Spearhead from Space
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| 051 - Spearhead from Space | |
|---|---|
| Doctor | Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor) |
| Writer | Robert Holmes |
| Director | Derek Martinus |
| Script editor | Terrance Dicks |
| Producer | Derrick Sherwin |
| Executive producer(s) | None |
| Production code | AAA |
| Series | Season 7 |
| Length | 4 episodes, 25 mins each |
| Transmission date | January 3–January 24, 1970 |
| Preceded by | The War Games |
| Followed by | Doctor Who and the Silurians |
Spearhead from Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from January 3 to January 24, 1970. The serial opened Season 7 of the show and was the first to be produced in colour. The serial introduced Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor. It also introduces Caroline John as the Doctor's new assistant, Liz Shaw. Nicholas Courtney reprises his role as Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart and becomes a regular cast member beginning with this serial. It is the first episode to feature the Autons.
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[edit] Synopsis
The newly regenerated Doctor has barely enough time to adjust before he gets involved in an alien invasion of Earth. Creatures of living plastic, the Autons, are here to make the planet their own, and only the Doctor and UNIT can stop them.
[edit] Plot
The Doctor, having had his regeneration forced by the Time Lords (see The War Games), has been exiled to Earth. The Doctor collapses outside his TARDIS and is taken to a local hospital where his unusual anatomy (including an unfamiliar blood type and two hearts) confounds doctors.
Concurrent with the Doctor's arrival, a swarm of meteorites falls on the English countryside, and a poacher discovers a mysterious plastic polyhedron at the crash site. In the meantime, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT is trying to recruit Dr. Elizabeth "Liz" Shaw as his scientific advisor and investigate the unusual meteorite falls. Shaw, however, is skeptical of the Brigadier's claims of alien invasion and is resentful of being taken away from her research at Cambridge. Soon, the Brigadier is faced with another mystery; not far from where the meteorite impacts were reported, a man in hospital claims to be the Doctor (whom Lethbridge-Stewart last encountered in The Invasion). However this Doctor looks nothing like the Doctor the Brigadier knew.
The plastic polyhedron is actually a power unit for a non-physical alien intelligence known as the Nestene Consciousness. Normally disembodied, it has an affinity for plastic, and is able to animate humanoid facsimiles made from that material, known as Autons. The Nestene have taken over a toy factory in London, and plan to replace key government and public figures with Auton duplicates. The Auton in charge of the factory sends other, less human-looking Autons to retrieve the power units from UNIT and the poacher.
After a failed attempt at escaping from the hospital (which results in him nearly being shot dead by an overzealous UNIT trooper), the Doctor discovers that his TARDIS has been disabled by the Time Lords and he is trapped on Earth. He convinces Lethbridge-Stewart that he is the same man who aided him before to defeat the Yeti and the Cybermen, despite his change in appearance. Together with Liz, he uncovers the Nestene plot, just as Auton mannequins are activated across London and start killing people. However, the Doctor creates an electroshock device that he believes will disable the Autons.
UNIT attacks the plastics factory, but the Autons are impervious to gunfire. The Doctor and Liz make their way inside and encounter the octopus-like plastic creature that the Nestenes have created with the power units as the perfect form for the invasion. While the Doctor struggles with the creature, Liz manages to use his machine to shut the creature down, and all the Autons "die" as well, being part of the Nestene gestalt consciousness.
The Brigadier fears the Nestenes will return and asks for the Doctor's help. The Doctor agrees to join UNIT in exchange for facilities to help repair the TARDIS and a car like the sporty antique roadster he comandeered during the adventure. At his insistence, Liz stays on as his assistant.
[edit] Cast
- Doctor Who — Jon Pertwee
- Liz Shaw — Caroline John
- Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart — Nicholas Courtney
- Channing — Hugh Burden
- Ransome — Derek Smee
- Hibbert — John Woodnutt
- Seeley — Neil Wilson
- Meg Seeley — Betty Bowden
- General Scobie — Hamilton Dyce
- Captain Munro — John Breslin
- Sergeant — Clifford Cox
- Corporal Forbes — George Lee
- UNIT Officer — Tessa Shaw
- Dr Henderson — Antony Webb
- Dr Beavis — Henry McCarthy
- Nurse — Helen Dorward
- Wagstaffe — Alan Mitchell
- Mullins — Talfryn Thomas
- 2nd Reporter — Prentis Hancock
- Technician — Ellis Jones
- Museum Attendant — Edmund Bailey
[edit] Continuity
- While the Doctor is taking a shower, a tattoo is clearly seen on his forearm. This belonged to Pertwee, who got it when he was in the Navy. No explanation is given for the tattoo in the television series, but some of the spin-off fiction have explained it as a Time Lord criminal brand.
- At the beginning of Episode 3, an Auton is seen running very quickly after a victim in the factory. This is an unusual trait, not only because most Doctor Who monsters seem to prefer a slow, lumbering gait, but because they appear to lose their ability to run in their next appearance in Terror of the Autons. In the episode Rose, however, they are seen jogging after the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler.
- The Doctor's exile would last until The Three Doctors, although the Time Lords would move the TARDIS through space and use the Doctor as their agent in Colony in Space, The Curse of Peladon, The Mutants and The Time Monster.
- The Autons would return in the 1971 serial Terror of the Autons and in Rose, the debut story of the 2005 series revival. Rose contains scenes which deliberately echo the shop window dummy scenes in this story.
- This was the first serial to reveal that the Doctor has two hearts. The Doctor is also revealed to have blood that cannot be identified by Earth doctors, and a heartbeat that can lower to as little as 10 beats per minute.
- The Doctor claims to be conversant in the eyebrow-twitching language of the planet Delphon. This language also features in the Big Finish Productions audio play ...ish.
[edit] Production
- The working title of the serial was Facsimile, and was based on a story that Robert Holmes wrote for the 1966 film Invasion, which featured an alien crashing in some woods and brought to a hospital where it is discovered he is not human.
- Due to BBC staff industrial action, Spearhead from Space was the only story from the original 1963-89 series to be shot entirely on film, as opposed to the usual mix of electronic video cameras for studio material and film for location work (or all-video in later seasons).
- A new logo was introduced for the series beginning with this serial. Unlike the logos used for the First and Second Doctor's eras, which used a generic typeface, the new logo was an attempt at being more stylized, particularly in the presentation of the initial "D" in Doctor and the "H" in "Who." This logo would be used until the final episode of The Green Death in 1973, but would make an unexpected return in 1996 when it was adopted as the logo for the US-produced 1996 TV movie. It subsequently became the official logo of the Eighth Doctor, and of the franchise itself, being used on original novels, DVD releases, and Big Finish Productions audio plays. As of 2007 it continues to be the official logo of the 1963-1989 series and Big Finish's Doctor Who productions, while a new logo was introduced to symbolize the new (post-2005) series.
[edit] Outside references
- Several elements in this serial are reminiscent of Nigel Kneale's 1955 television serial Quatermass II, including such plot elements as an alien intelligence falling to Earth in the form of meteorites, invasion via impersonation, and an alien monster growing inside a tank.
[edit] In print
| Doctor Who book | |
 |
|
| Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion | |
|---|---|
| Series | Target novelisations |
| Release number | 6 |
| Writer | Terrance Dicks |
| Cover artist | Chris Achilleos |
| ISBN | 0 426 10313 0 |
| Release date | 17 January 1974 |
| Preceded by | Doctor Who and the Crusaders |
| Followed by | Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters |
A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in January 1974. This was the first novelisation commissioned by Target following the successful republishing of three books originally published in the mid-1960s; the Target Books novelisation series would run for the next twenty years and see all but a half-dozen Doctor Who serials adapted. The Third Doctor era would become the first to be completely novelised with the release of the adaptation of The Ambassadors of Death in 1987. This book was translated into Finnish, in the seventies, as Tohtori KUKA ja autonien hyökkäys, although Doctor Who never appeared on Finnish television until the 2005 revival series was sold to the country. There were also Dutch, Turkish, Japanese and Portuguese editions.
[edit] Broadcast and releases
- This story was released in an omnibus edition on VHS in the United Kingdom in 1986. In early 1995 it was rereleased as an episodic version. A DVD release followed on January 29, 2001.
- In the original broadcast, Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well (Part One)" can be heard during scenes of dolls being manufactured at Auto Plastics. This was removed from most of the video and DVD releases due to rights issues. It is present on the 1995 episodic VHS release.
- This story was repeated on BBC Two in 1999 and, on BBC Four in 2006 as part of the "Science Fiction Britannia" season.
[edit] External links
- Spearhead from Space episode guide on the BBC website
- Spearhead from Space at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
- Spearhead from Space at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- Doctor Who Locations - Spearhead from Space
[edit] Reviews
- Spearhead from Space reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- Spearhead from Space reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
[edit] Target novelisation
- Spearhead from Space reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
- On Target — Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion
| UNIT television stories | |
|---|---|
| Second Doctor: | (The Web of Fear) • The Invasion |
| Third Doctor: | Spearhead from Space • Doctor Who and the Silurians • The Ambassadors of Death • Inferno • Terror of the Autons • The Mind of Evil • The Claws of Axos • The Dæmons • Day of the Daleks • The Time Monster • The Three Doctors • The Green Death • Invasion of the Dinosaurs • Planet of the Spiders |
| Fourth Doctor: | Robot • Terror of the Zygons • The Android Invasion |
| Seventh Doctor: | Battlefield |
| Tenth Doctor: | The Christmas Invasion |
| Minor appearances: | The Time Warrior • The Seeds of Doom • The Five Doctors • Aliens of London/World War Three |
| See also: | UNIT dating controversy |
| Auton television stories | |
|---|---|
| Third Doctor: | Spearhead from Space • Terror of the Autons |
| Ninth Doctor: | Rose |
| Minor appearances: | Love & Monsters |
| See also: | Auton trilogy |
| Television stories dealing with Regeneration | |
|---|---|
| First Doctor: | The Tenth Planet |
| Second Doctor: | The Power of the Daleks • The War Games |
| Third Doctor: | Spearhead from Space • Planet of the Spiders |
| Fourth Doctor: | Robot • Logopolis |
| Fifth Doctor: | Castrovalva • The Caves of Androzani |
| Sixth Doctor: | The Twin Dilemma |
| Seventh Doctor: | Time and the Rani |
| Eighth Doctor: | Doctor Who (1996) |
| Ninth Doctor: | The Parting of the Ways |
| Tenth Doctor: | Children in Need special • The Christmas Invasion |
| See also: | Destiny of the Daleks • The Ultimate Foe • The Curse of Fatal Death |
