3.1: Spearhead from Space

In which everything is suddenly more colourful.

Broadcast: January 1970

Watched: November 2019

Spearhead from Space, Episode 1

Wow they really love the colour don’t they. They go mental with it in that new intro, in a slightly bad way. Also is that an Ice Warrior helmet? [It isn’t. This is a confusing reference to a shape in the credits.]

Feels more modern somehow – the range of sets means the last of the staginess has gone – but can’t work out if I’m projecting just because it’s in colour. Half tempted to watch one in black and white to see, but I suppose Ambassadors is up soon. [Eddie Robson, outraged, pointed out at this point that The Ambassadors of Death – two stories hence – has been all colour for years.]

Part of it might be that this is the template for much of what comes later? Also it’s the first time since the start that we’re introduced to the Doctor through others, I think. You can still see echoes of this story in Rose, Eleventh Hour, Deep Breath... But in terms of the plot, it’s sort of just The War Machines or The Invasion isn’t it?

Oooh our first Yokel! Though why someone in Epping would have that accent remains unexplained. We see the Doctor earlier than I remembered, even if he doesn’t say anything for a while. He’s clearly speaking lines written with Troughton in mind, though.

Liz has a dozen degrees. Does she really.

Good to see UNIT, like Torchwood, is a secret organisation that everybody knows about. The fact the cliffhanger is one of the soldiers accidentally shooting the Doctor is hilarious. As is the wheelchair chase. Is this the first time it’s made clear how alien the Doctor’s biology is?

Pertwee’s business with the shoes is great.

Also, the Brigadier says that since UNIT was established there have been two alien invasion attempts which the Doctor helped with. But UNIT was established after Web wasn’t it? So we’re missing one? [It’s clearly shorthand for “I have been in two previous stories”, but the resulting continuity error, and fan writers’ urge to fix it, mean there are now bloody dozens of alien invasions Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has helped foil before this one. Thanks, great work, everybody.]

Spearhead from Space, Episode 2

The Brig has accepted this random bloke as the Doctor pretty quickly.

Love “There was something odd about their faces” CUT TO: doll factory.

Liz’s “It’s not a police box – it’s a spaceship!” is hilarious.

A tattooed Doctor singing in the shower feels like something we wouldn’t have got in the 60s, even in The War Machines.

Oh no! Rory Stewart has been murdered by an auton!

Spearhead from Space, Episode 3

Okay I’ve been in the pub but that seemed pointless? No escalation. 25 minutes to get to somewhere we knew it was going. Blah.

[Approximately 16 hours pass.]

Gonna rewatch Spearhead 3 now because in retrospect I was absolutely steaming last night. 

Spearhead from Space, Episode 3

Scobie: “Don’t get machines going on strike, eh?” Brexit prick. Channing refusing to shake hands is a big “I Am An Alien” red flag. Also the creepy “looking through your nan’s frosted glass door” moment.

Why does the Brig think the Doctor is going to just leg it? Admittedly he tries, but he never has before.

Is the Auton in the kitchen the first example of what one might call Yeti-on-the-loo syndrome? Don’t think we’ve had monsters in private spaces before.

Spearhead from Space, Episode 4

For the record, it took me a long time to accept that this story wasn’t called The Auton Invasion. [It’s the name of the novelisation: because of my very great age I experienced most stories as books before I ever saw them on TV.]

The idea that Madame Tussauds would have a room of civil servants is kind of strange isn’t it? Though the cutaway to people screaming when the real Scobie wakes up is a nice touch.

All those old school fanboy types who whined that Rose didn’t make sense should be required to explain exactly what the Nestene’s plot is here. “Replace important people with duplicates BUT THEN start murdering random people before they can actually do anything.” Er, what? Also the Doctor’s Auton-killing device is basically anti-plastic without the wry smile.

Again, I’m struck by the fact that Holmes’ stories are never short of *stuff*. This gets a lot more into four episodes than most Troughton six parters manage.

The fact the Doctor nicks a car and gets away with it until he confesses is quite fun.

****

So, the big question about this story: is this a big reboot? It always felt like the single biggest relaunch anywhere in the old show. 

I’m not convinced. Sure, there are some big shifts (most obviously, colour; the extra location and film shooting that allows; the only returning cast being the Brig, who’s a cipher in the earlier stories). 

But... you can see the roots of this stuff – the Doctor working with the authorities to defeat alien or supernatural threats to contemporary Earth – in The War Machines in 1966, plus in the Web of Fear, Invasion, even something like Seeds of Death (which isn’t contemporary but is still an action story about aliens invading a recognisable Earth). It’s just that it used to be a novelty: now it’s the whole format.

So, basically, no, Doctor Who in 1970 doesn’t look that much different to Doctor Who in 1969. It’s just in colour.