Classic 'Doctor Who' Now Has Its Own Official YouTube Channel
At a time when the modern era has livestreams and compilations, it’s time for the classic 26 seasons to get its own dedicated space for full serials
It turns out Pokémon isn't the only non-American multimedia franchise bringing its television episodes to YouTube. The long-running British sci-fi series Doctor Who, whose main YouTube channel has existed since mere weeks before “The Christmas Invasion” in 2005 dusted off one set up 15 years ago to upload full serials from its original 26-season run from 1963-1989. It's unclear the purpose it was serving before.
It started with the legendary season 12 Fourth Doctor serial Genesis of the Daleks from March and April 1975 being uploaded in full to the show’s main YouTube channel on Saturday, December 9. If full episode uploads, especially of the original serials, had ever been done it wasn’t in recent memory. It being there surprised many, but were still pleased to have another option in an on-demand manner on top of iPlayer for domestic viewers and Tubi and BritBox for American viewers. Some remarked that they were excited over the ad-free experience. For those who don’t know the Tom Baker-led six-part story, “The Time Lords foresee a time in which the Daleks will dominate all other life forms in the universe. So disturbing is this possibility, that they break their own laws in an attempt to prevent it. And who better to send on this quest than the Doctor? Unwillingly transported to the battle-exhausted planet Skaro, the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) face their most dangerous mission - to prevent the Daleks from ever being created.”
Soon after it was uploaded, an upload of season 11’s opening serial The Time Warrior (December 1973-January 1974) popped up on my homepage from a channel called Doctor Who: Classic. So I looked into it. It had all the makings of an official channel, it felt like a copy and paste job of the franchise’s links, even the “This is a commercial channel from BBC Studios” could be copied from the main channel or any BBC show’s channel that may exist. But then the main channel uploaded Third Doctor Jon Pertwee’s debut story Spearhead from Space, currently the only one shared between both channels. I took a look in the description, and there it was, first paragraph, the invitation: “Visit the Doctor Who: Classic YouTube channel for more full episodes. It is completely legitimate. Its description reads, in part “Welcome to the Doctor Who: Classic channel! Travel in the TARDIS with full episodes dating back to the Doctor's first incarnation. See the Doctor meet the Daleks and Cybermen for the first time, watch all of their regenerations and relive friendships with companions like Sarah Jane Smith, Ace and many more.” If you’re wondering what Spearhead is about, here’s an excerpt of the given synopsis: “The TARDIS arrives on Earth in the middle of a meteorite shower and the Doctor is found by UNIT troops and taken to a nearby hospital. The Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) is faced with having to cope not only with the mysterious meteorites but also with Ransome, an ex-employee of a local plastics factory, who claims he has seen a walking mannequin.”
Spearhead was in fact the first story uploaded to the new channel, posting one (whole) serial daily. It was followed by season 9’s The Sea Devils from 1972. It’s the Doctor’s third season, and here he and Jo Grant (played by Katy Manning) visit the Master in his island prison and during their visit learn stories of ships disappearing nearby. The Doctor discovers that the Sea Devils, aquatic relatives of the Silurians, have awoken from their slumbers and have teamed with the Master to reclaim the planet Earth from mankind. It’s followed by the Seventh Doctor story The Happiness Patrol from season 25 in November 1988. A planet is ruled by a ruthless leader and an evil entity known only as the Kandy Man who carries out bizarre and lethal experiments on the citizens, all while forcing a facade of happiness on everyone else. The Doctor, now played by Sylvester McCoy, and Ace (Sophie Aldred) find themselves investigating, risking their own capture. The aforementioned The Time Warriors marks not only the debut of beloved Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), who stows away for the sake of her journalistic ambitions, but the Sontaran warrior race. The Doctor is called in by UNIT to investigate when a number of scientists go missing. He follows the kidnappings back in time in time to the Middle Ages, and discovers a sinister alien, intent on altering the future of mankind. Finally, Monday brought Fifth Doctor serial Warriors of the Deep from season 21 in January 1984. Set in 2084, two global superpowers hover on the brink of war. The TARDIS makes an unplanned visit to Sea Base Four, where the Doctor, now Peter Davison, Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Turlough (Mark Strickson) find themselves accused on being enemy agents. They become embroiled in “a deadly game of paranoid intrigue”, with sabotage and murder in mind. Even bigger, the Silurians and Sea Devils, have teamed up intent on a 'final solution', a war that would wipe out the humans in their then-latest plan to reclaim the Earth.
While the majority of this small selection has turned out to be Third Doctor stories, there’s probably not much to read into there. Making two classic Sea Devils stories more accessible ahead of the spinoff miniseries The War Between the Land and the Sea so focused on them, however deep within 2025 it may run? That’s pretty cool.
