The Ambassadors of Death Episode 3

The one where Liz drives Bessie in a car chase...

It really is shocking how poor the colourisation of this story is. Fans seemed to be perfectly pleased with the way it looked when the DVD was released in 2012, but watching it now, it truly is appalling. The colours are all over the place, and often just not there at all, and it makes me wish they hadn't bothered and just left it in monochrome. I remember seeing the story on VHS in black and white and it was much moodier that way, especially with Dudley Simpson's tense score.

The second thing that struck me watching episode 3 is the state of Ralph Cornish's shoes. When he climbs up to peer into the Recovery 7 shuttle you can see his brogues caked with mud! This scene was recorded at BBC TV Centre on February 27th, 1970, an entire month after Ronald Allen was on location in Aldershot for the retrieval of Recovery 7, so that's some very diligent adherence to continuity on the production team's part!

The Ambassadors of Death Episode 2

The one where a UNIT convoy is attacked...

As the Doctor and Liz stride confidently into the computer room with the tape recording of the signal sent from space, it's easy to see why Taltalian wants the spool so much. Maybe it's the original two-inch colour master tape of this episode, hence the urgency to recover it. "I want that tape!" demands Taltalian, to which the Doctor replies: "Do you realise the importance of it?" Yes! Because the quality of the picture on The Ambassadors of Death Episode 2 (and most of the rest) is appalling, despite the very best colour recovery and restoration possible in 2012. The flesh tones are all over the place, and the colour very smeary, especially during rapid movement. Some scenes are like watching through a sieve.

But hark! The reprise of the cliffhanger is counterpointed with a marvellous double sting of the theme tune for the title captions, even more exciting than episode 1. TWANG! Love it.

The Ambassadors of Death Episode 1

The one where contact is lost with a Mars exploration shuttle...

Season 7 is a strange beast. As well as Doctor Who getting a new lead actor and supporting characters, and blazing into colour, its format changed radically too. Gone were the days of the Doctor and his companions arriving on some alien planet or in some distant time and getting involved in scrapes. This new-look Doctor Who was entirely Earth-based, and feels much more generic as a result. By 1970, Lew Grade's ITC production company was churning out 26-part action-adventure series like nobody's business, often with a slightly fantastical twist but always based on a set group of investigators righting wrongs.

Doctor Who in 1970 has a distinct feel of series like Strange Report, Department S and Ghost Squad, with the Doctor and Liz, supported by the Brigadier and UNIT, marching into desperate situations to sort them out, whether they be strange goings-on at a factory, an atomic research station, or a space control centre. The decision to base Doctor Who on Earth, with no alien worlds, was a brave one, because it runs the risk of turning viewers off. People know what to expect when they tune into Doctor Who, but this must have been quite a change at the time. We have yet to see the TARDIS interior this season...

Doctor Who and the Silurians Episode 7

The one where the Brigadier blows up the Silurians...

For the second time in as many stories, the Doctor is abducted by monsters while wearing a white smock, only this time the abductors don't try and make off in an ambulance, but through the wall! The scorch mark the Silurians leave after resealing the wall is rather lovely too. It looks like something you might see on the wall at the Tate Modern. Perhaps there's a market for Silurian art?

It's a shame the Silurians have become a generic monster race by episode 7. After the death of the Old Silurian, it seems the entire race of revived creatures bowed to the will of the bloodthirsty Young Silurian, who wobbles around proclaiming very proudly that he is the leader now. This new leader just wants to wipe out the apes and take back the planet, and his means of doing so is both extreme and unexpected.

Doctor Who and the Silurians Episode 6

The one where the Doctor conducts some very complicated scientific tests...

For the vast majority of this episode - aside from the pre-filmed insert where he meets a doctor who I swear could be a Reese Shearsmith League of Gentlemen character - the Doctor spends all his time in a lab carrying out endless tests. It makes for seriously boring telly, with whole sequences spent in silence as we watch Liz and her clipboard watch the Doctor fiddle about with test tubes and pipettes. At one point, Liz enquires: "Have you considered the addition of A37 in the presence of Z19 might well be effective?", to which the Doctor replies, "That's a possibility, let's try", and then we have to watch Liz watching him try.

Boy is it dull, and proof that Malcolm Hulke is really struggling with this seven-episode structure. Director Timothy Combe does his best to spice up the visuals with some nicely shot - but terribly murky - location filming at Marylebone Station, but there's no escaping the truth that there's not a lot going on. We even get some really cheesy cross-fades of the Brigadier answering telephones, the Doctor conducting his tests and Liz taking blood samples like this is a 1940s Hollywood thriller. But with test tubes.

Doctor Who and the Silurians Episode 5

The one where Silurian civil war breaks out...

First there was Captain Knight, then Captain Turner, then Captain Munro, and now Captain Hawkins. UNIT had a swing-door policy on captains in its formative years, eventually settling on Captain Yates of course, but I wonder why they didn't keep John Breslin's Munro on for this story, or Paul Darrow's Hawkins on for Season 8? Both captains were solid and reliable, and Darrow in particular makes a good impression as the Brigadier's right-hand man.

This fifth episode is a pretty pedestrian affair as it's principally made up of a lot of people talking in rooms/ caves. For the entire episode, Masters, Dr Lawrence, Liz and Miss Dawson go round in circles arguing about the pros and cons of sending troops down into the caves, getting nowhere very fast, as demonstrated when Masters insists on doing nothing until he gets his next report. Cue arduous scene with all four of them watching a telephone, waiting for it to ring.

Doctor Who and the Silurians Episode 4

The one where we meet the Silurians...

"Hello, are you a Silurian?" What a perfect way to skewer the tension of that cliffhanger, while also adding so much to this Doctor's character and outlook. He's not scared of or threatened by the creature advancing on him, he's intrigued by it and keen to learn more about it. He offers his hand in friendship, and there's that lovely moment where the Silurian tries to reciprocate, but isn't sure how. A fantastic - and very Doctory - way to continue the cliffhanger. It's a pity it ends with the Silurian crashing his way out of the house, but then, monsters rampaging through country cottages seems to becoming a trait of the Pertwee era already!

This Doctor is very much a humanitarian, a peacemaker, and he knows already that unless he intervenes, the humans will try and destroy the Silurians. He may have a soft spot for Mankind, but he knows what we're capable of too, especially when we feel threatened. It could be said of the Daleks - "dislike for the unlike" - but it's very true of humans too.

Doctor Who and the Silurians Episode 3

The one where UNIT searches for an escaped creature on Wenley Moor...

There's a monster on the loose on Wenley Moor. Not many people have seen what it looks like, and those that have seen it are turned to gibbering wrecks (except good old Liz!). It's a cast-iron classic horror film scenario - a monster lurking on a wild and windy moor, and a desperate search by the military to capture it before it kills again. It all feels very Quatermass, but also foreshadows a couple of my favourite genre series, 1981's The Nightmare Man and 1991's Chimera (that even has a monster holed up in a barn).

Director Timothy Combe does a grand job of making the search look professional and believable, with the budget stretching to a helicopter, flare guns, military vehicles, search dogs and loads of extras. His camera shots from the helicopter are wonderful and sweeping, especially the ones taking in Dr Quinn next to his car on the lonely track. These scenes add scale and truth to proceedings, even though we see next to nothing of the creature in question.

Doctor Who and the Silurians Episode 2

The one where we discover Quinn is colluding with the subterranean creatures...

Liz is great, isn't she? Even in her slightly diluted form here, she's not afraid to stick up for herself and speak out. It's lovely that she has very quickly sided with the Doctor, her loyalty apparent in the early scene when the Brigadier teases the Doctor about not coming up with any credible evidence of creatures in the caves. "A subterranean Loch Ness monster? Very helpful!" he scoffs, but Liz is quick to provide support for the Doctor by apparently believing that the creature could be prehistoric. The very idea of a prehistoric monster being alive in the caves beneath Derbyshire is pretty preposterous, but Liz is willing to go with it, for the Doctor's sake.

So it's a little disappointing when the Doctor lets her down somewhat when he sides with the Brigadier in refusing to let her go down into the caves with him. Despite Liz's spirited "Have you never heard of female emancipation?", she's defeated by the sheer amount of testosterone in the room, and sadly, she gives in to it all too easily. This is not the Liz Shaw of Spearhead from Space. This is Barry Letts's version of a Doctor Who companion: loyal but submissive. Shame.

Doctor Who and the Silurians Episode 1

The one where the Doctor goes pot-holing...

After a great opening scene in which two men are attacked by what seems to be a giant lizard while pot-holing (it'd make a great pre-credits sequence), we join the Doctor flat on his back under his new car, seemingly the new wheels the Brigadier promised him last week. In a jarringly self-referential move, the Doctor appears to be fixing a new registration plate to the car, WHO 1, and has named it Bessie. I've never really wondered why the car is called Bessie before, but it begs the question of what the Doctor names the car after. Bessie is short for either Elizabeth or Beatrice, and derives from the Hebrew for "pledged to God", which gives some insight into how the Doctor might see himself - or, of course, he could have named it after his new companion, Liz!

This new Doctor is shaping up very nicely already, no doubt helped by Jon Pertwee's very self-confident performance and sense of self. Pertwee was a very confident man who knew exactly who he was and what he wanted, and this seeps into his Doctor very naturally. He is a self-assured presence in any room, but retains a rather sweet politeness, especially towards Liz. I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes between Spearhead from Space and this story, but Liz does seem to have softened a little, and her leggy attire suggests new producer Barry Letts perhaps viewed the character quite differently to his predecessor, Derrick Sherwin. I do hope the character won't get watered down too much.

Spearhead from Space Episode 4

The one where the shop window dummies come to life...

There's something I can't get my head around. Why all the shenanigans around the Madame Tussauds Waxworks? It's pretty unlikely that a commercial enterprise like Tussauds would feature an entire tableau of "top civil servants", but I can get over that by rationalising that they have a special exhibition on or something (it still won't do much for visitor numbers, though!).

What I can't fathom is why General Scobie - the real General Scobie - is positioned in the waxworks while his plastic facsimile goes about his business in the outside world. All of the other plastic dummies are just that - plastic facsimiles - so why has Channing chosen to put Scobie on display at Madame Tussauds? And how is he made to stay that still and plasticky, apparently alive but not conscious? Where are all the other "top civil servants" who have had plastic facsimiles made of them? Will they be placed in the waxworks display too?

Spearhead from Space Episode 3

The one where the Auton smashes up Brook Cottage...

The Autons really are bloody terrifying, aren't they? They were never as viscerally effective again as they are in their debut, in their mundane boiler suits and silver boots. In the cliffhanger reprise we discover they have guns secreted inside their wrists, and when Ransome makes a dash for it, the Auton chases him - yes, it runs after him! No lumbering in lukewarm pursuit for these chaps!

By far the best sequence in episode 3 is the Auton attack on the Seeley home, Brook Cottage. Derek Martinus continues to direct like he's auditioning for a Hammer horror film, and it all makes for chilling footage. Betty Bowden is magnificent as the scared but brave Meg Seeley, whose initial discovery of the energy unit in the shed brings the Auton to her door. Martinus makes the connection between the Auton and the energy unit signal by giving us an establishing shot of Brook Cottage, then panning rapidly left to the woods, then crash-zooming in on the emerging Auton as it approaches the dwelling. This is edge-of-the-seat stuff!

Spearhead from Space Episode 2

The one where the Doctor enters the adventure proper...

There's some great film editing at work in Spearhead from Space courtesy of William Simon and Adam Dawson (under the direction of Derek Martinus, obviously). For example, the way the first scene of episode 2 is literally answered by the second, when Corporal Forbes asks "Is he dead, sir?", and then we switch to the hospital ward, where Dr Henderson responds: "No... he's more unconscious than anyone I've ever seen!". There's also the genius use of crash zooms to reveal the Autons in the woods, seen at first from a distance, then in rapid close-up.

The first reveal of an Auton (not yet named on screen) is a classic Doctor Who WTF moment. I mean, what is that thing? A shop window dummy dressed in a boiler suit, scarf and silver boots wading its way through the undergrowth like an escaped convict. Except, it's not quite a shop window dummy, it's like a pressure-moulded plastic face mask, and the fact you can see another layer of lumpen flesh-coloured something beneath (the actor's gauzed face?) just adds to the unheimlich quality of these creatures. Brrrr...

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!