I'm interested in exploring Classic Who. But all I can find is random collections of episodes. I'd much rather just watch everything and make up my own mind which episodes are the best. Is there any good way to do this? All I've seen of Who are the first few episodes of the modern series. At the time I thought it was a bit campy but now I'm more forgiving of that.
Well, there's no way to ever have a TRULY comprehensive viewing of classic Who as 106 episodes from the 1960s are missing / destroyed. If you want to start at the very beginning though, I recommend getting the Beginning DVD box-set. It's got the first three stories, An Unearthly Child / The Daleks / The Edge of Destruction, all of which still exist, and a reconstruction of the fourth story, Marco Polo, using the original audio (survived due to fans taping their TV sets) and photographs.
There are no Season/Series Box Sets for Cl;assic Doctor Who, except I believe Tom Baker's Key To Time Season (Series 16) and possibly Colin Baker's Trial of a Timelord Season (Series 23). There are a few "Themed" Box Sets, but, many are individual DVD Releases and as Nagisa Furukawa says there are 106 episodes currently missing. The missing Episodes all have Fan reconstructions (Or Studio Reconstruction) that can be found on streaming sites like Youtube
The good news is that, now, all of the surviving complete stories are currently available on DVD (except for "Terror of the Zygons"). So it is possible to absorb pretty much the entire series in order, story-by-story if that's what you want. It's just going to be expensive since you'll actually have to buy the DVDs. (List price, that's anywhere between $10 & $40 per story, depending on the story.) Checking right now, only 22 stories are available via Amazon Instant Video (at least on the American version): "The Aztecs," "The Tomb of the Cybermen," "The Mind Robber," "Spearhead from Space," "The Three Doctors," "Carnival of Monsters," "The Ark in Space," "Pyramids of Mars," "The Robots of Death," "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," "The Ribos Operation," "The Pirate Planet," "The Power of Kroll," "The Armageddon Factor," "City of Death," "The Leisure Hive," "The Visitation," "Earthshock," "The Caves of Androzani," "Vengeance on Varos," "Ghost Light," & "The Curse of Fenric." Now, if you have Amazon Instant Video, that might be a slightly cheaper option. It's only a limited sampling of stories but most of the ones listed there are considered to be among the best. You might want to try them and decide whether or not you want to invest further by buying the DVDs for some of the more obscure stories. Or whether or not you're still interested in all of the Doctors or if some of them hold more interest for you than others. What can I say? It's 26 seasons of very expensive television. But I've been collecting the DVDs for the last 9 years now, and I've enjoyed it a lot. But damn is it expensive!
Libraries might also have the dvd's. The ones near me have a good sampling from each doctor. I am personally waiting to see if they ever sell them by seasons and not by episodes. IT is way too expensive to do episode by episode. (I like the special features etc on the dvd's)
One time, I saw Doctor Who done in an anime style and my first reaction was, "Great, as if Doctor Who wasn't already obscure & expensive enough." They've got some Doctor Who at my local library but only a smattering of stories and only of some more recent releases, like "Frontier in Space," "Planet of the Daleks," "The Seeds of Doom," "Kinda," "Snakedance," "The King's Demons," & "Silver Nemesis."
In terms of mass consumption of episodes seasons-style, there are really only a couple of options available on DVD. "The Beginning" boxset comprises the first three stories ever made, and is basically the first half of Season One (1963/64). If you like these, then the next (complete) stories are available individually. Season Sixteen (1978) is contained in a boxset called "The Key To Time". This one is basically a story arc containing 26 consecutive episodes, and is the nearest thing Doctor Who has to a 'Complete Season' boxset. "The Trial of a Time Lord" (1986) was also released this way. Again, this is a 'Complete Season', although in TOATL's case the production had been cut down to 14 episodes by that point. There are two boxsets comprising nearly the entire Season Eighteen (1980/81): "The E-Space Trilogy" and "New Beginnings". Each of these feature 12 episodes, and they are effectively two consecutive trilogies (or one extended story arc across 24 episodes between both sets) which writes out Tom Baker's fourth Doctor and replaces him with Peter Davison's fifth. There's also "The Black Guardian Trilogy" boxset, which is 12 consecutive episodes from Peter Davison's era (again comprising a complete story arc). This also includes a 'Special Edition' of one story which has been re-edited to a single-episode format closer to the new series. Personally, I'd recommend any of these. But in particular, the "Key To Time" and both of the "E-Space Trilogy" and "New Beginnings" sets make for a nice little collection of stories to dip your toes into Classic Who. All of them feature Tom Baker's fourth Doctor alongside his companions Romana and K-9, so there's a broader sense of continuity to them as well.
^ Thanks. I've fixed that now. Region 2 (and Region 4) have got a lot more boxsets of linked stories available. Things like the "Kamelion Tales" or "Ace Adventures" sets are not consecutive stories, but they are episodes which are linked by a common character. Region 1 simply had them as individual releases instead of boxsets. Also there is the "Bred For War" boxset which features every single classic series episode to contain Sontarans as the enemies. In practice it comprises various stories across a broad spectrum from 1973 to 1985, and three different incarnations of the Doctor. It might be a go if the OP is interested in seeing the history of the Sontarans (who have of course featured quite heavily in the new series in recent years). I do think the two Season Eighteen sets are a very tightly-knit collection of episodes, and like I said they comprise almost a complete season. "The Leisure Hive" and "Meglos" are the only two stories from that season that aren't featured in either of those sets, and both of those are more like stand-alone adventures anyway (although the ending of "Meglos" does lead into the E-Space Trilogy).