Doctor Who: The Classic Series Episode Guide – 1963-1969

The opening season establishes the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara as reluctant travelling companions. Its alternating science-fiction and historical adventures create a remarkably flexible format, while the arrival of the Daleks gives the fledgling programme its first cultural phenomenon.

Story 1: An Unearthly Child – 4 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

Teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright investigate their exceptionally intelligent pupil Susan Foreman and follow her to a junkyard. There they discover Susan’s mysterious grandfather, the Doctor, and a police box containing considerably more than standard police equipment before being transported into humanity’s distant past.

Story 2: The Daleks – 7 Episodes

The TARDIS lands in a petrified forest beside a seemingly deserted metal city, where radiation sickness places the travellers in serious danger. Inside, they encounter the Daleks and the peaceful Thals, establishing a conflict that will echo throughout the programme’s history.

Story 3: The Edge of Destruction – 2 Episodes

An explosion inside the TARDIS leaves its occupants confused, suspicious and apparently trapped aboard a dying ship. With no external monster to blame, the compact psychological drama forces the four travellers to confront their growing mistrust of one another.

Story 4: Marco Polo – 7 Episodes

Stranded in Central Asia with a damaged TARDIS, the travellers join Marco Polo’s caravan on its journey to the court of Kublai Khan. Political intrigue and the warlord Tegana’s secret plans turn the long historical journey into a test of patience, loyalty and the Doctor’s temper.

Archive note: All seven episodes are missing. The complete soundtrack and photographic material allow the story to be experienced as a reconstruction.

Story 5: The Keys of Marinus – 6 Episodes

The travellers are sent across the planet Marinus to recover four missing keys capable of operating a powerful machine. Its quest structure produces several distinct miniature adventures, moving from hypnotic cities and frozen wastes to jungle laboratories and a futuristic courtroom.

Story 6: The Aztecs – 4 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

Barbara is mistaken for the reincarnation of an Aztec priest when the TARDIS becomes trapped inside a sealed tomb. Believing that she can prevent human sacrifice and change the civilisation’s fate, she enters a serious moral conflict with the Doctor over whether history can or should be rewritten.

Story 7: The Sensorites – 6 Episodes

A human spacecraft is held motionless near the Sense-Sphere by telepathic aliens who fear that its crew poses a threat. Susan’s developing abilities draw the travellers into negotiations between frightened communities, making this an early attempt to resolve an apparent alien menace through understanding.

Story 8: The Reign of Terror – 6 Episodes

The Doctor and his companions arrive near Paris during the most violent phase of the French Revolution. Separated amid prisons, executions and competing political factions, they must navigate real historical danger without a Dalek or ray gun in sight.

Archive note: Episodes 4 and 5 are missing from the archive and have been officially reconstructed in animation.

The second season builds upon the programme’s success with larger adventures, more confident humour and several changes to the TARDIS crew. The Daleks return on a far grander scale, while Vicki brings renewed curiosity to the increasingly close-knit group.

Story 9: Planet of Giants – 3 Episodes

A malfunction reduces the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara to roughly the size of insects in a seemingly ordinary English garden. Everyday objects become enormous hazards as the travellers uncover a murder and a dangerous new pesticide.

Story 10: The Dalek Invasion of Earth – 6 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The TARDIS returns to London, but the city has been devastated and occupied by Daleks. The resistance struggle gives the programme its first large-scale invasion story and forces the Doctor’s family to confront the possibility that travelling together cannot continue forever.

Story 11: The Rescue – 2 Episodes

On the planet Dido, orphaned Vicki and the injured Bennett are terrorised by a hostile creature called Koquillion. The Doctor recognises that the situation is not what it appears, while Barbara and Ian discover that good intentions can be surprisingly destructive.

Story 12: The Romans – 4 Episodes

The travellers enjoy an apparently relaxing stay in ancient Rome until kidnapping and mistaken identity separate them. The Doctor becomes entangled with Emperor Nero, while Ian and Barbara face decidedly less amusing dangers in one of the programme’s earliest comic historical adventures.

Story 13: The Web Planet – 6 Episodes

The TARDIS is pulled down to the planet Vortis, where the insectoid Menoptera and ant-like Zarbi are controlled by a mysterious force. Visually experimental and thoroughly strange, the serial attempts to create an entirely alien society within the spatial limits of a BBC studio.

Story 14: The Crusade – 4 Episodes

The TARDIS arrives during the Third Crusade, placing the travellers between the courts of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. Political calculation and Barbara’s repeated attempts to escape captivity give the story a more mature tone than its adventurous setting initially suggests.

Archive note: Episodes 2 and 4 are missing. No complete official animated reconstruction has been released.

Story 15: The Space Museum – 4 Episodes

After seeing themselves displayed as exhibits in a museum, the travellers realise that they have glimpsed a possible future. Avoiding that fate requires them to navigate a rebellion against the ruling Moroks, with the usually quiet Vicki proving considerably more revolutionary than expected.

Story 16: The Chase – 6 Episodes

The Daleks acquire their own time machine and pursue the TARDIS through locations including a haunted house, a sailing ship and the Empire State Building. The result is an energetic, uneven chase that places the original human companions within tantalising reach of home.

Story 17: The Time Meddler – 4 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The Doctor, Vicki and new companion Steven arrive in Northumbria shortly before the Battle of Stamford Bridge. A meddling monk equipped with suspiciously advanced technology intends to rewrite English history, giving the Doctor his first encounter with another member of his own civilisation.

The third season is ambitious, frequently dark and heavily affected by missing material. Companions come and go at considerable speed, while the immense Daleks’ Master Plan pushes the programme towards consequences rarely seen in its earlier adventures.

Story 18: Galaxy 4 – 4 Episodes

The travellers land on a dying planet where the beautiful Drahvins claim to be threatened by the reptilian Rills. The Doctor is less inclined to trust appearances, particularly when both stranded groups are competing to escape before the planet explodes.

Archive note: Only Episode 3 survives in its original form. An official animated reconstruction of all four episodes is available.

Story 19: Mission to the Unknown – 1 Episode

This unusual Doctor-free prelude follows Space Security agent Marc Cory as he investigates Dalek activity on the planet Kembel. It establishes an alliance threatening the galaxy and leads directly into The Daleks’ Master Plan.

Archive note: The episode is missing. A university-led live-action recreation exists, but it is not an original BBC production.

Story 20: The Myth Makers – 4 Episodes

The TARDIS materialises outside Troy during the final stages of the Trojan War, where the Doctor is mistaken for Zeus and Steven for a Greek warrior. Donald Cotton’s script treats legendary heroes with irreverence, but the comedy gradually gives way to the brutal consequences of war.

Archive note: All four episodes are missing and no official animated version has been released.

Story 21: The Daleks’ Master Plan – 12 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The Daleks and their allies prepare a weapon capable of devastating entire star systems, drawing the Doctor and his companions into a desperate interplanetary struggle. Spanning twelve episodes and several months of transmission, the story combines espionage, pursuit and unusually severe personal consequences.

Archive note: Five episodes now survive: Episodes 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10. Episodes 1 and 3, titled The Nightmare Begins and Devil’s Planet, were recovered and restored in 2026.

Story 22: The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve – 4 Episodes

The Doctor and Steven arrive in sixteenth-century Paris during growing religious hostility between Catholics and Huguenots. Steven becomes determined to protect a young servant named Anne Chaplet, while the Doctor’s resemblance to the powerful Abbot of Amboise raises disturbing questions.

Archive note: All four episodes are missing and no official animated reconstruction has been released.

Story 23: The Ark – 4 Episodes

Millions of years in the future, the last humans travel aboard a vast ark accompanied by silent alien servants called Monoids. When the Doctor’s arrival introduces an ordinary cold into the isolated population, the consequences extend far beyond the immediate medical emergency.

Story 24: The Celestial Toymaker – 4 Episodes

The immortal Toymaker traps the Doctor and his companions in a surreal world governed by children’s games with fatal consequences. Steven and Dodo must complete a series of challenges while the Doctor plays a battle of intellect largely from the sidelines.

Archive note: Only Episode 4 survives in its original form. The complete story has been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 25: The Gunfighters – 4 Episodes

A painful tooth brings the Doctor to Tombstone, Arizona, shortly before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Mistaken identities draw the travellers into the dispute between the Earps and the Clantons, accompanied by a musical refrain that ensures nobody forgets what happened at the Last Chance Saloon.

Story 26: The Savages – 4 Episodes

The Doctor reaches an advanced civilisation that appears to recognise and admire his travels. Its prosperity conceals exploitation of another population, forcing the travellers to challenge a society that literally drains vitality from those it considers inferior.

Archive note: All four episodes are missing and no official animated reconstruction has been released.

Story 27: The War Machines – 4 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The TARDIS lands in contemporary London, where a powerful new computer called WOTAN is preparing to take control of other machines. With the Doctor working alongside government authorities and young Londoners Ben and Polly joining the action, the serial provides an early blueprint for future Earthbound invasions.

The fourth season begins with William Hartnell but soon undertakes the greatest gamble in the programme’s history. Patrick Troughton’s arrival transforms the Doctor without replacing his essential identity, while Jamie McCrimmon becomes one of the classic series’ longest-serving companions.

Story 28: The Smugglers – 4 Episodes

The Doctor, Ben and Polly arrive in seventeenth-century Cornwall and become entangled in a search for hidden treasure. Pirates, smugglers and a cryptic message provide a traditional historical adventure immediately before the programme changes direction forever.

Archive note: All four episodes are missing and no official animated reconstruction has been released.

Story 29: The Tenth Planet – 4 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

A new planet appears near Earth, bringing emotionless beings who have replaced much of their bodies with machinery. The first Cyberman story combines an international space crisis with the Doctor’s steadily deteriorating condition.

Archive note: Episode 4 is missing and has been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 30: The Power of the Daleks – 6 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

Ben and Polly struggle to accept the transformed Doctor when the TARDIS reaches the human colony of Vulcan. Colonists discover apparently inactive Daleks and convince themselves that the machines can be controlled, a decision displaying the dependable human instinct to ignore every visible warning sign.

Archive note: All six episodes are missing. The complete story has been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 31: The Highlanders – 4 Episodes

The travellers arrive in Scotland shortly after the Battle of Culloden and become involved with defeated Jacobite soldiers facing execution or enslavement. Young Highlander Jamie McCrimmon helps the Doctor, Ben and Polly before joining them aboard the TARDIS.

Archive note: All four episodes are missing and no official animated reconstruction has been released.

Story 32: The Underwater Menace – 4 Episodes

The TARDIS reaches the surviving civilisation of Atlantis, where the scientist Zaroff intends to raise the city from the ocean. The Doctor discovers that Zaroff’s plan could destroy the planet, while Polly is selected for a transformation she has absolutely no desire to undergo.

Archive note: Episodes 2 and 3 survive. The missing first and fourth episodes have been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 33: The Moonbase – 4 Episodes

A weather-control station on the Moon is struck by a mysterious illness as Cybermen prepare to seize the facility. Confined spaces and suspicion give the serial an effective siege atmosphere, with the newly regenerated Doctor beginning to articulate his determination to oppose evil.

Archive note: Episodes 1 and 3 are missing and have been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 34: The Macra Terror – 4 Episodes

The travellers enter a cheerful human colony where compulsory happiness disguises exploitation by giant crab-like creatures. Its themes of propaganda, conformity and manufactured entertainment are considerably sharper than the sight of Ben performing a colony-approved dance might suggest.

Archive note: All four episodes are missing. The complete story has been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 35: The Faceless Ones – 6 Episodes

At Gatwick Airport, alien Chameleons are abducting young travellers and stealing their identities. The contemporary setting gives the mystery a brisk thriller structure, while Ben and Polly find an opportunity to reconsider their lives aboard the TARDIS.

Archive note: Episodes 1 and 3 survive. The complete story has been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 36: The Evil of the Daleks – 7 Episodes

The Daleks force the Doctor into an experiment intended to isolate the mysterious human quality they believe has repeatedly defeated them. The investigation leads from Victorian England to Skaro and introduces Victoria Waterfield to the TARDIS.

Archive note: Only Episode 2 survives in its original form. The complete story has been officially reconstructed in animation.

Frequently described as the programme’s “monster season”, Season 5 places the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria against a succession of memorable threats. Arctic bases, London Underground tunnels and isolated installations establish the siege format that became a defining feature of Patrick Troughton’s tenure.

Story 37: The Tomb of the Cybermen – 4 Episodes

An archaeological expedition arrives on Telos and discovers an underground complex containing dormant Cybermen. The Doctor suspects that members of the party know more than they admit, while Victoria receives a sobering introduction to life aboard the TARDIS.

Story 38: The Abominable Snowmen – 6 Episodes

The TARDIS returns the Doctor to a Tibetan monastery he previously visited centuries earlier. Robotic Yeti roam the mountains while an ancient intelligence manipulates events from within the apparently peaceful sanctuary.

Archive note: Only Episode 2 survives in its original form. The complete story has been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 39: The Ice Warriors – 6 Episodes

A future Earth suffering a new ice age discovers a Martian warrior preserved inside a glacier. When the creature is revived, the scientists operating an enormous climate-control computer face both an alien threat and the limitations of their reliance upon technology.

Archive note: Episodes 2 and 3 are missing and have been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 40: The Enemy of the World – 6 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The Doctor discovers that he is physically identical to Salamander, an influential political figure suspected of engineering natural disasters. Patrick Troughton plays both men in a story built around espionage, impersonation and the difficult question of whether the Doctor can convincingly behave like a ruthless dictator.

Story 41: The Web of Fear – 6 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The Great Intelligence fills the London Underground with a deadly web and deploys its robotic Yeti through the tunnels. The Doctor reunites with Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart during a claustrophobic military siege that lays important foundations for UNIT.

Archive note: Episode 3 is missing and has been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 42: Fury from the Deep – 6 Episodes

A North Sea gas refinery becomes infested by an intelligent seaweed organism capable of controlling human beings. Its eerie sound design and escalating sense of possession create one of the era’s most unsettling adventures, while Victoria questions whether she can continue living with constant danger.

Archive note: All six episodes are missing. The complete story has been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 43: The Wheel in Space – 6 Episodes

The Doctor and Jamie reach a space station targeted by Cybermen attempting to expand their invasion force. Astrophysics student Zoe Heriot’s intelligence rivals the Doctor’s, but her confidence in pure logic is tested by the crisis.

Archive note: Episodes 3 and 6 survive. No complete official animated reconstruction has been released.

The final black-and-white season pairs the Doctor and Jamie with Zoe while steadily expanding the programme’s mythology. Its stories range from surreal fantasy to large-scale invasion drama before a ten-part finale reveals more about the Doctor’s origins than the previous five years combined.

Story 44: The Dominators – 5 Episodes

The warlike Dominators arrive on the peaceful planet Dulkis with robotic Quarks and plans to exploit its resources. The story contrasts pacifism with aggression, although the Doctor soon concludes that the invaders are unlikely to be discouraged by a strongly worded committee meeting.

Story 45: The Mind Robber – 5 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The TARDIS enters a realm where fictional characters, riddles and words can become physical reality. Stripped of conventional science-fiction rules, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe must resist the mysterious Master of the Land before they are absorbed into his stories.

Story 46: The Invasion – 8 Episodes

Electronics businessman Tobias Vaughn conceals an alliance with the Cybermen behind the respectable face of International Electromatics. The Doctor works with the newly formed UNIT and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart to expose an invasion operating through technology already installed in homes and offices.

Archive note: Episodes 1 and 4 are missing and have been officially reconstructed in animation.

Story 47: The Krotons – 4 Episodes

The crystalline Krotons control the planet of the Gonds by selecting its most intelligent inhabitants as companions, none of whom return. The Doctor and Zoe’s academic competitiveness attracts the machines’ attention and threatens a social order built upon generations of carefully maintained ignorance.

Story 48: The Seeds of Death – 6 Episodes

Earth has become dependent upon T-Mat, an instantaneous transport system controlled from the Moon. The Ice Warriors seize the facility and use it to spread deadly spores, leaving the Doctor and his companions reliant upon unfashionably old-fashioned rocket technology.

Story 49: The Space Pirates – 6 Episodes

The TARDIS lands amid a series of raids on space beacons carried out by criminals seeking the valuable mineral argonite. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe spend much of the sprawling adventure attempting to reunite with the TARDIS while space authorities pursue the pirates.

Archive note: Only Episode 2 survives in its original form. No complete official animated reconstruction has been released.

Story 50: The War Games – 10 Episodes

Skully’s Pick

The travellers appear to arrive during the First World War but discover soldiers from different periods fighting across a collection of artificial battlefields. As the scale of the operation becomes clear, the Doctor faces adversaries connected to his own past and must consider seeking help from the people he has spent years avoiding.

The conclusion closes the Second Doctor’s era and the programme’s first major phase. Season 7 would introduce Jon Pertwee’s Doctor, regular colour production and a largely Earthbound relationship with UNIT, beginning the next classic episode guide with a very different version of Doctor Who.