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This is a further look at the stories of the First Doctor, portrayed by William Hartnell, during the 1960s.
The First Doctor, Part 4
This short little story takes place on the planet Kembel, and agents from Earth realize that the Daleks are here, and up to no good. This is really a prequel to The Daleks’ Master Plan, and is notable as the only Doctor Who story in which none of the regular cast appears. The reason is that this is an extra episode slot given to the Doctor Who team late in the day, and the regular cast were already given vacation time off. So it is best to take this as Episode 0 of The Dalek’s Master Plan, not as a stand-alone story. The original story has been lost, like so many episodes of early Doctor Who, but a very nice version was done by the University of Central Lancashire, and you can view it on
This is another “historical” story, though instead of verified history it is historical legends at play here, in the form of the Seige of Troy by the Greeks. So you have all of the Homeric cast here: Achilles, Priam, Hector, Odysseus. The Doctor is taken for a God by Achilles, though Odysseus has his doubts. Vicki is captured by the Trojans and taken to Troy, calls herself Cressida, and is taken for a Goddess. Steven goes to Troy to try and free her, but is seen as a Greek, and so Vicki is now suspect. She falls in love with a son of Priam named Troilus, and you think something might happen here, particularly if you are familiar with play of Shakespeare called . Wiles tried to implement changes, such as making the show a bit darker, but ran into opposition from both Hartnell and BBC Management, and resigned after producing four stories ( The Myth Makers through The Ark). And the popularity of other SF shows on television made a move to more SF and less history desirable. And as for Hartnell’s opposition, it is notable that he had become quite identified with the role of The Doctor and was very proprietorial with it. This would come to pose problems later as his health declined.
, capped by the Doctor breaking the fourth wall. The episode is now among the missing. but you can find reconstructions on YouTube if you want to see the absurdity of it. And there is a re-appearance of The Meddling Monk.
This is a sprawling story, but overall worth a look. Mavic Chen, played by Kevin Stoney, is delightfully evil, and Stoney would return to play another villain in the Troughton story The Invasion. and it is interesting to see Nicholas Courtney before he got the role he would always be identified with. Doctor Who would not do anything this large again until _
You will often see this as simply The Massacre, which is fine since there is no other story with a similar title. And after that massive science fiction story, another historical story. This involves the true story of Protestants in France being massacred by the Catholics, and the main feature worth calling our here is that William Hartnell plays two roles in this story. He is the Doctor, of course, but also the Abbott of Amboise, a leader among the Catholics looking to rid France of the Protestants. This idea of playing two parts became even more nicely done by Patrick Troughton later in Enemy of the World. In any case, this leads to confusion by Steven who thinks the Abbott is actually the Doctor. In the story a servant girl named Anna Chaplette is rescued, and this opens up the interesting possibility that she is the ancestor of Dodo (i.e. Dorothea) Chaplet, a companion who appears at the end. She witnesses a car crash, and barges into the Tardis thinking she can call the police.
While the novelty of Hartnell playing two parts may stand out on first look, this story is really a showcase for Peter Purves, in his role of Steven Taylor. Because Hartnell is not on screen very much, Purves really has to carry the plot, and does so admirably. Hartnell was on vacation when the second episode was filmed, and so didn’t appear at all. And his health problems were beginning cause problems which contributed to this situation. He was having a lot of trouble with remembering his lines, which is a real problem for an actor. He was not that old by current standards, as he was 58 when this story was produced, and as I am 73 as I write this, 58 seems more like late youth to me.
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