To ease the withdrawals, I decided to visit the classic Doctor Who seasons, broadcast between 1963 and 1989. (Doctor Who episodes since 2005 are nicknamed NuWho to differentiate them from the original shows).
When I was growing up the local Public Broadcast System stations had carried the early Doctors, and I can vaguely remember watching some of them on Saturday afternoons with my father. But, I couldn’t tell you which ones we’d watched. They were most likely from the time of the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker.
Besides that, I’d only seen a handful of episodes when I rented some DVDs from the local library a few years ago, so there was a vast amount of Classic Who waiting to be discovered.
As luck would have it, the Alameda County Library System has a huge collection of Doctor Who DVDs available.
On July 8th I took up the task to watch every Classic Doctor Who episode in order, from the pilot (An Unearthly Child) to Survival, when Doctor began what is known as “The Wilderness” by Doctor Who fans. At that point, the show went on a long 16 year hiatus, with only the American-based Doctor Who Movie (1996) to quench the thirsts of fans.
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On November 23, 1963 an event happened which would effect the world in years to come. The British Broadcasting Corporation premiered a brand new Saturday afternoon television program, Doctor Who. Cast as the lead role was veteran actor William Hartnell.
Ratings much lower than hoped for, along with a more famous event from that date, nearly scuttled the program as quickly as it began. Fortunately for us, BBC Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, had faith and didn’t cancel the show.
Originally, they had figured the show would run for only a few weeks. An addition to the Saturday children's programming time. they had no idea it would become the hit that it would, and so many people would be talking about the show nearly sixty years later!
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Here are my Top Five series from the William Hartnell era. To rank them I watched all available DVDs for those seasons which are still fully intact, along with fan reconstructions posted to the internet.
Unfortunately, the price of video tape was at a premium during the early years of Doctor Who, and the BBC management had a general feeling that once a show was broadcast, it would not be rebroadcast. As a result many first and second Doctor episodes were wiped for reuse in taping other programs.
Thanks to diehard Doctor Who fans who audio taped the sound, along with taking photographs off their TV screens, we have Recons, where the missing episodes were reconstructed to reflect what the show looked like. The recons made by Loose Canon Productions, are considered some of the best efforts out there.
My rankings are generally based upon story-line, and not production qualities.
1 - THE WEB PLANET – Probably not a Number One choice for many people. For me, the relationships between the regular cast and alien creatures works very well. It has a Magnificent Seven feeling to it.
2 – MARCO POLO – It’s really sad this is one of the series where the original episodes have been completely lost. The Recons give the richness of this series, and color production photos that exist portray all the glory of the sets, with their color and details.
3 – THE TENTH PLANET – Our introduction to the Cybermen, who might be my favorite of the major reoccurring bad buys. It’s entirely possible this one shows up as high as it does because of the recent reappearance of the Mondasian Cybermen in NuWho, with their heads looking more like something out of a surgical theater than a steel machine. The voices are creepier than the mechanical ones as well.
4 – THE CELESTIAL TOYMAKER – The Doctor and companions are in peril from a powerful enemy, who tantalizes them with the possibility of escape simply by solving some riddles or games. The unique part about this one is that the Companions take up most of the screen time, rather than the Doctor due to Hartnell being on vacation at the time of shooting.
5 – THE GUNFIGHTERS – I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people scratching their heads over this one, or saying I’m crazy. At first the ballad, which seemed to play every few minutes drove me up the wall. But, after a while it it grew on me. This episode is tight from beginning to end, and very unique compared to most historical Doctor Who series.
The remaining Hartnell Years series are listed below. It should be said that a good chunk of them are very close in ranking, and could easily have jumped places for very little reasoning. The bottom seven were definitely disappointments to me, and probably won’t be watched again unless there was a specific reason.
6 – The Daleks
7 – The Myth Makers
8 - The Aztecs
9 - The Savages
10 - The Reign of Terror
11 - The Time Meddler
12 - The Romans
13 - The Rescue
14 - The Crusade
15 - The Ark
16 - The Daleks’ Master Plan
17 - The Smugglers
18 - The Sensorites
19 - The Dalek Invasion of Earth
20 - The Chase
21 - The War Machines
22 - An Unearthly Child
23 - Galaxy 4
24 - Planet of Giants
25 - The Space Museum
26 - The Keys of Marinus
27 - The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve
28 - The Edge of Destruction
29 - Mission to the Unknown
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