Episode: 4600
Title: The First Doctor, Part 5
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4600/hpr4600.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:52 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4600, for 2026-03-20
Today's show is entitled, "The First Doctor, Part 5"
The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:15:26
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "A continuing look at the first Doctor Who."
Hello, this is Ahuka, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio, and another exciting episode in our series on science fiction and fantasy.
And we're going to wrap up the first Doctor Who, William Hartnell, in today's episode.
We've been following him from the very first episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child.
And he was in the role for just over three years.
So, we've got a lot of stories to talk about, and the first one we're going to talk about today is called The Celestial Toymaker.
It's a wonderful story, and the Toymaker is another foe many Doctor Who fans wanted to see return.
And in 2023, it happened.
And in the story, The Giggle, he returned, played this time by Neil Patrick Harris, and it is a very good story.
But in this introduction of the character, he is played by Michael Goff in a Fu Manchu-like costume.
And he has great powers, but is bound by certain rules, which makes this interesting.
When the TARDIS lands in his world, he sets them games they have to survive to escape.
They're games based on children's games you might be familiar with, but they have a twist.
The Doctor is told he must solve the Trilogic puzzle in exactly 1,023 moves.
And Stephen and Dodo must win their games before the Doctor wins his.
This story is pure entertainment, but very well done.
However, Hartnell's decline continued.
In this story, there are scenes of the Trilogic puzzle where a hand moves a piece,
but it's not Hartnell's hand, it's another actor.
And Hartnell does not appear at all in Episodes 2 and 3.
Producer John Wiles had a plan to replace Hartnell,
whose contract was up at the end of the season,
but he was overruled by BBC head of cereals, Gerald Savory,
who extended Hartnell's contract, leading to John Wiles quitting the production.
Hartnell would continue for now, but something would have to happen eventually.
Next is the gunfighters.
Now, depending on your point of view with this one,
it's a historical story.
It is either embarrassingly bad or delightfully camp.
All a matter of perspective.
It takes the TARDIS to Tombstone, Arizona,
at the time of the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Now, I've been to Tombstone, Arizona,
and it is extremely camp or embarrassingly bad.
I've seen that they do a reenactment of the gunfight of the O.K. Corral there every day.
Now,
Stephen Taylor is mostly silly,
trying to act out childish fantasies of cowboys.
The setup comes from the end of the previous story,
when the doctor bites into a candy and yells in pain.
He needs to see a dentist.
And Doc Holliday, aside from being a gunfighter,
is a dentist.
Mistaken identities happen all over.
Now, this is light fluff.
It's enjoyable if you give in to the silliness.
So, I wouldn't say don't watch it.
I'd just say go in knowing that you're going to see something very silly and very camp.
Then the next story is called The Savages.
This is another story about who are the bad guys, really.
In that respect, it's similar to Galaxy 4.
Now, in this case,
Dodo and Stephen are captured by what appear to be Stone Age savages.
The doctor, meanwhile,
is taken to the City of the Elders
and is greeted warmly.
It seems they have been following his travels for some time
and are great admirers of him.
Now, Stephen and Dodo are rescued by soldiers from the city
and reunited with the doctor.
Then Dodo slips away and stumbles on experiments being conducted on human beings.
So, the Elders turn out to be the real savages here.
They're experimenting on what we thought were savages,
who are just unfortunate people that they are exploiting.
And they're basically trying to take their life energy for themselves.
The lab is destroyed in this,
and the two groups decide to live together in peace.
But they realize they need a leader who is from neither group
and choose Stephen to be their leader.
So, another companion goes.
Only Dodo is left.
Then, the war machines.
This is kind of an AI gone bad story.
At this time in history,
we're certainly primed to see AI gone bad.
In this case, a professor has built a computer
to help manage the communications in the new post office tower,
which, in fact, was a new building in London.
But the computer turns out to be more than anyone realized.
The doctor gets it right away
when the computer correctly gives the meaning of TARDIS.
Then it turns out the computer can hypnotize people
and make them its slaves.
It does this to several of the professors involved
and has them build the war machines
that will enable it to take over the world.
Dodo is hypnotized and tries to trap the doctor.
But he figures it out and restores her.
Then she is sent away to recuperate.
We won't ever see her again.
Meanwhile, the secretary to one of the professors
by the name of Polly
and a young sailor named Ben
join up with the doctor
and they defeat the computer.
At the end, they realize they have Dodo's TARDIS key
and enter just before it takes off.
So now we have two new companions.
Now, this is a fun episode.
The props are the usual for this time at Doctor Who.
They're pretty cheap and they look it.
The writing is good.
The story has enough twists and turns
to carry you right along.
Hartnell was really good in this story
despite the problems he was having.
The next is the smugglers.
Now, this is another historical story.
But instead of being based on any particular incident,
it tells of a general occurrence in English history.
The English government chose to support itself
primarily through customs duties on imports,
which of course created an incentive
to avoid those duties by smuggling.
And that definitely happened a lot
in the Cornwall area of England.
It was also one of the issues
that started the American Revolution,
but that's not the story
we're going to be telling here.
Now, the TARDIS crew
encounters a former pirate
now turned church warden
who tells them a secret
before being killed by another pirate.
Ben and Polly capture a man
who they think is the murderer,
but he is in fact
an undercover revenue agent
and in the end helps defeat the pirates.
It is a good story
and the most memorable character
has to be Cherub,
the pirate who murdered the church warden
and kills other people
and is very sinister.
So this is a story
where all the episodes have been lost.
So I got it through reconstructions.
So you may or may not
want to subject yourself to that,
but I'm a completist.
What can I say?
And finally, we come to
the 10th planet
and that is Hartnell's final story
and it takes the TARDIS to Antarctica
where the travelers are taken
to the snow-capped base
of the International Space Command.
They are managing the return
of the manned space mission
Zeus 4
and everything goes wrong
when a new planet appears
dooming the mission.
Then we meet
the second most memorable enemies
of the Doctor,
the Cybermen.
They explain that they are
from the planet Mondas,
which is Earth's twin,
hence the 10th planet,
and they need the energy
from the Earth
to keep their planet going.
The general running the base
is of course pig-headed
and does everything possible
to make things worse
than they have to be.
This adventure turns out
to be too much for the Doctor,
who explains that his old body
is just wearing out
and when they get back
to the TARDIS,
he collapses
and starts to change.
In the end,
he is replaced by Patrick Troughton.
Now, Hartnell was becoming
increasingly difficult
to work with
as far back as the Time Meddler,
where you could really see him
losing his lines.
And there are lots of stories
about him hiding notes
to remind himself
about what he was supposed to say.
But the BBC
didn't want the show to end,
so they did something unprecedented
and replaced the lead actor
in a popular series.
To explain it away,
they invented regeneration,
something the Doctor's race could do.
We now call them
the Time Lords of Gallifrey,
but that part did not appear
until the end of Troughton's run
as the Doctor.
For now,
the Doctor was just a member
of an unspecified alien race,
and the only other member
we had met
was the meddling monk.
At least,
we assume he is of the same race
since he has a TARDIS.
So,
that completes
the first Doctor.
So,
you know,
brief overview of the era.
Whatever else you might say
about Hartnell,
he created a franchise
that has lasted
for over 60 years
as I record this show.
After a slow start,
he really developed the character
and became identified with it.
In the beginning,
he was a very stubborn
and unlikable old man,
but as the series progressed,
he mellowed
and his humor
started to come through
even more.
Now,
Hartnell himself
returned to the role
one more time
in the third Doctor story,
The Three Doctors,
1973,
which was the first time
Doctor Who
had a story featuring
multiple incarnations
of the character.
In this case,
the first Doctor,
William Hartnell,
the second Doctor,
Patrick Troughton,
and the third Doctor,
John Pertwee.
But due to his declining health,
he had a limited role
in this particular story,
appearing only on a TV screen,
and he passed away in 1975.
Now,
he was portrayed
by Richard Herndall
in another multiple Doctor story
called The Five Doctors
in 1983,
which was broadcast
for the 20th anniversary
of the program
during Peter Davison's run
as the fifth Doctor.
In recent times,
David Bradley
has portrayed
the first Doctor,
first in a docudrama
called
An Adventure in Space and Time,
2013,
which was produced
in honor of
the 50th anniversary
of the program.
This show tells
the story of
the first Doctor
and how the program
came together
in a dramatic form,
and I recommend it highly.
Bradley would reprise
the role
in 2017
in The Doctor Falls
and Twice Upon a Time,
where he played
opposite Peter Capaldi's
12th Doctor.
And then again
in The Power of the Doctor
in 2022,
where he appears
alongside
other previous Doctors.
It is perhaps notable
that the first three Doctors,
William Hartnell,
Patrick Troughton,
and John Pertwee,
have all passed away,
but only Hartnell's
first Doctor
has been revived
so often.
I think that tells you
something about
his importance
in the history
of Doctor Who.
So we've finished,
now,
took five episodes
to go through
everything that
William Hartnell did.
Now,
in those days,
they,
it was almost
a year-round
television program.
You know,
I think there was,
you know,
like 48,
they had a 48-week season.
And so they had to record
a whole lot of episodes
and do a whole lot of stories
in order to fill
all of that.
you know,
by the time we get
to Tom Baker,
they're now down
to 26 episodes.
It's one half
of a year.
You know,
now in
the 21st century,
they started off
doing 13 episodes
as a season.
and then
the last couple
of ones
it was like
eight.
So,
you know,
they're not
putting out
as much content
as they used to.
And as far as
what I'm going to do
with this
is
I will
come back
with
Patrick Troughton.
We'll start talking
about some of
his shows
and maybe
work my way
through
all of the
classic.
I don't see
the point
in
doing
the
stories
that started
in 2005
with Christopher
Eccleston
because I think
pretty much
everyone who has
any interest
in Doctor Who
already knows
about that stuff.
So,
you don't need
me to talk
about it.
But that still
gives me a whole
lot of stuff
to talk about.
So,
there will be
more
Doctor Who
related episodes
of my
Science Fiction
and Fantasy
series.
So,
this is Ahuka
for Hacker
Public Radio
signing off
and as always
encouraging you
to support
free software.
Bye-bye!
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