Should this be watched before or after..

Would this be a good time to start watching the original series from the beginning?

I have only really watched the first 10 years of the Original Series myself, so I by no means an expert, I will try to offer some general advice, but you might be better off asking for recommendations on the 1963 version or 2005 version Message boards

That would honestly depend on how you feel about Older TV programs, for all intents and purposes the 1963 version is a totally different show, it is important to treat it as the show is was, not compare it to the 2005 version. There are over 600 epiodes of the Classic Series so It is a very big time commitment, not everyone who watches the Classic Series can get into it, so don't feel any shame if it is not to your taste.

I haven't watched over half of the Classics so I can't offer too many recommendations but people seem to either start with the first serial of the Classic Series 'An Unearthly Child' starring William Hartnell as the First Doctor (it was filmed in Black and White and is a historical story involving Cavemen, it isn't that great to be honest, the next serial 'The Daleks' introduces, yep the Daleks and is much better) , or 'Spearhead From Space' (featuring The Autons (the creatures in the 2005 episode 'Rose' the third Doctors first story (filmed in colour, in his last story 'The War Games' the Second Doctor was exiled to Earth by the Timelords and forced to Regenerate, most of the Third Doctors tenure was spent on contemporary Earth assisting UNIT with Alien invasions).

If you watch either of these stories and find neither to your liking it might be best asking on another forum for a 'best of list' of stories to watch.


The Classic Series was:

-Famously low budget, so many of the effects aliens and props look very dated (though there have been 'special editions' of some of the stories released on DVD, with updated effects and deleted scenes etc)

-Very few of the Classic Serials were filmed abroad (less than five I think) so 'Alien' environments are mostly confined to the UK.

-Mostly shot on Videotape, so don't expect HD picture quality!

-Much less reliance on the Sonic Screwdriver (which isn't invented until the 2nd Doctor I think) and 'timey-wimey' storylines, the storylines are often slower and simpler, with a greater emphasis on character development and exploration rather than action or plot twists in my opinion. Since each serial was a multi parter each episode ends with a cliffhanger, and many of the serials can fill padded and stretched out as a result(It is important to remember the serials were originally show at the rate of one or two episodes a week, so it could take over a month before viewers watched the whole storyline, so if you marathon a serial you could be watching for anywhere between 90 minutes and four hours!)

-With one exception the Doctors in the Classic Series were all 40+ years old, and seem to play the part as more of an eccentric (though not in the same way as Matt Smith's emphasis on quirky behavior and body language), somewhat mysterious/dangerous Parental figure to their companion (Peter Capaldi the Doctor in Series 8 of the new version onwards very much hearkens back to the style of the early doctors in the Classic Series- mysterious, chaste, older fiercer and much less 'user friendly' ) rather than the more heroic 'action figure' or 'boyfriend' seen in the new series. There is no romance between the Doctor and any of his companions in the Classic Series (Paul McGann in the 1996 TV film was the first Doctor to kiss someone on screen).

-The Timewar and destruction of Gallifrey was invented for the 2005 series and takes place mostly offscreen between the 1996 TV film and the 2005 series so the Doctor in the Classic Series is just a wanderer in time and space, not a warrior or the last of his kind. Timelords and Gallifrey are very much present in the lore and Background of the Classic Series though they haven't played a very big part in the stories I've watched so far, and information about them is only gradually introduced to the viwer (The Master makes his first appearance in 1971, Gallifrey is named until 1976 etc)

-Most of the companions seem fairly generic, often only there to scream at monsters and ask questions to the Doctor, and there is hardly any emphasis placed on a companion's home life. That's not to say character development isn't present, just don't expect anywhere near the amount of emphasis as in the New Series, almost all the companions are full time (i.e they travel with the Doctor continually, then leave to be replaced by another-not like the 11th Doctor travelling with Clara only part of the time) and aren't all modern day-there are alien companions, and human companions from the distant past and far future. There is often more than one companion at a time.

-The Entirety of the 1st and 2nd Doctors (1963-1969) was filmed in Black and White, and many of the episodes are missing (the BBC 'wiped' its copies of many of the serials for storage purposes) so it is impossible to watch every episode as first broadcast, though the soundtracks for the missing episodes have been released on CD (i.e you can hear the dialogue and sound effects as broadcast, with linking narration describing some of the missing visuals) and there are DVD reconstructions of some of the missing episodes (i.e. production/set photos and animation to replace the missing video footage).

-The First and Second Doctors had some 'pure historical' stories with no aliens or sci-fi other than the Tardis and the Doctor and his companions ie a story set in the Roman era.

-Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart (his daughter Kate is introduced in the 2012 Matt Smith episode 'The Power Of Three') a senior commander in U.N.I.T makes his first appearance in the 1968 story 'The Web of Fear' and is a semi regular character in the Classic Series there after from wiki:

Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, CMG,[2] CBE,[3] DSO,[4] generally and affectionally referred to simply as the Brigadier, is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, created by writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln and played by Nicholas Courtney.[5] He is one of the founders of UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, later Unified Intelligence Taskforce), an international organization that defends Earth from alien threats, and serves as commander of the British contingent. Presented at first as reticent to accept the continuing aid of the Doctor, over time the Brigadier became one of the Doctor's greatest friends and his principal ally in defending the Earth.

As one of the series' most prominent recurring characters over its fifty-year history, the Brigadier appeared in 23 stories during the original run of Doctor Who, first appearing in the 1968 serial The Web of Fear opposite Patrick Troughton. The character became a semi-regular on the series with the introduction of third Doctor Jon Pertwee in 1970's Spearhead from Space. His final appearance in the program was in 1989's Battlefield opposite Sylvester McCoy. Nearly 20 years later, the character returned in the spin-off programme The Sarah Jane Adventures in late 2008.[6] Following Courtney's death in 2011, however, the character was retired through a line of dialogue in the Doctor Who episode "The Wedding of River Song" as the Doctor is informed by telephone that his friend had died peacefully in his sleep. The 2012 episode "The Power of Three" officially introduces the Brigadier's daughter, Kate Stewart, as UNIT's scientific adviser; she was originally introduced in the unlicensed video spin-off Downtime in 1995, in which the Brigadier also appeared, and later played the same role in the fiftieth anniversary episode "The Day of the Doctor"

-The Third Doctor was originally exiled to Earth by the timelords, so most of his tenure is spent on then contemporary earth assisting U.N.I.T with Alien Invasions etc. From the Third Doctor onwards the Classic Series is filmed in Colour and features more outside location filming.

-All of the Classic Series serials were Novelized and released as paperback books (see below), these often differed to the TV versions quite alot. Terrence Dicks, a writer and Script Editor of the Classic Series ended up writing most of them, although most are out of print, many have been relead as audiobooks.


Wikipedia has a list of Doctor Who episodes in Chronological order:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_serials

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_special_Doctor_Who_episodes

But I am kind of hungry for more

Well, you'll be happy to know Doctor Who has much much more than the Tv series to its name, (but again I haven't read/listened to or watched most of this) although some of this material is directly produced or licensed by the BBC many fans don't consider such material canon (Personally I do-there are some brilliant stories in the books and audios it would a be shame to disregard them).

The Official view of Steven Moffat (Doctor Who's current showrunner) is that as Doctor Who is a show about Timetravel it is impossible for it to have a canon, the implication being that it is left up to the viewer, though this material is hardly ever referenced to in the TV series (I recall reading, that as the BBC is publicly funded, it has a rule stating no program may directly reference secondary material in the same canon (i.e. books, radio programs based on the program) that haven't been broadcast on the BBC- it would be unfair for an audience's enjoyment/understanding of a show to depend on purchasing material from another company etc, I don't know if this is true though).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_spin-offs

-Two of the 1960's Dalek stories (The Chase and 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' were remade as feature films starring Peter Cushion as the Doctor, though in these films Doctor Who is an eccentric Human scientist from earth, not a timelord and the inventor of the Tardis and generally aren't counted as part of the same continuity as the TV show:


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059126/


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060278/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_40


There have been hundreds of Doctor Who novels and novellas:


http://www.drwhoguide.com/books.htm

(This is only valid to 2013, new books have been published since)


And numerous Radio Plays and Audiobooks, many of which produced by Big Finish Productions (Big Finish currently only has the rights to the First 8 Doctors):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_audio_plays_by_Big_Finish


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_audiobooks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_audio_releases

http://www.bigfinish.com/hubs/v/doctor-who



There is a website which makes an attempt to list all the stories from every Doctor (including Books, Comics, TV episodes, Radio Plays) etc chronologically in one continuity, though I couldn't offer any advice as to how accurate it is:

http://www.eyespider.freeserve.co.uk/drwho/compleat.html

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