Heretic!
And having seen both, I can’t even begin to agree with this.
I’d love to hear your rationale, because the writers for TOS know how to pace their episodes compared to those employed for Classic Who. From start to end, there isn’t nearly as much filler. Things actually happen (as opposed to everyone meandering and doing nothing to fill up time), which make the episodes a lot easier to follow along with. I love the First Doctor as a character, but most of his episodes start off okay only to plummet off the chart within the first five minutes because of how drab the scripts are.
It feels terrible to say lol, but, in general, ST’s episodes are honestly more engrossing. I was multi-tasking while watching “The Man Trap” and I still understood what was going on and I found myself listening even if my eyes weren’t on the screen. If I multi-task while watching certain eras/serials of CW, it immediately gets tuned out; and I probably won’t have a clue of what’s going on (but because everything drags, there’s a good chance nothing has truly happened in the first place).
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I can’t recognise the First Doctor’s era in this at all. I love the pacing of the stories, and most filler gives us something enjoyable or character/world-building (like the scenes in the caves in The Daleks).
I haven’t seen Star Trek, so I can’t really comment on that 
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Which first episode? The one with Pike or the one with Kirk?
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Much of my rationale can be found in my review:
I’ve tried watching TOS but haven’t got past about the 9th or 10th episode. I find the episodes to be far too earnest and with very little incident. At 45-50 minutes almost every one I have watched so far has felt like it drags and has been pretty much a chore to get through.
In contrast, 25 minutes of Classic Who almost always zips along with plenty of incident. If we’re specifically comparing the first story I can’t even begin to see what would be consiered filler or parts where nothing happens. The first episode is revered for very good reason - a mystery which builds through flashbacks and a two act structure where the entire game is changed when Ian and Barbara stumble through the TARDIS doors.
In prehistoric times there is action and terror. The Forest of Fear is possibly the slightest of the episodes but what with the ‘this is a bad knife’, the flaming skulls, the machinations of Old Mother, the animal attack on Za, Hur’s tentative trust of Ian, the visceral fight between Za and Kal, the sheer claustrophobia of the caves and the forest surrounding them.
The Man Trap is what Red Dwarf parodied with Camille and the Psirens and is the sort of shlocky sci-fi that doesn’t really do it for me - men lusting over beautiful women and being attacked by scary monsters. Classic Doctor Who is so often accused of sexism but Star Trek, for me, is a show far more rooted in a different time and societal attitudes. Doctor Who is timeless and, to my mind, the more progressive and engaging of the two shows.
But then, that’s why I’m on a Doctor Who forum and not a Star Trek one 
.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of Star Trek I enjoy such as TNG, Picard and bits of most of the other shows, but TOS can’t hold a candle to Classic Who.
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The Original Series, Kirk.
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I personally enjoy both Star Trek and Doctor Who. They are both excellent.
Earthshock:
CYBERLEADER: Excellent. Now you will see our strength.
TOS. The Cage:
MAGISTRATE: First, an emotion of protectiveness. Now one of sympathy. Excellent.
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Too earnest? Drags? Very little incident?! What in the world! 
The first episode of AUC is all it has going for it in my opinion. Same with The Daleks. I enjoyed it to a point, but there are way too many episodes for the storyline. Other writers could’ve wrapped it up in half the time.
A big thing I appreciate about Star Trek is how humanistic it is compared to Classic Who. They don’t shy away from exploring the characters (recurring or one-off) in a more “down to Earth” fashion. Doctor Who the TV show constantly feels like it’s only mission is to focus on aliens and nothing but aliens. I feel like there’s not as much down-time or camaraderie shown between the Doctor and their companions, or between other characters. The crew of the Enterprise work in a similar way that the Doctor and his crew do, but I feel like we see more of their personality in ST. More of their personal life outside of adventuring.
An example: Doctor Who won’t even flesh out their main character’s backstory or home planet outside of the elites. The companions aren’t that detailed outside of some basic, “faceless” information sprinkled throughout the episodes. But Star Trek embraces giving the viewer insight on Vulcan/Klingon/etc race and culture; we see characters spending downtime in rooms away from the main controls. The characters are allowed to have relationships. They’re allowed to have hobbies. Doctor Who sticks to a formula that leaves me wanting more most of the time. The only thing the Doctor and companions are allowed to do is stand around the console and fight aliens.
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Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.
Which completely ignores the characterisation of the regulars across Season 1. The arc of distrust and antagonism giving way to mutual respect across the first three stories is front and centre (witness the scene at the end of The Brink of Disaster between the Doctor and Barbara). The bond between Ian and Barbara; Susan’s development in The Sensorites; the gradual mellowing of the Doctor as he learns ‘humanity’ from Ian and Barbara; Barbara facing the reality of experiencing history first hand and being powerless to change things.
There is so much personality on display within that first TARDIS crew (and the majority of subsequent ones - Vicki, Steven, Polly, Ben) that I’m not even sure I can begin to see what you feel is lacking. And I’m sorry, but Shatner, as an actor, can’t hold a candle to Hartnell, Russell or Hill.
It may well be true that the show is more concerned with the adventuring that the personal life of the regulars but that, to be honest, is what makes Doctor Who stand apart from most TV shows. But I would also argue that what Doctor Who does is balance it far better than TOS. Watching various crew members fall in love with a new girl every week isn’t to my mind showing personality - it’s reducing characters to the sum of their romantic encounters. I’m generalising I know, but it’s the overwhelming impression I’ve got from watching the show.
Trek, at least 60s Trek, just doesn’t really work for me.
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All of which, for me, can make the episodes drag. Get on with the story! Especially if you’ve only got 50 minutes to tell it in. Or maybe you’ve only got 20 minutes of plot so you need 10 minutes of Spock and Sulu playing 3D chess while Nurse Chapel soft focuses her way through the doors to deliver them some drinks just to pad out the episode…
I jest. And it’s great you get enjoyment out of it but I’ve tried really hard to get into TOS a couple of times and just can’t seem to do it.
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I understand your view! I’m a huge slice of life fan (and not much of a sci-fi one), so the interpersonal relationships is what makes a show or film interesting me, not so much constant adventuring/spacefaring/high-stakes action. If Doctor Who had shore leave episodes where all the characters did was hang out somewhere fun (or even just spend time in another room in the TARDIS) with low-stakes drama, I’d be all over that. I love The Two Doctors because it has that balance you’re talking about: shore leave, we see the Doctor and Peri doing leisure activities, and the overall story doesn’t take itself seriously at all.
I know you love Barbara, but I personally don’t get much personality out of any of the First Doctor companions barring Susan. Everyone seems cut from the same placid cloth. I would’ve liked to see a little more spunk to the younger ones.
Star Trek shows personality in more ways than just romantic encounters (but I do agree that TOS has a lot of romantic/sexual-themed episodes). I think TNG might be a better fit for you as opposed to TOS. Picard is a lot more level-headed than Kirk.
As an aside, it’s the camaraderie in Star Trek that birthed shipping culture in the first place, and the most popular ships aren’t even canon. In comparison, Doctor Who didn’t have a robust shipping culture until the show made a concerted effort to make the characters more well-rounded. I’ve always wondered why the Classic Who fandom was lacking in this aspect, but I think I may have just unpacked it for myself? It sounds so obvious now lol.
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Kirk: Described by Gary Mitchell as having been a stack of books with legs in the academy.
Picard: Got stabbed through the heart in a bar brawl with some Nausicaans.
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Trekkie/Whovian dual citizen who wants to weigh in on the fun.
I suppose when it comes to comparing '60s Who with '60s Trek, it’s the Troughton era that I use for my point of comparison. I have to confess, I haven’t really been enjoying Troughton from this perspective. If I was a contemporary viewer, and I got to choose between TOS, The Prisoner, and Doctor Who, I know which one would be the one I would skip if necessary. Compared to those two other shows produced contemporaneously, Doctor Who looks tired, dated, and ten years behind the times. Twilight Zone does the same thing as Troughton era in a fraction of the time.
However, one thing that I find interesting about considering them comparatively is how they were ascendant at different periods. During to 70s when Star Trek was experiencing its own version of the Wilderness Years, (Although given the vital role of rerun culture to Trekkies, such a name would not be apt*), Tom Baker was ruling the roost, cementing iconic Doctor Who. When Tom Baker left, and the first cracks that would lead to Classic Who’s decline became evident, The Wrath of Khan was released, bringing new vitality into the franchise. When Doctor Who laid down for its rest in 1989, The Borg debuted, and Star Trek was able to come up with interesting stories for a Cyberman-like monster, something Who had not done in several years. When Enterprise was put down in 2005, nerds could rejoice in Who’s resurrection.
*
In fact, it is the inability of '60s Doctor Who to fathom reruns that leads to frustration even today with the missing episodes. Perhaps the BBC ought to have thought more about prepping for the syndication package like Trek.
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I agree with this, I love it when the TARDIS Team just hang out and have discussions and character moments, which I feel is usually more prevalent in NuWho but in Season One there was practically none of this. They made a really nice, expensive new TARDIS set and barely used it 
Regarding 60s Who vs 60s Trek, I also have tried to watch The Original Series and found it lacking and just too sexist, but then again I also dislike 60s Bond for the same reason. I do see the flaws in 60s Who that you pointed out (I must admit I’m 100% a NuWho fan and only really watched the Classic ones out of curiosity, I have never re-watched any of them yet…).
But this is a Doctor Who forum so you may not change any minds here 
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I’ve said in other threads here how much I dislike shipping so, again, that’s a plus to me.
Barbara is so much more than cut from placid cloth too. And are you including the First Doctor in that analogy because, if so, that seems hugely wide of the mark.
The show also wasn’t conceived to have a format which included the sort of stories you would have occasionally liked but it is there. The Romans is a prime example of what you like and has more of it than The Two Doctors I would argue.
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“Don’t tell him your name, Pike!”
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Agree. “A robust shipping culture”? I don’t see that as a plus point. Fandom can enjoy themselves & do what they want of course but I don’t see the presence of shipping culture as a valid critique when comparing Trek & Who.
Not every character in sci-fi wants to bang each other lol
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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Shipping in Doctor Who
I’ve seen fans reedit UC to 45ish minutes, and it was pretty much the same
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An interesting thing to note here is that (speaking very generally) 60s Who had an average budget of around £2,000 per episode, while Star Trek had about $200,000 per episode.
Personally, I enjoy both, but 60s Who has my heart! I don’t think I could make a claim that either one is better or worse than the other.
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