Doctor Who: The Hartnell Years

This Video hosted by Doctor 7 Sylvestor Mcoy is a very well made tribute to the orignal Doctor. It features the orignal pilot episode to the show, a great example of those historical episodes that were made in the 60s in the shape of the Crusade, and the final episode of the Classic celestial Toymaker.Like the missing years video is a great showcase for episodes that fans of the Doctor might never see.

on the production side the script is well written and Mcoy makes a great presenter.

This video seems years before its time in so far that it`s very very similar to the extras we now find on DVDs . Unfortunately the idea here came into being down to the simple reason that the BBC decided to erase many of the DOCTOR WHO stories from the 1960s . If the BBC aren`t kicking themselves there`s thousands of DOCTOR WHO fans who want to kick them

The tape doesn`t get off to a good start since we`re treated to an extremely crap " Latin " version of the show`s theme tune and we see Sylvester McCoy without doubt the worst actor to have played the role giving us a brief ( All too brief ) resume of William Hartnell`s acting career . We`re then shown three episode`s from Hartnell`s tenure of the Doctor

The Pilot Episode - Pure television magic as this gave birth to the legend . Written and acted with total and absolute conviction

The Wheel Of Fortune - This is from the historical episode The Crusades and stars Julian Glover ( One of Britain`s most underated actors ) as Richard The Lionheart . I really did love these historical stories and once again everything is written and acted with total conviction . In many ways it`s made like a prestigous BBC production of a Shakespeare play

The Final Test - This is from an episode of The Celestial Toymaker , almost certainly the most bizarre and avant garde story the show had produced at that time . I wasn`t too keen on it but it`s always good to see a prolific and sensible actor like Michael Gough playing the baddy . 20 years later we`d see stand up comics like Ken Dodd play these kind of parts !

So a fairly enjoyable video tape mainly down to the original episodes themselves