If I had to pick a story
that showed that bad writers could become good writers it would have to be Spearhead from Space. Before this story Robert Holmes had written
two stories for Doctor Who, The Krotons and
The Space Pirates, both of which are
horrible. Spearhead from Space however marks a real change for the writer as
he changes his ways from writing mediocre and bad scripts to writing a great
one. He gets many of his tropes from
this script. It plays on his fears about
the real world, this time being plastic, it contains two characters who form a
double act in the form of Hibbert and Channing, which is more subtle than later
double acts, and it has the Doctor being very active in the role. These are all tropes mainly associated to
Holmes and his style of writing which helps a lot of the story move along at a
brisk pace, at least after Episode 1 is over.
Episode 1 is kind of a slow burn as Spearhead
from Space marks a real change in format for the show as we move away from
the more alien adventuring stories to stories set on Earth with an espionage
feeling to them. While The Invasion and to a lesser extent The War Games worked to set up this new
style of show, it is Episode 1 that actually has to put everything in place.
The episode opens with a
shot that would later inspire Russell T. Davies when rebooting the series,
before establishing that the Doctor has regenerated and is unconscious. This is how he remains for the remainder of
the episode besides some flashes about shoes.
It really isn’t a Doctor heavy episode which really can make it a bit
difficult to work with the new actor and get a feel for the new Doctor. The first episode at least makes up for it by
introducing Liz Shaw, who will be the new companion to the Doctor, and
reintroducing the audience to Brigadier Lethebridge-Stewart and UNIT. Giving us this time for introduction does
work in the stories advantage as we do get a bit of mystery set up about what
these meteorites are and what is going on at this plastic factory, all
accompanied by a great synthetic feeling score from Dudley Simpson. It all gives us a great sort of atmosphere
compiled with some great looking color footage for the switch. Yes this is the episode that switches us from
black and white into full color, just in time for the 1970s. Derek Martinus makes it look really good as
he has to do everything on location, but this does however get a little bit in
the way with the sound of some scenes just having this slight echo. This is especially prevalent when Brigadier
Lethebridge-Stewart is briefing Liz Shaw to introduce UNIT. The comedy tramp also falls completely flat
in the story. Holmes still hasn’t
refined his tastes for comedy as the tramp really comes across as a really
cringe inducing character that really takes you out of the story whenever he
comes on screen. He finally gets killed
off in Episode 3 and I have to say good riddance.
Luckily the quality of Spearhead from Space actually increases
after a lackluster Episode 1, with the Doctor actually getting himself involved
in the story. Jon Pertwee actually
allows us to have a lot of fun with this new Doctor as he establishes himself
as a proud authority figure for UNIT, knowing that he is smarter and already
exerting the pride that will be his downfall in Planet of the Spiders. Pertwee
excels for his first go out in the role as the Doctor while he’s doing a lot of
fast talking and clever wordplay to get the regulars on his side. He has this spark when studying the Nestene
sphere of someone who loves discovering new aliens. While he is the action man he doesn’t really
want violence and will do anything to save lives at all cost.
Elizabeth Shaw is
introduced here and Caroline John does a great job at coming across as an equal
mind to the Doctor. She’s very skeptical
and doesn’t want to believe that aliens could possibly be a real threat to the
Earth. She also doesn’t believe that the
Doctor could be a time traveler and that the TARDIS is just a police box. The Autons are also a credible threat and the
scenes in Episode 4 on the streets of London are great at creating the
threat. They kill indiscriminately and
the audience of course knows that these creatures are infiltrating the
government to create a hostile takeover of the world. The way they are defeated however is a bit
too quick as it is all done with technobabble, but the closing scenes with the
Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier feel like a real beginning of a new era for
Doctor Who as we have the makings of the UNIT family.
To summarize, Spearhead from Space has a few flaws to
it as a story. Episode 1 is an
installment that doesn’t exactly know how it wants to introduce everything and
the conclusion is very ham fisted with a lot of technobabble. Oh and the title is awful, and the Target
book has a much better title for the story.
Pertwee, John and Courntey set themselves up as a great team to work
together, the Autons are a great threat, Robert Holmes proves to be a great
writer for the long term, and the new era starts with a bang. 89/100
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