Spearhead from Space
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| 051 – Spearhead from Space | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who serial | |
 The Auton invasion begins. |
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| Cast | |
| Doctor | Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor) |
| Companion | Caroline John (Liz Shaw) |
| Production | |
| 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 |
| Originally broadcast | January 3–January 24, 1970 |
| Chronology | |
| ← Preceded by | Followed by → |
| The War Games | 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 Series 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.
Contents |
[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 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 Britain 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 commandeered 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 — Allan Mitchell
- Mullins — Talfryn Thomas
- 2nd Reporter — Prentis Hancock
- Technician — Ellis Jones
- Museum Attendant — Edmund Bailey
[edit] Continuity
- The concept of regeneration is not named in this serial. It was finally named in Planet of the Spiders.
- While the Doctor is taking a shower, a tattoo of a cobra is clearly seen on his forearm. In reality it belonged to Pertwee, who got it when he served in the Royal Navy. No explanation is given for the tattoo in the television series, and it does not appear on any other Doctor; it has been theorised in fandom that it is a Time Lord criminal brand[1], a theme expanded upon by the spin-off novel Christmas on a Rational Planet.
- 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 Terror of the Autons (1971) and Rose (2005) (both of which are the first story for a new companion, namely, Jo Grant, and Rose Tyler, while Spearhead From Space was Liz Shaw's first story), and also have a cameo in a specially-shot flashback scene in the 2006 episode Love & Monsters (which briefly revisits the events of Rose). The latter two stories contain scenes that deliberately echo the shop window dummy scenes in this story.
- The Doctor is 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.
- The Doctor tells Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart that his name is Doctor John Smith, an alias first used in The Wheel in Space.
[edit] Production
- The working title of the serial was Facsimile, and was based on a story that Robert Holmes wrote for the 1965 film Invasion, which featured an alien crashing in the woods near a rural hospital, where a medical examination reveals his alien nature. The hospital is later visited by other aliens, seeking a fugitive criminal. Some of the exact lines of dialogue used by human doctors to describe the physiology of the injured alien were re-used.
- 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, Video releases (1996-2003) & 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] In print
| Doctor Who book | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion | |
| Series | Target novelisations |
| Release number | 6 |
| Writer | Terrance Dicks |
| Publisher | Target Books |
| Cover artist | Chris Achilleos |
| ISBN | 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, entitled Doctor Who and The Auton Invasion. 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, VHS and DVD 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. It was rereleased with new outer packaging on July 2, 2007.
- 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] References
- ^ Cornell, Day and Topping: Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide, p.109.
[edit] External links
- Spearhead from Space at bbc.co.uk
- 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
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