the overall success of Doctor Who as a television show, and also on the way in which subsequent actors developed the role of the principle character.
At the time, in the early 1960s, there was nothing else like Doctor Who on the screens of Great Britain. And for all of the wobbly sets and fluffed lines, what the BBC managed to create was an enduring, limitless show that, even today, almost fifty years later, still stands up well against the vast swathes of television drama that now vie for our attention.
