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''Doctor Who'' ceased airing in 1989 and [[History of Doctor Who#The_Ninth_Doctor|began again in 2005]]. Each story in the original series (1963–1989) is a multi-episode serial, with two exceptions: the 1965 cutaway episode "[[Mission to the Unknown]]"; and the 20th anniversary story ''[[The Five Doctors]]''. The characters in the column after the serial titles indicate the code used by the production team to designate the serial, where applicable, and are followed either by the titles of the individual episodes where given or by the number of episodes otherwise. Unless otherwise noted, episodes in this period are 25 minutes long. During the early seasons of the programme most serials were linked together and one would usually lead directly into the next. Starting with the 2005 revival, the production team abandoned the traditional serial format for a largely self-contained episodic format with occasional multi-part stories and loose [[Story arcs in Doctor Who|story arcs]]. Unless otherwise noted, the new episodes are 45 minutes long.
Additionally, some other subsets of serials and episodes exist. Some are [[List of unmade Doctor Who serials and films|unmade]]: they were proposed for a variety of reasons, some even reaching post-production, but not broadcast. Some episodes from the 1960s are [[Doctor Who missing episodes|missing]] due to the BBC's 1970s [[wiping#BBC|junking]] policy, and thus their serials are incomplete. In the first two seasons and most of the third, each episode of a serial had an individual title; no serial had an overall on-screen title until ''The Savages''. The serial titles given below are the most common title for the serials as a whole, used in sources such as the ''Doctor Who'' Reference Guide and the BBC's classic episode guide, and are generally those used for commercial release. The practice of individually titled episodes resurfaced with the show's 2005 revival, when ''Doctor Who''{{'s}} serial nature was abandoned in favour of an episodic format.
The three-digit story numbers are not official designations but are merely to serve as a guide to where the story stands in the overall context of the programme. There is some dispute about, for example, whether to count Season 23's ''[[The Trial of a Time Lord]]'' as one or four serials,<ref>{{cite web
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