Doctor Who: 24 Doctors Ranked From Worst To Best

8. The First Doctor

Without Hartnell there may not be a show today, so he's still pretty popular in the part. However, the Doctor was not actually the lead initially, that role falling to Ian, the Doctor being the grumpy foil, designed to get our heroes into trouble as much as anything else. In the first story he was going to kill an injured caveman until Ian stopped him and his lying almost got them all killed in the city of the Daleks. However, this Doctor mellowed over time. He had a sweet dalliance with Cameca in The Aztecs and was well on his way to being the heroic crusader by the second Dalek tale. Hartnell also displayed a fine comic touch, his incarnation becoming more humorous and likeable. Alas, Hartnell's declining health tested his patience and his memory, making his frailty all too obvious on screen. He remains the source of all that follow, however.