As part of my own personal celebration of the 50th anniversary I'm challenging myself to watch/listen to 50 first episodes of stories from the history of Doctor Who. I'll be mixing TV stories and audio stories from all 50 years of the show and writing a little about each one.

I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to prove, if anything, but I thought it might be a different way to celebrate the show. Maybe you can all get involved by giving me some suggestions as I go along?

Anyway, here we go.

Number 1:
The Hand of Fear (1976)
Starts with a cheap spacecraft, and some shouty squabbling duvets. Not terribly inspiring.
The scenes on Earth are better because of the rapport between the Doctor and Sarah, which sparkles. Nice shot of the cliff face exploding.
Sladen's possession makes her even more childlike than usual. Interesting decision- very different from say Tegan's Mara possession.
Great, great cliffhanger. To this day I still don't know how they did that hand, but it's very convincing.
Not bad episode overall.

Right, any suggestions for which one next?