Spearhead from Space Episode 1

The one where Doctor Who goes COLOUR...

Doctor Who had only been gone six months, but the change was seismic. I don't think there has ever been as comprehensive a change for Doctor Who in its 55-year history as that which came in Spearhead from Space. The jolting improvement in picture quality by going from black and white to colour is startling and thrilling; the move from studio-bound videotape to location-heavy film is amazing (although sadly not permanent); and the change in lead actor from a little craggy-faced character actor to a tall, craggy-faced comedy actor was a step into brave new territory.

Then there's the stunning new opening titles which assault the eyes with a flood of kaleidoscopic colour - the swirling, fizzing, spinning graphics melt from vivid red to icy blue to verdant green in quick succession, and although very few viewers in 1970 would have actually seen all this in colour (in 1970, there were 15.6 million black and white TV licences issued, compared to just 273,000 colour licences), the impact is certainly not lost almost 50 years later. I amuse myself that in the green swirl I always see a subliminal outline of Darth Vader's helmet!

Another intriguing fact is that you actually get to see the new Doctor's face in the opening titles before you ever see it in the programme itself. Tradition nowadays dictates that you'll have seen the new Doctor at the end of the preceding story (or in a pre-credits sequence), but there was no such glimpse in The War Games, and so we're introduced to the Third Doctor for the first time as he grins out of the titles at the start of Spearhead from Space. We wouldn't see him properly again for another 14 minutes...

I love how the episode opens with a pan across the void of space to settle on the planet Earth - just as Rose did 35 years later when the series was rejuvenated. It's a cracking way to set the scene, telling the viewer that we here on this little blue globe are tiny compared to what's out there. And what's out there is a storm of meteorites that fall to Earth in formation, something which perplexes a very sweaty radar technician and his (ooh - female!) boss at a tracking station in England. The meteorites come down in a forest near Epping in Essex, the latest in what will be a long line of alien invasions centred around southern England.

Take a step back though and just marvel at the beautiful picture quality. This story was shot entirely on film on location and so benefits from a glossy, technicolour sheen that makes it shine even today. Doctor Who suddenly looks and feels like one of the prolific ITC dramas of the period, and coupled with Dudley Simpson's gorgeous score, really does seem light years ahead of the often make-do-and-mend Season 6. It's a real shame Doctor Who couldn't have carried on being made on film, because it looks beautiful, professional and expensive. In truth, there'd only be two more stories made on film in the 20th century. It's a pity the sound isn't as clean as the visuals, as the wood-panelled location gives some scenes (particularly the Brigadier's office) an echo.

Just over three minutes in to the episode and the TARDIS materialises in Oxley Woods - in COLOUR! It's the first time we've seen the blue police box in colour (apart from those cinema films) and it's quite a watershed moment. We've always been told the TARDIS is blue, we've always known police boxes are blue... but to see it is another thing entirely. When the door opens and a figure collapses to the ground we know it is the Doctor - the new Doctor - and the adventure can really begin.

Except it doesn't really get going in this episode as writer Robert Holmes chooses instead to set the scene and set up his characters. We don't get to see this new Doctor's face clearly until almost 14 minutes in (why director Derek Martinus holds his appearance back is odd considering it was centre stage in the opening titles!), but we do get to meet an old face in the form of Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - IN COLOUR!

Elizabeth Shaw's arrival at UNIT's secret base in an underground car park is beautifully scored by Simpson, once again adding some ITC lustre as well as a peppering of 1970s soft-core porn! Liz Shaw is not a woman to be trifled with. She's understandably annoyed that UNIT has seconded her from her Cambridge University work, where she collects degrees and specialisms like she's picking daisies (she's an expert in meteorites apparently, as well as a qualified doctor and scientist). Liz Shaw is stern and steely, and finds the Brigadier's talk of alien invasions and creatures from outer space understandably hard to swallow. She's a scientist, a pragmatist, a realist - without evidence of these wild claims, of course she's going to scoff. I love Liz Shaw. She's no-nonsense, means business, but also finds time in the morning to trowel on the mascara and squeeze into a mini skirt. She's a woman totally in control of who she is.

I must say though, I like how the Brigadier asserts his position about the existence of aliens. He understands Miss Shaw's reluctance to accept "little blue men with three heads", but perseveres anyway. The way Courtney delivers the line "We've drawn attention to ourselves, Miss Shaw" is wonderful, a warning laced with intrigue. In fact, throughout the episode, Courtney is proper Leading Man material, the temporary main star in this new ITC adventure series!

We learn so much more about the Doctor generally in this episode than we do about the new Doctor specifically. In fact, there's very little to be learnt about Pertwee's interpretation of the role from what happens here. It's clear he has a more authoritative turn of phrase, but this Doctor has yet to properly kick in and (literally) find his feet. We do learn, however, that the Doctor has two hearts, a non-human blood type, and a resting heartbeat of 10bpm (up to ten times slower than a human's). This is all very specific information in stark contrast to the man of mystery of the previous seven years.

The characterisations in Holmes's script are lovely. My favourite by far is Sam Seeley, played by Neil Wilson, who has a fabulously expressive face. You can press pause on Wilson at any point and get a cracking, unique image! Then there's toothy Corporal Forbes who calls Seeley "dad" (that sure confused me as a child watching on VHS!), and the timid nurse who doesn't get a proper name because she's a woman, obviously. And Dr Henderson, the privileged physician who looks like Adrian Edmondson and is the first to find out all these amazing new things about the alien Doctor. He's left unmoved by the earbashing he gets from Dr Lomax about the Doctor's blood test results, and is determined to care for the stranger, whether that makes him a doctor or a vet!

Then there's Mullins, another uber-Welsh turn from uber-Welsh character actor Talfryn Thomas, a man who probably damaged the popular image of his countrymen no end by giving the same stereotypical performance in every single show he was cast in (which was virtually every TV show made between 1960-80!). His goofy presence would return to Doctor Who three years later when the production team set an entire story in Wales, and they needed the Welshest of Welsh actors to play the Welshest South Walian miners possible. Subtlety was not Thomas's forte.

I love Martinus's guerrilla camerawork when the Brigadier gets accosted by the media scrum. It's a very realistic idea to have the Brigadier fending off enquiries from curious journalists after they hear reports of strange meteorites and peculiar spacemen, and it's a pity this aspect of real life didn't carry on in the UNIT years. But then I suppose the more time the Brigadier spent fielding questions from hacks and holding press conferences in which he can't say anything, would detract from the time he could spend actually fighting the aliens, so fair enough! But as I say, Martinus's choice to use shaky-cam footage from within the media scrummage is inspired, and I adore the long tracking shot of the Brigadier and Munro striding along the wood-panelled hospital corridor to the Doctor's ward.

There's a moment, when the Brigadier is addressing the semi-conscious Doctor, when he says: "Wake up man, listen to me!", and I've always privately believed this is where the Third Doctor subconsciously obtains one of his perennial catchphrases for the rest of his era. The amount of times the Third Doctor says "Now listen to me!" in a vaguely condescending, supercilious manner is something I'm going to keep my eye on, as well as perhaps the amount of times he rubs the back of his neck (another Pertweeism!).

The cliffhanger sequence is beautifully bizarre: the Doctor tries to escape from two shiny, smooth-faced hospital porters by hurtling off in his wheelchair, speeding along pavements and driveways like a turbo-charged Ironside! It sets the tone for the era perfectly, telling us that this Doctor is a man of action and is not afraid to fight back. A wheelchair is a modest start to his Action Man adventuring, however!

At the close of the episode, we see the Doctor shot, seemingly in the head, and collapse to the forest floor, before those mesmerising end titles flood in and we're left wondering if this new Doctor will ever actually get to say anything of importance. As things stand, episode 1 has proven a slow-burn, but there's plenty of intriguing things going on to keep the interest.

First broadcast: January 3rd, 1970

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Derek Martinus's direction uses the filmed locations to their full advantage, and it all looks glorious.
The Bad: Mullins. Oh, and that curious habit Doctor Who has of not giving some characters names, while others have (the nurse really deserves a name if Henderson has one, as does Prentis Hancock's "2nd Reporter" seeing as Allan Mitchell's Wagstaffe gets a namecheck).
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Episode 2...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode 2; Episode 3; Episode 4

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/04/spearhead-from-space.html

Spearhead from Space is available on BBC DVD as part of the Mannequin Mania box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Mannequin-Mania-Spearhead/dp/B004P9MROY/.