10 PERFECT Places To Start Watching Doctor Who
6. The Ribos Operation
Tom Baker was the actor who served as the Doctor the longest, so in terms of starting points he has a fair few overlapping seasons.
His first three seasons saw him travelling with the iconic companion Sarah Jane Smith, but since she joined the TARDIS with Baker's predecessor, we'd recommend jumping ahead for a much cleaner Fourth Doctor starting point.
Kicking off with The Ribos Operation, Season 16 partners the Doctor with fellow Time Lord Romana, a brand-new companion. Together they break the generic Doctor-companion relationship, as the Doctor is now travelling with one of his own kind.
Season 16 is also unique in that it's one of the few classic seasons to feature an ongoing arc, with the Doctor and Romana enlisted by the White Guardian to find all six segments of the powerful Key to Time, and keep them out of the hands of the Black Guardian.
This long-form storytelling rewards you for sticking with each serial, and with one of the greatest Doctors of all time at the helm, The Ribos Operation is one of the better classic starting points.