Watch the Episodes Yourself

So, has my analysis perhaps inspired you to watch Doctor Who for yourself? On this page, I will talk about how to do just that.

Last Updated January 27, 2014

Classic Who (1963-1989, 1996)

Classic Who is a bit difficult to watch. Not because of the content, but because of availability. Back when Doctor Who first started airing, syndication didn't exist, and episodes were only allowed to be aired a limited number of times. So many of the original master tapes of the series were destroyed. As a result, 106 episodes from the 1960's are missing, though they still exist in audio form, and some have been reconstructed.


According to Wikipedia's Doctor Who episode list, the following episodes are missing:

First Doctor

• All of Serial 4 ("Marco Polo"/"A Journey to Cathay") - 7 episodes
• Episodes 4-5 of Serial 8 ("The Reign of Terror"/"The French Revolution") Note: Set to be released on DVD in 2013 with the missing episodes reconstructed through animation.
• Episodes 2 and 4 of Serial 14 ("The Crusade"/"The Lionheart"/"The Crusaders")
• Episodes 1, 2, and 4 of Serial 18 ("Galaxy 4") Note: Set to be released in 2013 via animated reconstruction on the new Special Edition DVD release of The Aztecs; see below.
• All of Serial 19 ("Mission to the Unknown"/"Dalek Cutaway") - 1 episode
• All of Serial 20 ("The Myth Makers") - 4 episodes
• Episodes 1, 3-4, 6-9, 11-12 of Serial 21 ("The Daleks' Master Plan")
• All of Serial 22 ("The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve"/"The Massacre") - 4 episodes
• Episodes 1-3 of Serial 24 ("The Celestial Toymaker")
• All of Serial 26 ("The Savages") - 4 episodes
• All of Serial 28 ("The Smugglers") - 4 episodes
• Episode 4 of Serial 29 ("The Tenth Planet") - the First Doctor's last serial and notably, the first episode to feature the Cybermen. Due to the final episode being lost, we have no footage of the First Doctor's regeneration into the Second Doctor, save for clips that were shown on documentaries about the show before the episode was lost. Here is one such clip from BBC Worldwide's YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmXoHKzp4Lc. Note: "The Tenth Planet" is set to be released on DVD in late 2013 with Episode 4 reconstructed through animation; see below.

Second Doctor

• All of Serial 30 ("The Power of the Daleks") - 6 episodes
• All of Serial 31 ("The Highlanders") - 4 episodes
• Episodes 1 & 4 of Serial 32 ("The Underwater Menace")
• Episodes 1 & 3 of Serial 33 ("The Moonbase")
• All of Serial 34 ("The Macra Terror") - 4 episodes
• Episodes 2, 4-6 of Serial 35 ("The Faceless Ones")
• Episodes 1, 3-7 of Serial 36 ("The Evil of the Daleks")
• Episodes 1, 3-6 of Serial 38 ("The Abominable Snowmen") - Debut of the Great Intelligence, a.k.a. that snow monster the 11th Doctor faces in the Series 7 Christmas Special
• Episodes 2 and 3 of Serial 39 ("The Ice Warriors")
• All of Serial 42 ("Fury from the Deep") - 6 episodes
• Episodes 1-2, 4-5 of Serial 43 ("The Wheel in Space")
• Episodes 1 & 4 of Serial 46 ("The Invasion") these have since been restored with animation
• Episodes 1, 3-6 of Serial 49 ("The Space Pirates")

From the Third Doctor onward (Season 7, 1970), all the episodes are available.  Apparently either syndication was invented or the BBC stopped destroying the tapes.

Netflix has added a number of Classic Who episodes to their selection; however, not all of them are there, and it starts with "The Aztecs," the sixth story in the First Doctor era.  Currently, it only has these episodes:

• "The Aztecs" 
• "The Mind Robber" 
• "Spearhead from Space" 
• "The Three Doctors" 
• "Carnival of Monsters" 
• "The Green Death" 
• "The Ark in Space" 
• "Pyramids of Mars" 
• "Horror of Fang Rock" 
• "The Ribos Operation" 
• "The Pirate Planet" 
• "The Androids of Tara" 
• "The Power of Kroll" 
• "City of Death" 
• "The Leisure Hive" 
• "The Visitation" 
• "The Caves of Androzani"
• "The Curse of Fenric" 

Amazon Instant Video has several episodes of Classic Who as well, which are free if you have Amazon Prime, with the exception of "The Three Doctors" and "Carnival of Monsters," which were available free on Prime but are now no longer for some reason. The episodes Amazon Instant Video has are the same as the ones on Netflix, but with the addition of "The Tomb of the Cybermen," "The Robots of Death," "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," "The Armageddon Factor," "Earthshock," "Vengeance on Varos," and "Ghost Light."

You can also view many Classic Who episodes on Dailymotion. (See this post I reblogged on Tumblr for a good master list of Classic Who episodes on Dailymotion; this master list is also good). Hulu has also recently added over 300 Classic Who episodes to their site, which are exclusively available to their Hulu Plus subscribers.

Apparently, many of the Classic Who episodes have also been released on DVD, though some are not released yet. A couple of the First Doctor episodes saw their first DVD release in 2013, in fact. All of the released DVDs are available in Region 1 (U.S./North America), Region 2 (UK), and Region 4 (Australia/New Zealand). Some of the incomplete serials have also been released in some fashion thanks to the special DVDs The Beginning and Lost in Time. (The Beginning DVD is also the only way to see the unaired pilot version of "An Unearthly Child"). The 2013 special edition DVD release of "The Aztecs," for example, contains a reconstruction of the missing part of "Galaxy 4," while the 2013 DVD release of "The Reign of Terror" will feature reconstructions of the missing episodes of that serial. In addition, a new DVD release of "The Tenth Planet," the First Doctor's last serial and the first serial to feature the Cybermen, was released in late 2013 and featured an animated reconstruction of the lost final episode of the serial.

Some Classic Who episodes were shown at theaters and possibly on TV in the UK in 2013 as part of the franchise's 50th anniversary. BBC America also reaired one old Doctor Who episode every month in 2013 in honor of the anniversary, via a monthly series called Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited.

On October 11, 2013, it was announced that copies of the previously lost Patrick Troughton serials "The Enemy of the World" and "The Web of Fear" had been found in a broadcast station in Nigeria. The recovered episodes were subsequently released on iTunes following the announcement of their recovery. The find restored the full episode of "The Enemy of the World" and all but episode 3 of "The Web of Fear" (which has been reconstructed using telephotos and the original soundtrack for the iTunes release). "The Enemy of the World" was released on DVD in the UK in November 2013, while "The Web of Fear" is scheduled for a DVD release in the UK in February 2014. No US release dates for these DVDs have been announced as of yet.

I was able to find many of the DVDs of the Classic Who era on Amazon.com; I assume since "Doctor Who" with a limit of DVD yields 48 pages of results that they are all available. This includes upcoming releases.


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New Series (2005+)

The new, revived series currently airs on BBC One in the UK, BBC America in the U.S., Space in Canada, ABC1 in Australia, and Prime in New Zealand, as well as many other channels around the world. New episodes are typically on Saturday nights; on BBC America they form part of the "Supernatural Saturday" block with shows like Hex, Bedlam, Atlantis, and Orphan Black. In addition to new episodes, re-runs often air, occasionally in marathons.

All of the new series is, naturally, available on DVD. Some episodes have also been released on Blu-Ray. You can also find the new episodes on iTunes, Netflix, and Amazon Instant Video.

The new series episodes were originally released on single-DVD volumes containing 3-4 episodes, referred to as Doctor Who: Volume 1 and so on. After each series was fully released in this way, full season sets were released. This continued until Series 6, when instead of the single volumes, the episodes were released in DVD sets with larger blocks of episodes, referred to as "Doctor Who [Series Name] Part 1" and "Doctor Who [Series Name] Part 2," before then being released in full-season sets. A special North America-only box set devoted to the Tenth Doctor, called Doctor Who: The Complete David Tennant Years, was also released, as was a box set containing the 2008-2010 specials which was available in the UK, Australia/New Zealand, and North America. Some of the Christmas Specials were also released on DVDs by themselves, as were the two animated specials.

Here is a list of the DVDs released for this series, in release order:

Doctor Who: Volume 1
Doctor Who: Volume 2
Doctor Who: Volume 3
Doctor Who: Volume 4
Doctor Who: The Complete First Series

Doctor Who: Series 2, Volume 1 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 2, Volume 2 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 2, Volume 3 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 2, Volume 4 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 2, Volume 5 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: The Complete Second Series

Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 3, Volume 1 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 3, Volume 2 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 3, Volume 3 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 3, Volume 4 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: The Complete Third Series

Doctor Who: The Infinite Quest (animated special)

Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned (contains "Time Crash" and "Voyage of the Damned"; available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 4, Volume 1 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 4, Volume 2 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 4, Volume 3 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 4, Episode 4 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: The Complete Fourth Series

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor (contains the specials "The Next Doctor" and "Music of the Spheres" and the 2008 Doctor Who Prom event)
Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead (2009 special)
Doctor Who: 2009 Winter Specials (contains the specials "The Waters of Mars" and "The End of Time"; UK only)
Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars (available in Australia/New Zealand and North America only)
Doctor Who: The End of Time (available in Australia/New Zealand and North America only)
Doctor Who: The Complete Specials

Doctor Who: Dreamland (animated special)

Doctor Who: The Complete David Tennant Years (available in North America only)

Doctor Who: Series 5, Volume 1 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 5, Volume 2 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 5, Volume 3 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: Series 5, Volume 4 (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only)
Doctor Who: The Complete Fifth Series

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (contains the 2010 Christmas Special "A Christmas Carol" and the 2010 Doctor Who Prom event)
Doctor Who: Series 6, Part 1
Doctor Who, Series 6, Part 2
Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series

Doctor Who: The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe (2011 Christmas Special)
Doctor Who: Series 7, Part 1
Doctor Who: The Snowmen (2012 Christmas Special; available in North America only)
Doctor Who: Series 7, Part 2
Doctor Who: The Complete Seventh Series
Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor (50th Anniversary Special)
Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor & Other Eleventh Doctor Christmas Specials (available in UK and Australia/New Zealand only) released January 20, 2014 (UK) and January 22, 2014 (Australia/New Zealand) respectively
Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor will be released March 4, 2014

Doctor Who Series 1-7 Limited Edition Blu-Ray Giftset (Blu-Ray only)

All of these DVDs are available on Amazon.com, as well as other online retailers.