Doctor Who: William Hartnell Would Enjoy Peter Capaldi’s Doctor

Last week, my wife and I rewatched the 2013 Doctor Who docu-film, An Adventure in Space and Time. I’d just concluded watching the First Doctor‘s era all the way through, so I wanted to revisit the movie and watch it through fresh eyes. I was struck by a thought as I watched, though: for all the criticisms that Peter Capaldi has received for his performance thus far, I think William Hartnell would appreciate his portrayal.

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Of course, An Adventure in Space and Time is just a movie; there’s no way to know 100% how the real William Hartnell thought and behaved. Like any biographical film, writer Mark Gatiss had to do the best he could with the information available. Likewise with actor David Bradley; his appearance and performance are uncanny when compared to the hours of First Doctor footage we have available, but Hartnell’s behavior off-camera is more difficult to pin down.

The moments that made me begin to compare the two Doctors were centered around Hartnell’s complaints about the way the Doctor was written. In the first pilot that was filmed, the Doctor was very gruff and lacked any spirit of adventure or whimsy. Hartnell complains to producer Verity Lambert, asking, “Where’s the twinkle?” Once creator Sydney Newman gets a look at the finished episode, he agrees, and tells Lambert and director Waris Hussein to re-film the entire pilot.

In the new version of ‘An Unearthly Child’ that we all know and love, the Doctor is still stern and stubborn, but he has a playful side as well — a “twinkle,” if you will. Looking back at Series 8, I think much the same could be said of Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor. He’s gruff and irritable, but beneath that veneer lies a spirit of adventure — the same twinkle that Hartnell captured so well.

If Hartnell were alive today, I’m not sure he would approve of the modern Doctor Who. In his time, it was ostensibly a children’s program, and Hartnell would likely be turned off by the show’s more adult themes (god forbid he ever watch Torchwood).

At first, I don’t think he would care for Capaldi’s performance either. In ‘Deep Breath,’ (the Twelfth Doctor’s first full episode), the Doctor is fresh from his regeneration, and he’s exceedingly cold and uncaring. But as the series runs on, that twinkle begins to show through. It’s an evolution of the Doctor’s character — a more modern storytelling device, as opposed to the television shows of the 1960s, when characters were tied to their archetypes and not allowed to grow and change.

In looking at the trailer for the upcoming Series 9 and reading comments from Capaldi and the cast, it seems as though the Doctor will be continuing to evolve in upcoming stories, losing more of his gruff exterior and regaining his sense of fun and adventure. I think Hartnell would approve of that Doctor, as it’s much like his own: smart, calculating, and tough-as-nails, but with an intrepid spirit of daring and excitement — and just a dash of twinkle.

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