Doctor Who: 10 Reasons David Bradley Should Star In More First Doctor Adventures

6. More Hartnell Than Hurndall

Cast your mind back to 'The Five Doctors'. With Bill Hartnell sadly having shuffled off this mortal coil in the interim, they sent for Richard Hurndall to fill his impeccably polished shoes. And the result? Dickie basically reprising some of 'Hartnell's Greatest Hits'. The mannerisms were there. The costume was present and correct. But it wasn't Bill and we all knew it. Watch 'An Adventure In Time And Space' though and David Bradley does a considerably better job of inhabiting the Victorian smoking jacket. So-having played the man behind the Doctor it makes perfect sense to allow David the chance to play the Doctor in future new adventures. In a nod to his 'Time And Space' role he could even later be revealed as a clone of the First. Think back also to 'The Chase' and that dastardly Dalek plot to use a robot duplicate to infiltrate the TARDIS. What if there was an alternate timeline where the Doctor was plucked from his trusty police box and replaced with the robot in the aftermath? Give it a few episodes and Ian, Barbara and Vicki could easily work out a plan to rescue the real one before the metal doppelganger gets chance to carry out its mission. Two roles for Bradley in a nod to Hartnell's duality (he provided the robot's voice) could work well. Or if they wanted to go down the purely historical route the Abbot of Amboise could be dusted off. The Huguenot-hating cleric would represent a great chance for David to showcase his villainous side, as he's done playing Mr Filch in 'Harry Potter' and indeed Solomon in 'Dinosaurs On A Spaceship'-which throws up a third possibility. What if the rogue trader had met the Doctor many years before his tangle with the Eleventh Doctor?