10. The Hartnell Years (1963 - 1966)
BBC
The Episodes: All of the William Hartnell era.
The Problem: Limited production capabilities and William Hartnells failing health. When Doctor Who first started out, television production was very different to what it is today. While an episode of modern Doctor Who will often take around a month to shoot, in the 1960s each twenty-five minute episode had a strict production schedule of one week. Mondays through to Thursdays were earmarked for rehearsal while Friday would be the studio recording session where each episode was effectively recorded live with very few edits to cover mistakes being allowed. Despite the grand scope of Doctor Whos vision not being very well suited to this incredibly hectic method of production, the cast and crew soldiered on. But sadly, another production issue reared its head. William Hartnell was not a well man; suffering from arteriosclerosis which often caused him to fluff his lines. Meaning that other cast members would occasionally have to step in and improvise around his mistakes or failure to remember his cue. And because of the very limited production capabilities that Doctor Who was dealing with, a number of Hartnells mistakes would occasionally make it into the final edit as it wasnt possible to reshoot or edit around them. The most famous being his misremembering the line two cinders floating around in space as two cinders floating around in Spain at the end of Episode 6 of The Chase (1965).