Spearhead from Space by: Robert Holmes directed by: Derek Martinus: Smith. Doctor John Smith

Spearhead from Space stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Caroline John as Elizabeth Shaw, and Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethebridge-Stewart, with John Breslin as Captain Munro, Hamilton Dyce as General Scobie, and Hugh Burden as Channing.  It was written by Robert Holmes, and directed by Derek Martinus, with Terrance Dicks as Script Editor and Derrick Sherwin as Producer.  It was broadcast on Saturdays from 3 to 24 January 1970 on BBC1.

 

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