How Do You Start Watching Classic Doctor Who?

Classic Doctor Who can seem intimidating to dive in to for those who haven't so, what is the best way to do it?

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[RightTurnClyde]

I was lucky enough to be a kid through the golden age - the Pertwee and Tom Baker years. I recommend the shit out of that.

[highvoltage]

I think watching in order is the best way. There is character development for some of the Doctors and companions. Like the 1st Doctor in An unearthly child is not the same then he is in The Tenth planet. You don’t get that when you jump around.

[sebastianesilva]

Started off with modern Who and then dove into the classic era. Pertwee was my jumping on point and worked my way from there, eventually becoming a big fan of the 3rd and 4th Doctor's eras especially.
At first the dated visuals and general wonkiness were a shock but after I adjusted my mindset to thinking of them more as "filmed theatre shows" (rather than as something that a modern person understands about how TV shows are produced) then I got super hooked.

[jayblake]

Being here in the States, my first intro was Tom Baker. This happened during the end of the Davidson era, so we rolled right into the 5th. Then it was back to Pertwee and Tom. I think had I started with Hartnell or Troughton, I probably wouldn’t have made it to Tom.

[LloydEWatson]

Genesis of the Daleks was the first classic Doctor Who story I watched, followed by Tomb of the Cybermen and The Daleks. Its fair to say I was hooked after watching those.

[overtheoverseer]

I'd always suggest starting with Season 12, as Tom Baker's first 3 seasons are easily the most accessible of the classic era.

Once you've seen the best Doctor Who has to offer, I feel you're going to be more forgiving going back to the beginning and dealing with the slower paced stories. The same applies with 80s Who, when the quality dipped dramatically.

[shenysys]

For the 40th anniversary of Dr Who, the ABC in Australia played every (available ) episode from very first one.
Also they didn't show the Dalek stories as the BBC were in a copyright dispute with the Terry Nation estate at the time.

[emmettpickerel]

My first introduction was in 1984: The Pirate Planet. It's towards the end of Tom's time, and in the middle of a season-long arc, and I think that just added to the attraction: realising that I was toeing into the edge of something epic. Written by Douglas Adams, it's also just a fantastic story by itself.

I'd also say that if you possibly can, get the older stories in episode format rather than spliced together. The pacing is very much designed for that.

[DavidFraser]

It started for me at the beginning, I don't remember the episodes, but just being scared at aged 4 watching Dr Who on a little black and white telly back in 1963. The Doctor was a bossy authority figure and I loved him. There were still still Police boxes around and I dreamed about getting in to one and finding the tardis. It all seemed very real to me.

[timaustin]

Most of my early experience of classic Who was during the Wilderness Years.

I'd watched the Colin and Sylv era as a young child in the 80s and was devastated when it didn't come back. I met fans at high school who introduced me to the earlier classics but there wasn't any joined up thinking to video releases and they didnt have anywhere near everything so I, like you, Wingy, jumped all over the place.

One day it would be Daleks Invasion of Earth, the next Earthshock then suddenly it would be a telesnap reconstruction of Evil of the Daleks!

It was crazy.

It all worked out in the end, though ☺️

Seriously, though, you're right: if you can accept the difference in speed and tone, start from Hartnell and work forward.

[agtv]

My introduction to classic who was a bit varied -

1st Doctor: The Daleks (Part 7)
2nd Doctor: The Mind Robber (Part 2)
3rd Doctor: Inferno (Part 3)
4th Doctor: Destiny Of The Daleks (Part 1)
5th Doctor: Ressurection Of The Daleks (Part 3)
6th Doctor: Attack Of The Cybermen (Part 1)
7th Doctor: The Happiness Patrol (Part 1)

Yeah I caught most of those on the horror channel (remember when that was a thing!) during the 50th anniversary.

[petergeyer]

I first got into classic Who in the early 80s, watching it late Sunday nights on PBS. In the 90s I started watching more regularly as the local PBS started showing episodes in order from Hartnell through McCoy. What hooked me was receiving a VHS set of “The Invasion of Time” that Amazon had sent to me by mistake. From then on, I started collecting the DVDs, and now I have them all. I love each Doctor as a snapshot of the era in Britain he comes from.

[leoj]

britbox is an absolute steal, u get all of it and other shows for you to watch. But nothing can beat booting up the dvd and seeing the Tardis doors open into the menu screen

[dngillikin]

I started in September 1979 when a run of Tom Baker stories from "Robot" to "The Invasion of Time" was syndicated in my market. It wasn't popular and was removed from the schedule by mid-1980. They tried airing the same package again in the Summer of 1983, and it flopped again. Halfway across the country for University, I managed to catch showings of "The Three Doctors" and "The Five Doctors" at a convention. After that, it was what I could see on out of state vacations or could pick up through the snow late night summertime tropospheric long-distance signal skips. Finally, in 1991, I moved to a market where DOCTOR WHO was a fixture on local PBS. They would cycle repeatedly from Pertwee through McCoy. So, I made off-air recordings that I would gradually replace with official VHS, DVD, and now Blu-Rays.

For a modern audience, I tend to recommend starting with either "Spearhead" (because it's a soft reboot) or "Robot, " run through sequentially, then cycle back to Hartnell and Troughton until you reach the point where you started your journey.

[forkinhell]

My older brother was a fan and watched it religiously. Just hearing the theme tune was enough to make me scream my head off. Eventually I was brave enough to actually sit and watch it. That was early Pertwee when I started and I watched it all the way till mid Capaldi when it just wasn't for me anymore. Personally I'd pick one story from each doctor and see if you get a gut reaction to one in particular, then go from there.

[alecshelmerdine]

I have a very vague memory of the vervoids bursting out of their pods in the trial of a timelord from when it was first on TV. After that my first classic stories would have been: Day of the Daleks, Terror of the Zygons and the Seeds of Death on VHS, then Time and the Rani and McCoy's first season on TV. I suppose that's why I've always loved the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Doctors the most, they were essentially my first Doctors.

[petefischer]

PBS had Inferno on and followed along with Pertwee with pauses to run "new" episodes from Davidson's first season. That with my well loved Programme Guide and then my thirst for Target Novelizations, I was quick to catch up.

[NPS]

I started with Logopolis and Remembrance of the Daleks but I think you should start with:
- Choose a Doctor
- An Unearthly Child
- Spearhead From Space
Random episodes to watch:
- The War Machines
- The Macra Terror
- City of Death
- Pyramids of Mars
- Earthshock
- The Happiness Patrol
- The Movie

[jogumby]

A friend of mine and I came back from a night of drinking, flipped on the television and this show called the Arc in Space was on public television. The special effects were bad but the story and actors drew us in anyhow. The next week my friend called and said, "Hey, you know that thing we were watching drunk last week? Turns out it's a series! You gotta see this!". The rest was as we say, history!

[bonedrone]

I picked one highly regarded story for each Doctor and watched them in chronological order. That gave me a good impression of each Doctor/era while also getting to see a (condensed version of) the show's evolution.