Best way to watch Classic Who
Sora2311
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I'm getting into classic who and I'm wondering what is the best way to watch it?
Do I start with spearhead from space and watch it in chronological order all the way to the movie or skip some stories and just watch important ones
Do I start with spearhead from space and watch it in chronological order all the way to the movie or skip some stories and just watch important ones
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Starting with the Third doctor eh? Not a bad place to begin. I say stick with him throughout his run as you'll get to see all kinds of firsts for the show such as the intros to The Master, The Silurians, The Sontarans, and Sarah Jane Smith, and you'll get a multi-Doctor story in there too so you'll be brought up to speed on the first two Doctors.
Tom Baker's early years are classics, watch everything up to "Talons of Weing-Chiang", and then start getting very selective.
Spearhead from Space is a good story to see though, as it's a huge story in terms of significance. But then maybe skip a couple of stories to Inferno perhaps.
If you want to get really picky then The Daemons is possibly the most celebrated story of the 3rd Doctor's era (it was Jon Pertwee's favourite story too).
If any period deserves to be done in order then (as mentioned in the post above) it's the first few seasons of Tom Baker.
Three has some really great moments, and Pertwee did a good job, however, his portrayal did get a little turgid from time to time , best stories for me were Inferno, The Green Death, the Curse of Peladon and Spearhead from Space. The Master stories are ok but imo a little overrated, particularly The Daemons. Four you can't really go too badly wrong, even the bad stories were carried by Bakers superb portrayal and slapstick humour mixed in with seriousness (Genesis of the Daleks). But do check out the available Troughton stories, imo, not one of them was a bad one, even the Krotons! I have limited Hartnell experience as his Doctor never really interested me, but, The Daleks (the Dead Planet), The Romans, Dalek Invasion of Earth and the Chase are of particular note! Davison was ok, his stories were solid enough but, apart from Earthshock and Black Orchid and The Visitation few of them really burned bright! C Baker Underated imo, I loved his portrayal but he was the victim of, generally, poor writing. Revelation of the Daleks and Terror of the Vervoids were probably his best! McCoy, not a fan at all so, having little positive to say about his tenure, I'll stay quiet apart from saying Survival, Battlefield and Rememberance of the Daleks are passable!
Traditionally on a TV!
And I would start with episodes as early as possible and work my way onwards
I'm hoping that once I've finished the McCoy era I can go back and watch the Pertwee and Baker eras, but the longer stories of 6 or more parts will probably require me to break each episode up and watch them in small chunks. If I manage to finish this era, I will then probably watch some of the Hartnell and Troughton eras, but with the grainy black and white and the missing episodes, I may find this difficult.
I saw DW from 'almost' the beginning. But I love to re-watch them from time to time (moreso than the new ones).
I would watch the very first episode ('An Unearthly Child') and then choose one entire story from each Doctor's reign:-
(suggestions only)
Dr 1: The Daleks
Dr 2: Tomb of the Cybermen
Dr 3: Inferno
Dr 4: City of Death
Dr 5: Earthshock
Dr 6: Mark of the Rani
Dr 7: Remembrance of the Daleks
Failing that, I don't think chronological viewing is necessarily a requirement. Maybe find any top 100 whatsoever and watch the top 10 from 10 to 1, then the rest of the top 20 from 20 to 10, etc?
I've got all of the 3 Revisitations boxsets, the Beneath The Surface boxset, plus City of Death and . What to watch first?! Think I'll probably jump in with City of Death, got to love a bit of quirky Baker, and as much as I love "my doctor" Tom Baker and will be tempted to watch all of his stories first I'll watch the rest chronologically apart from Tomb of the Cybermen which I watched fairly recently on Netflix. I don't think I've ever actually seen Seeds of Death, The Silurians or the Three Doctors although I had the Target book of the Silurians.
Short episodes, terrible effects and some dodgy acting - bring it on! I'm a child of the 70s and grew up with Classic Who so hopefully it won't be too much of a culture shock.
:):)