| 051 – Spearhead from Space | |||||
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| Doctor Who serial | |||||
 The Auton invasion begins. |
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| Cast | |||||
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| 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 minutes each | ||||
| Originally broadcast | January 3–January 24, 1970 | ||||
| Chronology | |||||
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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 |
Plot
Synopsis
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 sceptical 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.
Continuity
The Doctor
The concept of regeneration is not named in this serial. It was finally named in Planet of the Spiders.
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.
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.
This is the first time in Doctor Who history that it is learned Time Lords have two hearts. In addition, 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, when the Sixth Doctor says a word in Delphon while reflecting on words of the same pronunciation and spelling with different meanings.
The Doctor tells Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart that his name is Doctor John Smith, an alias first used in The Wheel in Space.
Autons
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 even Autons do as well elsewhere in this story and in its sequel, Terror of the Autons. However, in the new series episode "Rose", they are seen jogging after the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler.
The Autons would return in Terror of the Autons (1971) and "Rose" (2005) (each of which is the first story for a new companion, namely, Jo Grant and Rose Tyler, respectively, while Spearhead From Space was Liz Shaw's first story). They 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.
Production
| Episode | Broadcast date | Run time | Viewership (in millions) |
Archive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Episode 1" | 3 January 1970 | 23:38 | 8.4 | 16mm colour film |
| "Episode 2" | 10 January 1970 | 24:21 | 8.1 | 16mm colour film |
| "Episode 3" | 17 January 1970 | 24:16 | 8.3 | 16mm colour film |
| "Episode 4" | 24 January 1970 | 24:38 | 8.1 | 16mm colour film |
| [2][3][4] | ||||
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.
Broadcast and reception
This story was repeated on BBC One on consecutive Fridays in July 1971 (09/07/71 to 30/07/71 at 6.20pm) and repeated again on BBC Two in 1999 in episodic form and on BBC Four in 2006 as 2 compilation episodes as part of the Science Fiction Britannia season.
| 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 | 0-426-10313-0 |
| Release date | 17 January 1974 |
| Preceded by | Doctor Who and the Crusaders |
| Followed by | Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters |
Commercial releases
This story was released in an omnibus edition on VHS in the United Kingdom in 1986. In early 1995 it was re-released as an episodic version (the previous omnibus edition VHS version remained as the release for the United States and Canada). A DVD release followed on January 29, 2001. It was re-released with new outer packaging on July 2, 2007. These DVD releases contain commentary provided by actors Nicholas Courtney and Caroline John. It is rumoured that this serial will be re-released on DVD at some point in 2010.
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.
Part 1 was released on DVD in 2006, coming free with The Sun as a promotional item. It was housed in a cardboard case.
All four episodes of this serial have recently been issued for sale along with other selected Second and Third Doctor serials on iTunes.
In print
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.
Audio
An unabridged reading of the novelisation by actor Caroline John was released as 4 CD's in June 2008 by BBC Audiobooks. The original Target books artwork by Chris Achilleos is featured on the cover.
References
- ^ Cornell, Paul; Day, Martin; Topping, Keith (1995). "Spearhead from Space" (reprinted on BBC Doctor Who website). The Discontinuity Guide. London: Virgin Books. p. 109. ISBN 0-426-20442-5. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/spearheadfromspace/detail.shtml. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (2007-03-31). "{{subst:PAGENAME}}". Outpost Gallifrey. http://gallifreyone.com/episode.php?id=3a. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
- ^ "{{subst:PAGENAME}}". Doctor Who Reference Guide. http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_3a.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
- ^ Sullivan, Shannon (2008-05-18). "{{subst:PAGENAME}}". A Brief History of Time Travel. http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/aaa.html. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
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
Reviews
- Spearhead from Space reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- Spearhead from Space reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
Target novelisation
- Spearhead from Space reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
- On Target — Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion
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