Would you recommend "The Beginning" collection for the First Doctor?
Yes and no. In the early years, each episode led into the next. While we look back and think "Ok, the second story is now called The Daleks" back then, each episode had its own individual title, and the end of each episode led into the next.
The very first episode, "An Unearthly Child" introduces the Doctor, his grand-daughter Susan, and their first companions, her teachers Barbara and Ian. It is a wonderful pilot, and sets up the concept brilliantly. The acting, writing, and directing are all top-notch, and I can see why so many people tuned in after watching it and telling all their friends.
Unfortunately, it's followed immediately by three of the worst episodes of the series. And I'm being specific about episodes/stories here ... The first story is four episodes long, and has the overall title of "An Unearthly Child" just like the pilot. Great first part, really sucky parts 2, 3, and 4.
This is followed by The Daleks, a 7-episode story which takes place entirely on the Daleks' home planet of Skarro . Since you liked the story Dalek, it might be fun to go back and see their origin. (meaning, first appearance ... in a show about time travel, you know they'll go forward and backward in time eventually). It's a really good four-part story .... told in seven parts. It's something we sort of expect with the writer Terry Nation ... he likes to pad.
This is followed by a two-episode story known as "The Edge of Destruction". To cover the enormous costs of the Daleks story, they needed to do a bottle show. And this is one. But, like TNG's "The Drumhead" it is so much better than it has any right to be.
After the Daleks, the crew is knocked out, and they're suffering some memory losses, and nobody trusts anybody ... one character tries to kill another with a pair of scissors, there's some exploration of the Tardis (which is more than just a control room), and it's one of my favorites. That said, it's entirely about the characters. It's just the four actors together on a locked set, no guests, no new sets, done at minimal cost.
Those are the three stories included in The Beginning box set, and I believe they're all available streaming via Netflix.
There is another partial story on one of the discs, "Marco Polo." It's a lost story, but they have the audio. They edited it down from 3 or 4 hours to one hour, and added it as a bonus.
Finally, a word about Netflix streaming of the original series ... Their source material is NOT dvd quality. For dvd, the restoration team has gone in and completely cleaned up the original film/tapes. Netflix uses old prints, and I've not been impressed with the quality. Tomb of the Cybermen, for example, looks like a 15th generation videotape.
On the dvd The Aztecs, there is a feature that's only a couple minutes long, but it shows what they had to go through to prepare the story for dvd release. They show the original version, then the cleaned up version, and the original is completely unwatchable. I had a new respect for the restoration team after watching it.
