We’re going back to the beginning of Doctor Who. All the way back. Welcome to The First Eight – The Roarbots’ classic Doctor Who watchthrough. We’re going through the 50+ year history of the Doctor Who franchise in chronological order.

This is not a “rewatch”; I’m watching these shows fresh. For the first time. I’ll do my best to leave preconceptions at the door, but I have no baggage at all that pertains to pre-Ninth Doctor reboot.

Want to watch along or catch up on classic Who on your own terms? Check out BritBox, which has every existing episode available for instant streaming.

Much has been written about classic Doctor Who. Too much, probably. I’m not here to write an authoritative history or connect all the dots among the characters, planets, and eras of the franchise. I’m simply here to correct one of my most flagrant Geeky Blind Spots. And I hope you’ll join me on the journey. There’s only 26 seasons and 8 Doctors to catch up on. Easy peasy.

Well, it certainly didn’t take us very long to encounter the most iconic of all Doctor Who villains: the Daleks.

Welcome to Skaro . . . for the first time. This is where it all begins, for realsies. The Doctor has no idea who the Daleks are when they meet, and vice versa. The Daleks, for their part, take to just referring to The Doctor as “the old man.” I think that’s fair.

“The Daleks” is the first of the longer classic Who stories with seven episodes, a common length for the first few Doctors, giving the whole story a runtime of just over three hours. It’s composed of the following episodes:

• “The Dead Planet” (December 21, 1963)
• “The Survivors” (December 28, 1963)
• “The Escape” (January 4, 1964)
• “The Ambush” (January 11, 1964)
• “The Expedition” (January 18, 1964)
• “The Ordeal” (January 25, 1964)
• “The Rescue” (February 1, 1964)

If you recall, The Doctor and his captives . . . er, companions, left the Stone Age during the previous episode and arrived at a new and exciting planet. Said planet happens to be loopy with radiation, but they don’t notice the convenient TARDIS Geiger counter going a little nutso in the danger zone.

“He seems to have a knack for getting himself in trouble.”

Apparently, The Doctor has only the most rudimentary ability to pilot the TARDIS. Ian and Barbara are convinced he can’t control where it goes, and Susan claims he’s just too “forgetful” to do anything right.

Okay, then.

Anyway, the gang heads out to explore the planet. They’ve landed in what appears to be a petrified forest, and it takes just a few minutes for The Doctor to declare the entire planet totally lifeless. Well, turns out there’s quite a lot of life on the planet. There are the Daleks, there’s an entire separate race of people known as the Thals, and there’s a “Lake of Mutations” in which irradiated mutant monsters dwell.

Hm. How awkward. For The Doctor, I mean. You know, the one who’s supposed to be an unsurpassed genius and wise in the ways of space-time travel.

But no bother. None of his companions bothers to call him out on this, especially since they’re all so busy antagonizing one another. Seriously, the group dynamic goes from bad to worse here. The Doctor flat-out refuses to listen to Ian or Barbara’s concerns and actually goes so far as to sabotage the TARDIS so they’re forced outside to explore the “dead city.”

What I found interesting here is that although this storyline does deepen The Doctor’s character a bit (he’s more scientifically minded and curious), it also establishes Ian as our hero. That’s right, our Companion in a Cardigan steps up, takes the lead, and is really the only character to show believable levels of empathy, compassion, and curiosity.

He’s also the only one asking rational questions. For example? When they first discover evidence of life on the planet, he asks, “What form does this intelligence take?” I think that’s a valid question to ask when you suddenly find yourself on an unknown planet. The Doctor? He dismisses Ian’s concern and gets frustrated with him for even asking it.

Okay, then.

Anyway, our first glimpse of the Daleks comes at the end of the first episode of the serial. The episode ends with a shot of a terrified Barbara as the camera approaches with a POV shot down a toilet plunger. The Daleks have arrived.

Their voices and design are almost exactly the same as they are today. It’s really quite remarkable how something so relatively basic has remained unchanged for more than half a century.

But the plunger worked! The ratings for this serial skyrocketed. The first episode had 6.9 million viewers, and it went up from there. The last episode saw 10.4 million people tune in. And the Daleks have appeared in almost every season of Doctor Who since. I guess if it ain’t broke . . .

The Daleks here, however, are not the same Daleks that they would come to be. They are not a master race of intergalactic conquerors. They’re . . . well, they’re completely reliant on static electricity to move and are confined to their city. Susan and Ian literally take one down with a handful of mud. They turn out to be a formidable foe (capable of paralyzing or killing you with a single laser shot), but they’re hardly the terrifying nemesis they’d later become.

All of the main plot points are resolved (more or less) by the fourth episode. The gang has recovered from their radiation sickness, they’ve escaped from the Daleks, and they’ve made it back to the TARDIS. However, this is a 7-part serial. What does that mean? It means we’re going on a wild goose chase for the TARDIS’s missing “fluid link,” and we’re returning to the city by way of a way circuitous route through a swamp and cave. Oh, and we’re taking along the Thals for good measure.

This all serves to draw out the story over three more-or-less unnecessary episodes. To underscore this, the characters all flip-flop their positions. Until now, exchanges went something like this:

Doctor: “Let’s stay and explore!”
Everyone else: “No! We need to leave!”

Now? For some reason, it’s changed to this:

Doctor: “We need to leave!”
Everyone else: “No! Let’s stay and help the Thals!”

However, we are treated to a couple golden nuggets of wisdom from the Thals. Turns out The Doctor’s granddaughter was the original teenage pop star, as Susan is described as “no longer a child; not yet a woman.” (Thank you, Britney Spears.)

More seriously, though, the “transformation” of the Thals from extreme pacifists to a group willing to fight for its survival is poignant in its own way. Alydon, the leader of the Thals, remarks, “There is no indignity in being afraid to die, but there is a terrible shame in being afraid to live.”

That line alone almost made the three mostly superfluous final episodes of this story worthwhile. Almost.

This episode hits on both high notes and moments of boredom for a modern audience. This is an issue we will doubtless encounter again, and I’m sure some episodes will fare worse than “The Daleks.” For all of its flaws, this is a solid moment of Doctor Who history.