Help a new Whovian

The first complete episode of Doctor Who I ever watched was the first episode of the Davies/Eccelston relaunch. I’m now hooked, lined and sinkered. I’m looking for guidance about when and where to start watching the classic run. Please vote in the form below, and I’ll try to make the results public so that other readers of a similar mindset can get the same information.

12 replies on “Help a new Whovian”

  1. Bear in mind when watching the classic show that the best guide to the series is called The Discontinuity Guide.

  2. Since the first episode that you saw was “Rose”, you should start with “Terror of the Autons” – a really classic episode and your link to the past.

    Watching the first episode of “The Unearthly Child” is really a pilgrimage.

  3. Thanks! I’m in much the same boat as you are.
    though I’d suggest adding “don’t bother” as an option to each season, as that’s what I’ve always heard about paul mcgann

  4. Don’t bother with the McGann movie. It’s not Doctor Who at all.

    Much like a lot of the relaunch series, actually.

    Unfortunately not all the stories listed still exist anymore – The Power of the Daleks is an amazing story, but doesn’t exist in complete form on film anywhere anybody knows about it. You can get it as an audio production though, which is still good, and the novelisation is also worth reading.

    There are a lot of stories in the original run, obviously due to its length, so I’ll just glance through my Doctor Who DVDs and pick out the best, and add a few others if I think of them:

    The Dalek Invasion of Earth
    The Time Meddler
    The Ark In Space
    Genesis of the Daleks
    Earthshock
    The Caves of Androzani
    The Mark of the Rani
    The Trial of a Time Lord (the entire season)
    Remembrance of the Daleks (the last Dalek story before Ecclestone)
    Battlefield (it’s silly, but fun)
    The Curse of Fenric

  5. I’ve noticed that some episodes no longer exist. (I also put together this guide to help me track how available the stories are.) I picked up “Doctor Who: The Beginnings,” but that’s clearly very dated. My favorite of the three recent Doctors has been Tennant, because he played the character as still being filled with wonder and amazement about the things he’s seeing. That wasn’t the Doctor Hartnell played. I’m hoping to pin down an era to start with by each Doctor’s most popular outing and going from there, watching much of that Doctor and then moving on.

    And for those like Hitch and I, I’ll wait to get a few more respondants and then post the results so we all have that guide.

  6. I’ve always enjoyed the season that Tom Baker and Romana sought the Key to Time. It starts with The Ribos Oberation and ends with The Armageddon Factor and the Doctor flipping off an ersatz God.

    “An Unearthly Child” holds up well, but the f/x from the Hartnell era often fail even by BBC standards:

  7. What I did was to watch An Unearthly Child, because I wanted to see how it all began. Then, I picked a few things I liked and followed those, obviously, the Daleks stuck out. So I went and downloaded all the Dalek episodes, which gave me at least one per doctor. I then followed that up with Cybermen, and then picked a few other things that caught my attention. K9’s first appearance being one of them, and then the whole Key to Time season. Now, we’re following my wife’s idea and watching it from the first episode on. We’ll be starting season ten (middle Third Doctor) the next round.

    And quit dissin’ Paul McGann! He’s my favorite doctor, mostly for all of his Big Finish plays.

    • I should also point out I started the same way. I got the Internet leak of “Rose”, and it was the first episode I’ve seen of any of Who. I loved it so much I watched it a second time right away. It was late, so I went to bed, and then when I got it up I watched it again. I followed that by watching An Unearthly Child. I didn’t get to watching “The Daleks” until later, when the episode “Dalek” aired.

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