The Daleks have been defeated yet
there’s little celebration outside the TARDIS on the banks of the River Thames.
Susan is in love with freedom fighter David Campbell (Peter Fraser) but refuses
to leave the Doctor. Unable to put words to her feelings, she vents instead
about her worn shoes, which the Doctor now clings to like life, stunned,
equally speechless. Susan had always wanted an identity, a place of her own,
but never really attained this in a series that mostly suppressed the alien otherness promised in the first episode and emphasised her girlish reliance on
Grandfather (it’s a reliance that constrains the Doctor’s character too, since
her safety remains his priority). Suddenly he knows all this. And so do we. We’ve
travelled in the TARDIS for an entire year, but this is the first time we
really travel inside the Doctor, tourists in his internal strife. The (British)
guard comes down revealing a glint of the Doctor’s later emotional intelligence. This is not a term the actor Hartnell would
have been familiar with (although it can be traced back to an obscure paper on
communication in 1964, it was popularised in the 1980s) yet his performance
exudes it. Double-locking the TARDIS doors he recovers his voice and his
prudence … and lets Susan go. | 
