Doctor Who: The Daleks (1963)

The second ever Doctor Who story saw the introduction of his most enduring arch nemesis, the Daleks. It's a William Hartnell story, with companions Barbara, Ian and Susan and as such the quality of the surviving footage isn't amazing, but it's still an imaginative romp, with lots of running down corridors, scary Daleks and wooden Thals, the race who is/was at war with the Daleks on the planet Skaro. The Doctor and his companions land on the planet sometime after a nuclear war has wiped out much of the population, and the Daleks are living in a vast underground city with metal floors to enable them to glide around. 

It's amazing how fully formed the Daleks are, and how little they've changed decades later. They don't want to 'exterminate' and show some compassion and structured thought missing from the later killing machines, but they look and sound the same, and this is the first time they learn not to mess with the Doctor. Hartnell feels like a supporting player here, with Barbara and Ian taking centre stage - Ian carrying out most of the hero duties while Barbara proves she's made of stern stuff when exploring the jungles of Skaro. Susan screams a lot and is generally fairly irritating, while the Doctor is grumpy and variously unconcerned about helping the Thal race, and even pretends the TARDIS is broken in order to keep everyone on a planet that has dangerous radiation levels. 

The Daleks felt more exciting than the first story, An Unearthly Child with its warring, unfantastical cavemen. The accompanying featurette on the creation of the Daleks was also fascinating and covered everything from inception to design.