10 Greatest Speeches In Doctor Who History
8. "History Gives Us A Terrible Shock" (The Massacre)
The Massacre is a Doctor Who historical tragedy on multiple levels. Firstly, it depicts the lead-up to horrific sectarian violence in 16th century France, and secondly, the serial is completely lost from the BBC archives.
Audio recordings and telesnaps still exist, so thankfully we can still get a sense of Hartnell's phenomenal soliloquy about why the Doctor cannot intervene in historical tragedy, and his lamentation over the companions that have left him:
"I dare not change the course of history... now they're all gone. All gone. None of them could understand. Not even my little Susan, or Vicki. And as for Barbara and Chesterton. They were all too impatient to get back to their own time. And now, Steven. Perhaps I should go home, back to my own planet. But I can't. I can't."
It's a beautiful combination of the arguments with Barbara in The Aztecs, and the tender goodbye speech he delivers to Susan in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Hartnell was infamous for fluffing his lines, but here he delivers the speech with such conviction and an undercurrent of genuine sadness. It's a welcome reminder of what a great actor William Hartnell actually was.