While The Dalek Invasion of Earth is the most iconic Hartnell story, one of the most iconic dalek stories period, this is the winner in my book. There is nothing like The Chase. There is nothing as exciting, as exhilarating, as The Chase. The Beatles are in it, for god's sake. From the Empire State Building in my very own New York City to the best haunted house of all time, this is the precursor to the blockbuster stories of the third and fourth doctor eras, it is is non-stop action and it is non-stop amazing. For some reason Steven is there playing a cowboy (in New York?) for like a full ten minutes. That alone makes it a 10/10. Ian and Barbra are the sweetest companions, and their absences, both of them, will be greatly missed. As I slog through some of my less favored companions, leggy young women, I remember Barbra. The school teacher. As much dramatic action, as much content, as Ian or The Doctor.

El Sandifer points out that we have to engage with this story in the way that audiences would've in 1964. That if you try to watch the whole batch at once you'll find yourself bored, that it can be tedious, but if you meet it on it's terms you might find something else entirely. One of the most talked about Hartnell stories, the Web Planet is once again Doctor Who experimenting. Experimenting in tone, form, and finally in monsters. If you go in hoping for a sweeping adventure you will be disappointed. But, if you go in stoned and with a pure heart you will find yourself transported to a place like no other. Alien landscapes and visions, things you've never seen and couldn't imagine. I'm not joking when I say it has more in common with James Cameron's Avatar than it does with modern Doctor Who. This is a story that transports you to a place you can't imagine, and it is absolutely unlike anything else. Star Trek could never.

More A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum than it is Doctor Who, I find the experiment in tone and format extremely gratifying, that is until Nero attempts to rape (?) Barbra. Woof.

I think this stories location as basically a season one story sitting at the beginning of season one means that it's often overlooked. After all, it comes before what might possibly one of the most iconic stories in the show's lengthy history. I think this story also gets a bad rep as silly, which it is. The kitty cat cliffhanger, the sink. Closing an episode with a man washing his hands is really not very dramatically compelling, I suppose. However, the story itself is fantastic. It has aged very, very well. This is Doctor Who being #woke in its earliest days, tackling cutting-edge scientific issues at the time like forever chemicals and even climate change. Humans impact on the world around us is front and center in this story and the two men who lead the life-size portion of this story both give gripping performances in a drama that is just as relevant now, if not more so, as it was in 1964.

Claustrophobic, quick-paced, character driven, and magic. David Whitaker is one of the strongest people ever involved with the show, and he rarely gets the credit he deserves. This story, like the first part of An Unearthly Child knows exactly what the TARDIS is. This is something about these early episodes that fascinates me, as El Sandifer points out in her excellent books, it's like the show already knows that rickety old police box is magic, humming with power, iconic. And here, the show finally tells us that this magic box is also alive. An exhilarating episode, and the first example of the most successful context in which Who can be written: "We ran out of time and money and need something now." All our best stories are made like that.

Perhaps the greatest single pilot of all time, followed by three very slow, very frustrating episodes. Doctor Who was born how it has always lived, inconsistently.