Holistic Review: An assured start for a practically rebooted Doctor Who, introducing a great new companion and one of the show’s best-ever concepts for a monster.

Rarely has Doctor Who juggled so many firsts simultaneously as it does in Spearhead from Space, which bursts into color with a new Doctor, a new companion, and a new Earthbound setting with a gradually-expanding cast of supporting characters. Given that there was a lot riding on its success — the series was nearly cancelled at the end of season 6, so the Doctor’s exile to Earth was conceived as a cost-cutting measure — this could have been quite a risk. Grounding the Doctor, as he says, “on one planet, in one time” removes one of the features that makes the series so appealing: that the Doctor can travel literally anywhere in time and space. With that massive storytelling background essentially gone, it’s true that the stories feel a bit smaller in scale, and a bit more uniform in tone. But there’s something really intriguing about the idea of focusing on threats to modern-day Earth, with the Doctor’s knowledge of TARDIS travel wiped as a punishment by the Time Lords.

Thanks to all of these dramatic changes — particularly the changes to the series’ very format — Spearhead from Space feels like the pilot episode for a brand-new television series, one more akin to The Avengers or, well, Torchwood, than Doctor Who. (Which, again, just goes to demonstrate how flexible the format of Doctor Who really is.) If it were a new series, it’d have a great hook: an English paramilitary organization specializing in investigating and rebuffing extraterrestrial threats to the Earth, which are a direct consequence of our expanding space-probe program. It’s a great premise, and a perfect background into which the exiled Doctor can slot seamlessly.

The Jon Pertwee era has a more distinctive feel than the tenure of any other Doctor, and that’s all thanks to UNIT, which permeates every season of the third Doctor’s reign. In this early serial, UNIT feels as if it’s mainly comprised of the Brigadier and a lab, with a handful of other minor soldier characters hanging around to do the grunt work. The Brigadier’s clearly still getting the organization off the ground, as per the fact that he’s only just drafted Elizabeth Shaw to serve as his scientific advisor. At this point, the Brigadier doesn’t yet have a massive international intelligence organization to call on for help, nor even a great deal of connections within the UK government, which gives Spearhead from Space a rather nice “us against the world” feeling, with UNIT serving as Earth’s first and only line of defense against alien invaders.

Nicholas Courtney is splendid in Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart’s first regular appearance. As the Pertwee era develops, the Brigadier sometimes comes across as either inflexible and narrow-minded, or goofy and narrow-minded, but in Spearhead from Space he’s on top form: commanding, intelligent, and knowledgeable, but also thoughtful, respectful, charming, and good-humored, with a willingness to believe in “extreme possibilities” to which even Liz is resistant. He's a natural leader for UNIT, and an excellent people person, both with his UNIT colleagues and with their external liaisons. I'm not always the Brigadier's greatest fan, so it's really nice to see the character starting off so strongly here. It certainly serves as an excellent foundation (and justification) for the character's many future appearances, which cement Lethbridge-Stewart as one of the show's most iconic characters, and Nicholas Courtney as one of its most beloved actors. And given how many times this issue will come up in the future, with the Brigadier even being present for the third Doctor’s transformation, it’s fun to see him grappling with the concept of regeneration for the first time.

But for my money, the most interesting member of UNIT by far is Doctor Elizabeth Shaw, a brilliant but acerbic scientist who’s intrigued by UNIT’s mission (if highly skeptical of the Brigadier’s claims about extraterrestrial intelligences) but resents having been involuntarily conscripted into her current position. This puts her at interesting loggerheads with the Brigadier, as she’s often torn between barely-concealed hostility at his impertinence (as she seems to regard it) and fascination at the peculiar scientific puzzles which he presents her. Liz is not one to play nice, or to hold her tongue, so the Brigadier often knows precisely how she feels, in the plainest terms possible. Their barely-concealed frustration with one another makes for entertaining repartée. To take but one example, re General Scobie:

Brigadier: “He’s our liaison with the regular army. Got to keep in with him.”
Liz: “You don’t expect me to salute him, I hope.”
Brigadier: “You could bring yourself to be a little less astringent, Miss Shaw.”
Liz: “I didn’t ask to come here, remember?”

And then the Doctor comes along, in his pompous and demanding third incarnation, and… positively charms Liz’ socks off. Unexpectedly, the two of them are immediately as thick as thieves, their burgeoning relationship overflowing with scientific curiosity, good humor, and mutual respect. Though she’s not a radical departure from Zoe, it’s still wonderful to see a competent scientist as a companion, someone who can talk to the Doctor on more or less his own level. Until the Doctor arrives, Liz is completely, and effortlessly, in charge of the entire lab (even if her brand of science — with its web of interconnected bubbling beakers and tubes and mostly-Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks filled with brightly colored liquids — appears to be gobbledegook). Assuming that Liz was indeed hired to be UNIT’s scientific advisor, she must’ve had a bit of a shock when the Doctor turned up, and she learned that her new title (and lab) was suddenly being given to him instead; but remarkably, especially given the sexism rampant in her field, Liz never seems to hold this against the Doctor. Perhaps more surprisingly, since she didn’t even want the job in the first place, she doesn’t immediately quit and leave them to it; instead, she stays loyally by the Doctor’s side for a whole season. Maybe their Nestene adventure was intriguing, and academically stimulating, enough to persuade her to stick around. After all, she does get to save the day.

Though, speaking of sexism, it must be said that poor Liz is always introduced, and almost always referred to, as “Miss Shaw” rather than “Doctor Shaw”. I’m reminded of my high-school biology teacher, who used to tell us, “My name is Doctor Brock. When you get your PhD, then you can call me Mrs.” I love that! And I’m sad that it’s taken me this long to realize that Liz, likewise, tends to have her title — from her multiple doctorates, mind you — stripped away in favor of her marital status. Here’s the breakdown:

This is, quite frankly, terrible. Liz isn’t even once referred to as “Doctor Shaw”, nor does the situation improve in subsequent stories. I’m ashamed to admit that I’d never realized this, but it does appear that Liz is never once referred to as anything other than “Miss” during her entire tenure. To his credit, the Brigadier is in many other respects a feminist ally, as in this scene where he shuts down Major General Scobie (who immediately changes the subject, and pretends he never said anything wrong):

Scobie: (to Liz) “How do you do.” (to the Brigadier) “Lucky fellow, Stewart, having a pretty face around the place.”
Brigadier: “She’s not just a pretty face, sir.”
Scobie: “Oh no, no. Newspapers seem to have gone wild over this business!”

Caroline John is superb in the role, with her very expressive eyes and quirky smile. It’s vitally important that actors portraying scientists be able to deliver scientific dialogue convincingly, and John excels at not only the technical lines, but also at Liz’ snark and her withering put-downs. Fortunately, Liz isn’t exclusively bad-tempered and intimidating; she also has a ready smile and a keen sense of humor, through which Caroline John’s warm portrayal softens the character’s spiky edges. Liz feels like a very well-rounded, realistic character, which is partly why she’s always been one of my favorite companions. (That, and her excellent feminist role-model credentials.) Love John’s delivery of “Wrong key.”, her skeptical and amused “Oh. I see.”, Liz’ reaction as the Doctor gets a little too handsy with Scobie’s waxwork figure, and “I can hardly keep me eyes open.”

The outfit she’s given in this story — a collared brown shift dress with a front zip, long sleeves, and cream-colored textured panels — straddles a fine line between “visually interesting” and “hideous”. On one hand, the color-blocking style feels very 1960s-mod, and the plastic panels give it a distinctly futuristic vibe. But the colors are so 1970s as to be unbelievable (all she needs is orange trim), and none of the critical details — the color, the shape, or the proportions — are particularly flattering on her. Yet it is distinctive and memorable. In my notes, I summed it up as “not exactly cute”, so let’s leave it at that. Fortunately, she sometimes covers it up with a rather more pleasant yellow lab coat.

And of course, I can’t go any longer without talking about our brand-new third Doctor, played with panache by Jon Pertwee. He gives a wonderfully physical performance, most notably in the rather adorable scene demonstrating the eyebrow-twitching Delphon language. And his love of gadgets begins right away, as he hotwires an antique roadster in front of the hospital, and his eyes later gleam with anticipation as he considers getting his own replacement. Perhaps best of all, he comes across as irreverently humorous and quick-thinking, as in the scene where he asks Scobie's duplicate to speak into his "microphone" weapon. Spearhead from Space includes some firsts for the Doctor too: after he winds up being involuntarily confined to bed in an Earth hospital, we learn definitively that he has two hearts and his blood isn’t human. (And there’s something rather funny about the idea that the Doctor’s hospital visit nearly results in him becoming the subject of a tabloid newspaper story.) Still, there are a couple of moments that remind me why the third Doctor is generally my least favorite. He’s inexcusably rude to the UNIT guard — apparently he’s in an entitled mood that morning — immediately snapping, “And I’m not going to tell you my name, either.” (though evidently he relents, since the guard is able to inform the Brigadier of who’s arrived to see him), and he offhandedly insults Liz’ scientific equipment. However, I must say that I love his new costume. The first and second Doctors’ wardrobes were patchwork and eccentric, but relatively ordinary, not the sort of thing you’d bat an eyelid at if you saw someone wearing it on the street. But the third Doctor’s outfit has style, and fashion sense; it’s the first Doctorly outfit to feel like a “costume”, in all the best ways. The ruffled shirt is a florid but genius touch; it’s the sort of thing you can’t imagine a man nowadays being able to wear in all seriousness, but Pertwee absolutely pulls it off, and looks dashing in it too. And speaking of dashing… that cape! Again, it’s hard to imagine the Doctor actually wearing a cape, but on Pertwee it looks not only natural but spectacular. Quite a splendid, attention-grabbing outfit, and even though it's fashionable overall, the inclusion of more antiquated pieces evokes the sense that the Doctor is not moored to any one time. Plus it allows for lots of interesting variations on the color scheme; this week's deep sapphire-blue velvet jacket is lovely. Among my favorite of his deliveries: “Unhand me, madam.”, love the way the Doctor snatches his shoes and protectively curls around them in bed, “Did I really? How terribly exciting.”, “How could I — what on earth are these?”, “Oh, but I’m not human.”, his hangdog look and posture on “It won’t happen again.”, “I mean, it could persuade me to stay, you know.”, “When can we go and choose it?”, and he plays up the Nestene-attack scene for all he’s worth. That is some quality gurning as the tentacles wrap themselves around his throat.

So the format is working really well, and the regulars are great… but one area where I think Spearhead from Space is a bit lacking is its plot. The most successful element is the intriguing mystery of the plastics factory: we’ve seen the Autons, so we can guess what they’re manufacturing (and we know it has something to do with the alien meteorites), but it’s fun to watch the other characters figure it out, especially when Ransome launches his one-man investigation of his old office.

The biggest problem is arguably the dénouement, in which the Doctor and Liz develop a machine that can kill the Nestenes’ earthly form… but then conveniently neglect to explain how exactly it works. It’s not until after the climactic scene that we’re informed it functions as a “much more powerful” version of “electroconvulsion therapy”, but how does that damage the host body? This machine inactivates Autons, too, evidently by emitting a sound frequency that permanently severs the Nestenes’ mental link, but that’s just my own unconfirmed deduction. Nor are we ever given any hint as to why the machine suddenly stops working just as the Doctor prepares to strike the fatal blow against the Nestene form, or how Liz manages to repair it. It’s just magic! Ta-da!

A more general problem is that the plot is rather slow to build; the Auton menace doesn’t really start to make an impact until part three. This isn’t necessarily all bad; in fact, it’s downright understandable, given that the series is simultaneously trying to introduce two new regulars and a new series format. As a result, we’re given a nice cozy first episode as we enjoy the novelty of a new Doctor (though we don’t see much of Pertwee because he’s asleep for most of the time). Likewise, the Doctor’s escape from the hospital in episode 2 — wherein he assembles his costume from a locker room, “borrows” someone else’s car, and becomes the first Doctor to get naked onscreen — is charming and fun. But it does mean that the plotline itself takes an awfully long time to get going.

Fortunately, even though the Nestenes’ plans are slow to develop, the monsters are a consistently menacing presence throughout Spearhead from Space. Funnily enough, even though I wouldn’t put the Nestenes in my top ten Doctor Who monsters, I think they’re one of my favorites. I think maybe that’s because, while there are monsters that give me a deeper thrill, the Nestenes are successful, fascinating, and terrifying on pretty much every level.

For starters, they’re a disembodied alien intelligence. Doctor Who has an excellent track record with disembodied intelligences, and the Nestenes are no exception. What makes the Nestenes extra-threatening is that, unlike most other disembodied alien intelligences, they don’t speak. Or at least not directly: in Spearhead from Space, they use Channing as a sort of mouthpiece, but the entity itself remains ominously silent and unknowable.

But the Nestene Consciousness doesn’t stay disembodied for long. Once it’s found a planet to take over, its servants create an incubation tank in which it can manifest a body ideally suited to any given planet — which, on Earth, is evidently some kind of hairy green cephalopod (a combination of octopus, spider, and crab, according to the novelization). The idea that the Nestene can create its own body is eerie enough; the tentacled form that it chooses is downright terrifying. (One wonders, might it be made of plastic as well?) And so far, all of it — from the disembodied intelligence trying to overtake our world, to the unfathomably horrific form it takes — is straight out of HP Lovecraft. All we’re missing are some cultists. (Or are we?)

Best of all, Robert Holmes picked one of the best powers for this monster that I’ve ever seen in sci-fi/horror: it “has an affinity for plastic”, which in practical terms means that it can control anything made of plastic. This is both a terrifically useful power, especially in our modern world, and a terrifically well-defined limitation. One of the few downsides of Spearhead from Space is that it never capitalizes on this ability, instead limiting the Nestenes’ control to one thing alone:

Plastic duplicates. More specifically, living mannequins, which is (and has been) a horror-movie concept all by itself, even without the idea that the Nestenes can control other varieties of plastic just as easily. In that sense, perhaps Spearhead’s restraint isn’t so much a downside as it is a strength, because it allows this story more time to explore the concept and the creep factor of mannequins that can spring to life and kill you. Interestingly, the Nestenes choose not to control just any old mannequins, presumably because ordinary store mannequins aren’t very well-equipped for murder. Instead, the Nestenes design and manufacture their own plastic killing machines, called Autons, which they then distribute to stores all around the country. As Hibbert extols, the Autons are much more flexible (ie, manouevrable) than your average department-store mannequin, and just so happen to have guns built into their hands, which eerily spring open thanks to a hinge at the base of the fingers. And how do the Nestenes go about creating these Autons? Why, they impressively stage a corporate takeover of a toy factory, and convert it into a plastics factory, which cranks out (probably deadly) baby-dolls as a cover story, while secretly manufacturing Autons in the back. It’s a wonderful spin on the old “charming exterior hides horrific secret” trope, which makes this part of the story feel immediately appealing and comfortable, but with a very fresh twist.

The part of the Nestenes’ plan that doesn’t quite thrill me as much is the revelation that along with your basic Auton foot soldiers, they can also produce highly lifelike human facsimiles, which they plan to use to infiltrate human society; or, to be more specific, the British government. It’s certainly a very effective plan, but it lacks the immediacy and the gut-wrenching horror of the Auton attacks. The simplistic Autons are so creepy, and somehow the more advanced facsimiles make them seem less important or impressive. However, a good monster really needs a long-term plan, and this one is convincing and plays very well to their strengths.

So while the Nestenes may not quite crack my top ten, they’re very firmly in my second tier. Everything that they do in Spearhead, from their nature to their design to their abilities to their plans, is top-notch. Like the Great Intelligence and the Zygons (two other monsters in my second tier), the Nestenes are crying out for a modern-day story that does them justice. Without a doubt, they’re one of Doctor Who’s most interesting monsters ever.

And the Autons, despite simply being the Nestenes’ mindless lackeys, are almost entirely responsible for this story’s fright factor. For starters, plastic mannequins were, and are, omnipresent. This is a menace that, for all intents and purposes, every child has already seen. They’re not some freaky alien beast that could never survive on the planet Earth. They’re in the shop down the street, and staring at you from half the store windows along the way, and you walk past them every day. The Autons create frightening Doctor Who monsters out of a child’s daily life, which is a stroke of malicious genius. But don’t have any sympathy for the poor maligned mannequins; they were already terrifying children to begin with, which makes them such a perfect choice for a Doctor Who monster. And it’s certainly not just scary for kids: the Autons trigger all kinds of “uncanny valley” fright instincts, with their too-smooth, blankly-staring faces, completely hairless heads, and stiff movements. We’ve always expected the shop dummies to come to life when we weren’t looking, so the Autons only confirm our worst fears. (As a child, I was even enraptured with a TV Ontario show, Today’s Special, about a mannequin that came to life after hours, though Jeff was far more charming than murderous.) There’s a delicious incongruity to the visual of a killer mannequin dressed ever so smartly in a suit and ascot, too. And the buzzing noise they make, when activated, is a thing of genius: it’s somehow ominous all by itself, even moreso when you realize that it signals an Auton coming to life under Nestene influence. But the Autons aren’t just frightening visually and auditorily; their delicate-looking hand-guns also represent a formidable threat. Because their hand-guns are undetectable until the join behind the fingers unhinges, their victims don’t realize how much danger they’re in until the Auton is close enough to strike. The gun’s blast — accompanied by a loud whooshing sound, and a cloud of orange smoke — is effective both as an audiovisual effect and as a story element, particularly when their “total destruction!” setting disintegrates the corpse completely. And you can just forget about defending yourself. Because Autons are made entirely of mentally-animated plastic, there’s no way to injure or kill them with conventional weapons, like blades or bullets.

The scariest moments in Spearhead from Space — and this story has some classics — are thanks to the Autons. As Ransome explores his old office, he turns his back on a row of mannequins, one of whom comes to life and stalks after him with intent to kill. Another invades the Seeleys’ home, knocking Meg unconscious (miraculously, she avoids being fired upon) and, in a dramatic shot, bursting forcefully through the door of their shed. They begin to evoke body horror when Scobie opens his front door to reveal his own plastic duplicate, poised to put him out of commission and slot seamlessly into his former life. And then, of course, there’s that scene, in which a group of shop-window dummies literally jerk to life on a sleepy shopping street in the early morning, break out of their display window, and mow down the pedestrians ahead of them as they march down the street. There’s a particularly scary moment as they approach a line of people obliviously waiting for a bus, blissfully unaware of the threat behind them, until the Autons massacre at least four of them, and the others scatter in terror. It’s a rightfully memorable scene in Doctor Who history.

Like the Autons, Channing (Hugh Burden), with his perfectly coiffed hair and vacant stare, is eerily inhuman, which is all the more impressive because Burden has the most amazing, intense eyes. Impressively, he manages to deliver his dialogue with a hint of possessed, alien monotone, while simultaneously giving the lines enough nuance to make his delivery interesting. One of my favorites is the intensity in his voice on “All energy is a form of life.” Channing's human ally, George Hibbert, is part willing accomplice, part mind-controlled lackey. John Woodnutt does a nice job of balancing Hibbert’s warm human side (as in the scene where he says goodbye to General Scobie, or when he expresses his concern over Ransome’s fate) against his Nestene-controlled side, as on his brusque delivery of “There’s nothing wrong, my letter explained everything, goodbye.” or the chill in his voice on the second line of “What an extraordinary story! What made him say such a thing?” The scene in which Hibbert warns Ransome away from the factory is particularly creepy, promising lots of mystery and intrigue. John Ransome (Derek Smee) is one of my favorite characters of the story, thanks entirely to Smee’s unreserved performance. Right from the start, as a furious Ransome scolds Hibbert about how suddenly he’s been let go, he grabs the viewer’s attention. Smee really cranks up the dial after Ransome is rescued by UNIT, drooling and staring off into the distance as he raves about the Auton he saw. It’s a fantastic performance, and difficult to take your eyes off. In fact, Smee’s portrayal is so interesting and so naturalistic that one wishes he’d been contracted for a more regular role. Alas, poor Ransome ends up not just murdered but disintegrated, a regrettable fate for an excellent character.

UNIT’s military liaison, Major General Scobie (Hamilton Dyce), initially comes across as a stereotypical Doctor Who officer-in-charge: pompous, sexist, and, shall we say, not quick to comprehend the finer details of a complicated situation. (The Doctor would say “idiotic”.) Loved Dyce’s reaction when Liz cheekily informs Scobie that the police box is a spaceship. And he does quite a good job of standing perfectly still during the waxwork scenes! Among the UNIT soldiers, Captain Munro (John Breslin) seems like a highly capable officer. His rather hesitant, pleasant manner means that he also avoids the cliché of the macho soldier. In contrast, Corporal Forbes (George Lee) is a rather more typical soldier, aggressive and confrontational, a strategy which does not serve him well when Seeley manipulates him into not searching his burlap sack, despite hints that Seeley knows the location of one of the meteorites. Ellis Jones gives a nice performance in his single scene as the UNIT technician, confused about what he’s seen but adamant that he’s seen something, as does Tessa Shaw as his somewhat dismissive commander.

Among the hospital staff, I took a very immediate dislike to the foul-tempered Dr Henderson (Anthony Webb). For one thing, he’s inexcusably brusque with the nurse who brings in the Doctor’s X-rays, accusatorily implying that she’s fouled them up, either accidentally or deliberately. Every time I watch Spearhead from Space, I always get annoyed by the way Dr Henderson pushes past the vacuuming maintenance man, gets on the phone, dials, says hello, and then waves his hand in irritation and snaps his fingers at the cleaner to get him to turn the vacuum off. How rude and entitled can you be? Why not say “excuse me, I’m so sorry, I need to make a call on this phone. Would it be too much trouble to ask you to just turn off the hoover for a moment? Thanks ever so much.” and then make your call? I don’t like this man.

Dr Beavis (Henry McCarthy) — who donates the Doctor’s cape, hat, and temporary car — is a fairly unremarkable character, who at the time probably came across as “the face of experience” but now just seems emblematic of the narrow range of ages, genders and ethnicities that were considered believable as doctors in the late 1960s. Alas, after Spearhead’s excellent feminist strides with Liz and the unnamed UNIT officer, it fails to be progressive when it comes to the hospital staff: both the doctors are men, and the only woman is the unnamed Nurse (Helen Dorward). Still, of all the hospital staff, the nurse seems to be the most caring, not to mention the only one with a sense of humor. I really liked Dorward’s delivery of “His pulse seems to have settled down, sir. 10 a minute.” And then we have poor Talfryn Thomas as janitor Mullins. His performance is splendid, but on his behalf, I take offense to the fact that Mullins-the-snitch was scripted to be Welsh.

I feel slightly better about Mullins maligning the Welsh only because of Sam Seeley (Neil Wilson), who’s an even more unlikeable character, and very English (though perhaps he’s meant to malign country bumpkins). The first time we meet him, we learn that he’s a poacher (which, I admit, isn’t a crime that bothers me overmuch, since poor people need to eat, and to get meat, you need available hunting grounds). He’s also very dishonest, lying (badly) to the UNIT officers about his reason for being in the woods, and he’s made out to be a greedy schemer, angling to find out how much money he could get for the Nestene energy unit, aka “thunderball”, he’s discovered (though, again, I think anyone who struggles to make ends meet would do the same, and rightfully so; it’s not as if he’s bargaining for someone’s life, as far as he knows). What really turns me against Sam is the way he treats his wife: “Now go get me some grub, woman! I’m hungry!” he barks, or “What’re you staring at, woman?!” when his wife dares to inquire into what he’s doing. We could be charitable and assume that he’s trying to keep her hands clean of his dirty dealings, but I smell sexism and guilt.

Poor Meg Seeley (Betty Bowden), Sam’s longsuffering wife, is thereby portayed as a nag, who ultimately endangers not only her family’s lives, but the safety of the entire planet, by snooping in her husband’s private trunk and uncovering the sphere. Excuse me, story? Can we please remember that Sam wasn’t supposed to have that sphere in the first place? And that Meg’s suspicion was in fact quite justified? Sigh. At least she gets to defend herself with a shotgun. I might not like how her character is treated, but Bowden’s performance is great. Though I have to laugh at Meg’s horrified reaction when she sees the sphere, recoiling in horror as if it’s a dead rat.

I’m torn about Dudley Simpson’s music. On the whole, I really like it, especially the score as the Auton orderlies abduct the Doctor, as Ransome sees his old office, and as the Brigadier notices Channing watching them through a distorting glass pane. But Liz’ arrival at UNIT HQ is accompanied by an odd jaunty score reminiscent of a 1960s sexcapade comedy, and the excitable trumpets during the ambulance-chase scene feel likewise a bit out of place.

The multi-sided Nestene meteorites are my favorite effect of the week, with their pulsating pink glow. It does make them feel alive, and even menacing, despite the fact that pink is a most unusual color for a monster (which only makes me like it more). I also love the gurgling, thrumming sound of the Nestene environment tank; the fantastic effects shot of the Auton ripping its way through the tent; Ransome’s “total destruction”, as the explosion reverses and his body disintegrates; the nasty effect of the incubation tank squirting brown and green goo after Hibbard smashes the controls; the impressive explosion of the fuel tank during the battle outside Auto Plastics; the Nestene membrane pulsating faster until the glass explodes; and the slime-spattered deactivated Channing-Auton.

And I must give a special mention to the realization of the Nestene. We never get to see it in its full glory, but perhaps that’s just as well, because the parts that we do get to see allow us to form a much creepier mental image that what would probably have been realized onscreen. The eye in the center of a pulsating Nestene membrane, slimy with green goo, is creepy, as are the flailing green, hairy tentacles that emerge from the tank and threaten to strangle the Doctor. (You’d never know that tentacle effects are challenging to pull off, because these are really well done.)

There are only a couple of dud effects that spoil the mood: the blatant use of jets flying in formation to represent the descending spearhead of Nestene meteorites (though the close-up shot of the meteorites flying, and the explosions when they land, are good); and it’s a shame that the mechanism for uploading the portions of the Nestene Consciousness isn’t more sophisticated than just setting the meteorite vaguely underneath a pipe. The decision to use a model shot to represent the TARDIS materializing is rather inexplicable, given that a locked-off camera effect would have worked just as well; better, even, since the model landscape (scrubland with patchy green bushes) doesn’t match up at all with the location filming (a meadow full of flowering heather).

I also feel like I should give a special nod to the makeup team for the plastic-skin effect used on the Auton-facsimile characters. It’s most noticeably used — and also most subtly, given that it only serves as a background clue, with no attention called to it at all — on the female Auto Plastics worker in the green floral dress, who escorts Ransome up to Hibbard’s office. Bravo, too, to the stuntman in blue who gives a great stunt-death when his character gets shot running past a furniture store in part 4.

The set designers have done a really nice job giving existing rooms more depth and interest, like their use of a corrugated metal wall where the dormant Autons stand, or the grey dividers that separate off the entrance to Liz’ lab. And I love the wood-panelled interiors of the hospital. The laboratory set is nice, too, though one of the odd peculiarities about the UNIT years is that there seems to be very little consistency in location from story to story, so unless I'm misremembering, we'll never see this lab (or the Brigadier's new office) again.

Even aside from the show’s transition into color, director Derek Martinus makes the story feel special. He makes generous use of interesting filming styles and angles that keep the story feeling exciting and kinetic. Among my favorites: the handheld camera work as the Brigadier and Liz push their way through a room full of journalists, followed by an overhead shot of Mullins shooing the reporters away from the door; the dolly-out shot as the Brigadier, Munro and Liz march down the hospital corridor; the Doctor’s abductors whooshing his duvet up from the bed; another dolly-out shot of the Brigadier and Munro walking along the balustrade outside the hospital; the shot from Forbes’ POV as the UNIT vehicle veers off the road and flips, and the subsequent shot through the bloodied and cracked windshield as the Auton peers through the driver’s window; the side-by-side silhouette shot of General Scobie with his unfinished plastic duplicate; the close-up two-shot of Channing and Hibbert, which somehow emphasizes Channing’s alien nature; two great shots at the Seeley residence, first from above as Liz examines Meg, and then over Liz’ shoulder as the Doctor examines the sphere; the freaky shot of Channing staring at the Brigadier from behind a glass panel; a dramatic overhead zoom-out from the intercom to the Brigadier picking up the phone; the shots of panicked feet fleeing from the Auton massacre; and the Nestene tentacles wrapping themselves around the Doctor. My favorite, though, is probably the superb cut from Ransome’s line “There was something… something odd about their faces.” to: a creepy doll factory! The conveyor belt of dolls is such a great hint at the nature of the threat in this story, and this assembly-line sequence always freaks me out, especially the shot of various women calmly poking eyes into the dolls’ empty sockets.

In all honesty, the Pertwee era has never been my favorite. As I've said in other reviews (which perhaps you haven't read yet, if you're going through these chronologically!), my PBS station in West Virginia showed everything from Hartnell to Davison, whereas Gray's (just an hour-ish south) showed pretty much nothing but Pertwee, before it quit showing Doctor Who altogether. How that's possible I don't know, but Gray wound up with a library of videotaped Pertwee that he watched over and over again, whereas I was more likely to gobble up... well, any of the others. During visits to Bluefield when we were little, I can recall occasionally picking out a Doctor Who from his pile to watch, but I was always rather ho-hum about the prospect because there were so few that I liked. I think I usually asked him for one of those few (like The Time Monster), though I definitely remember watching others with him, so I must not have twisted his arm every time. It wasn't really until I started preparing this site that I finally got around to voluntarily buying and rewatching all of the Pertwee stories, and at that point, his era underwent a major reappraisal. It's still not my favorite period of the show, but I find that I enjoy the third Doctor's stories a lot more than I did as a child. And Spearhead from Space is one of the greats.

Minor points:

• The production team are certainly taking full advantage of the program’s shift to color, with a new title sequence that rotates through the entire spectrum at some point: red, pink, orange, yellow, green, aqua, light blue, dark blue, and lavender. Yet for some reason I’ve always felt that it was a little boring, maybe because there’s not as much forward movement as in the other title sequences; in this one, we’re just watching morphing shapes projected onto the screen. But it’s still visually interesting, and adds a new colorful twist to the howlaround feel of the previous title sequences.

• The Pertwee logo remains one of my all-time favorites. It’s bold, well-laid-out, and the font has just the right degree of quirky character. (And I love the way that, as the logo resolves out of the colorful maelstrom, the last few wisps of the dissipating swirls look like guttering flames burning from the words before dying out.) Since it was popular enough to be modernized for the McGann era, it’s no wonder it eventually became the official logo for the entire BBC brand.

• I have mixed feelings, though, about the zoom-in titles used in this story. It’s an interesting change, undoubtedly dramatic, and it adds some of that forward kinetic motion that I feel the titles are otherwise lacking… but I can’t help feeling that it’s also a little bit cheesy?

• As long as we’re on the topic of the story’s title, as much as I like Spearhead from Space, I still think Facsimile would’ve been far superior.

• Why is this UNIT radar-monitoring officer so sweaty? Is the air conditioning out? Did he just get back from a jog? Did his teatime bangers disagree with his tummy? Is he an especially early victim of the Silurians’ plague? Or did they just think that his superior’s throwaway line about the heat wave (presumably included only because it was so hot on location that Neil Wilson was sweating to a degree that might be noticeable on camera) required some additional visual confirmation incorporating his character but no others? I MUST KNOW.

• As macho as UNIT the organization generally feels, I’m impressed that they almost immediately introduce a female officer, played by Tessa Shaw. (Unfortunately, she then gets next to no role in the storyline, but…)

• As if there weren’t already enough similarities between the two shows, the Brigadier keeps a binder close at hand just by his chair, on the bottom shelf in his office, labelled on the spine with a huge red X.

• Liz makes an entertaining first impression, as even the formidable Brigadier (in a great performance by Courtney) seems a bit cowed by her stern nature:

  Liz: "Was all that nonsense out there really necessary? Identity passes, guards… I was even searched."
  Brigadier: "Security. Rather amusing, don’t you think?" (off her reaction) “No, you don’t.”

• Caroline John was roughly 29 when Spearhead from Space was filmed, yet Liz is said to have earned degrees “in medicine, physics and a dozen other subjects” along with being a meteorite expert. Would someone care to explain to me how Liz managed to squeeze in that many degrees — including a medical degree, for goodness’ sake! — in the roughly 7 years since she left university? (I can only conclude that Liz was a child prodigy who began her university studies at 14, which might account for her slightly superior attitude throughout the story!) But hey, as long as we can make the timeline fit, I’m all for it. Yay women in STEM!

• I’m relieved that the UNIT soldiers who find the Doctor in the woods do actually realize the significance of the police box parked nearby. For a moment I was worried they were going to leave that part out of their report to the Brigadier because they thought it was irrelevant!

• The Brigadier says, “Since UNIT was formed, there have been two attempts to invade this planet.” But we’ve only seen one, in The Invasion. So what was the other? Is he counting The Web of Fear, or was there another untelevised incursion? (Of course, if we include the Lethbridge-Stewart series by Candy Jar Books, there have been a whole lot of them that for some reason he’s chosen not to brag to Liz about.)

• Someone who has more medical knowledge than me: can you explain what this nurse is doing at the Doctor’s bedside, using angled foreceps to transfer what looks like a long-handled teaspoon from a glass box with a metal lid (of the sort usually used to store clean cotton balls or gauze) into a kidney dish (usually used to hold medical waste)? What on earth did that accomplish? Was it meant to be the visual equivalent of technobabble?

• How quaint, from a modern US perspective, that Munro is appalled at the idea that the UNIT soldiers guarding the TARDIS should be issued with live ammunition to keep strangers away. Here, nowadays, that’d be standard practice. (Is anyone not issued with live ammunition here?!)

• The Doctor’s uncertain evaluation of his new face is fun:

  Doctor: “I think it’s rather distinctive, actually! Don’t you think? Hmm?”

• I wonder why Seeley walks straight past the soldiers to get out of the woods, rather than sneaking around them through the trees? Was it worth the risk of getting caught to find out how much they’d pay for a meteorite?

• US television has got nothing on Doctor Who. We may have car chases galore, but when was the last time you saw a thrilling ambulance-vs-wheelchair chase scene? Hmm?!?

• So the Doctor’s TARDIS materialized within earshot of the hospital? Convenient landing!

• Having been issued with live ammunition, now these formerly-reluctant soldiers are just shooting at anyone who approaches them?!

• So the Doctor suffered “a slight burn on the scalp” when he was shot? In other words, an inch further to the right and he’d have used up his third regeneration in the space of a few hours!

• If one of the meteorites did break apart on impact (ie, the damage to the plastic shell wasn’t caused by the Autons somehow transferring its contents), or explode as Liz later theorizes, what happened to the portion of the Nestene Consciousness that it contained?

• Hibbert’s office chair looks distinctly uncomfortable.

• Ice cold!

  Brigadier: “Am I interrupting?”
  Liz: “Yes.”

• Ahhh, I do love Liz the skeptic. She’s such a proto-Scully!

  Liz: “I deal with facts, not science-fiction ideas.”

• I’m not sure I’ve ever before caught the joke of the Doctor slipping into the “Doctors Only” room of the hospital. Well, he qualifies, doesn’t he! Though one imagines that the community of doctors at Ashbridge Community Hospital must be rather small (and, as I've mentioned, evidently includes no women), so isn’t it a bit peculiar that nobody bats an eyelid at seeing the Doctor taking a shower in their locker room? Perhaps they assume he’s a visiting physician from some other hospital… but wouldn’t you think they’d have been alerted to his presence if that were the case?

• As unexpectedly funny as it is to see the Doctor happily taking a shower right in the middle of the physicians’ locker room — and gosh, they sure do cut that camera angle close, don’t they! — it isn’t such an odd moment from a character-motivation perspective. After the ordeal(s) he’s just been through, the Doctor was probably dying for a shower!

• I love how everybody in this story thinks, “Ooh! A glowing, pulsing pink meteorite from space! That’ll be safe to touch, then.”

• Man, Liz is just a snark machine!

  Brigadier: “Well, at least he won’t get very far.”
  Liz: “You mean before your men shoot him again?”
  Brigadier: “I don’t find that funny.”

• How interesting that the TARDIS won’t open for the Brigadier. I don’t think we ever hear of its metabolism detector again, do we? Nor, for that matter, the Doctor’s TARDIS homing watch, which sure would’ve come in handy in future stories!

• Arrrrgh, pet peeve time! Why doesn’t Ransome close the “Out of Bounds: Security Sector” door behind him after breaking in?! Does he want to be caught?!

• In the cliffhanger reprise at the start of part 3, the Auton’s hand unhinges just after it steps off the platform, but that didn’t happen at the end of part 2.

• Interesting that the Nestenes can remotely scan people’s brain-prints. I guess this makes sense, given that they’re a telepathic race, but this seems to be one of those alien powers that’s never again seen. (Same thing goes for Channing’s ability to essentially see through the Auton’s eyes... or whatever it uses for visual input.)

• Why am I suddenly thinking that “Nestene” sounds like a brand of powdered chocolate milk mix? Now I want chocolate milk.

• How do you suppose the Nestenes have managed to enthrall their human servants, like Hibbard? (He seems to be the only one, but there might be others.) Another telepathic power that’s never explained? Have they implanted some kind of control device near his brain stem, hence his compulsive neck-rubbing? Or did they bribe him with all the chocolate milk he could drink? (When he begins to resist his conditioning, Hibbard’s reluctance to look at Channing suggests that perhaps they establish their hypnotic control through visual contact.)

• Scene I Wish They Had Been Able to Re-Film: when Seeley tries to split a board in two with his hatchet, but only succeeds in chipping a bit off the corner.

• Ransome suggests that Auto Plastics has fired all the employees and gone completely automated, but there were still women working on the doll-factory line when he went to meet with Hibbert, when, earlier the same morning?

• If nothing else, the Doctor’s aborted escape attempt should convince the Brigadier that the Doctor is who he says he is (though by this point, the Brigadier seems to have accepted his identity anyway.)

• I do wonder, though, what on earth makes the Brigadier think the Doctor would voluntarily leave when there are mysterious meteorites to be investigated? It would be a very un-Doctorly thing to do. (As it turns out, though, he’s right. Which is unsettling.)

• This whole scene is just weird. Now the Brigadier is scolding the Doctor with, “Well, will you give me your word not to try to escape again?” Excuse me? ‘Escape’?! Since when is the Doctor being held prisoner?! What right does the Brigadier have to hold him here?

• Hmmmmmm. Is Barney’s barking actually made by a dog, or is it a person trying to sound like a dog? *skeptical look*

• I love the tiny little door in the Seeley’s cottage! Even diminutive Meg has to bend over to get inside.

• When the Brigadier arrives at the cottage, the Auton has evidently just found the sphere. Why does it bother going after the UNIT troops rather than grabbing the sphere and running? And why does it leave the sphere behind, if that’s its #1 concern? It could easily have absconded with it.

• The Doctor appears to have hooked up the Nestene energy unit to the same EEG machine that the hospital was using on him!

• Is it really fair to put plastic mannequins into a waxwork display? That seems like cheating, somehow.

• How did the Nestenes manage to immobilize the real General Scobie? And, having done that, why would they put him on display?! That just seems to be asking for their evil plan to be discovered. They could’ve just said his waxwork was still being tweaked!

• If Hibbert is no longer necessary now that they have the final control unit, then what on earth had they needed him for before? Did they have an urgent need to maintain their plastics-factory cover until the Nestene was fully formed?

• As the Autons prepare to murder the people waiting for their bus, we can see a “New Zealand Cheddar” sign in one of the shop windows behind them. Now I want New Zealand cheddar too. This story is giving me far too many food cravings.

• The body count for the Auton massacre that we witness is high enough as it is, and then we learn that similar scenes are playing out across the country, with police stations and barracks being particularly targeted. How many people died in this attack, I wonder? And how did UNIT ever manage to cover it up?

• Like the Nimon(s), I always instinctively want to refer to this alien race as the Nestene, plural. But Channing clearly says, “We are the Nestenes.”

• Why is the Doctor loudly broadcasting the fact that he can destroy the Nestenes? Wasn’t that meant to be a secret?

• What happens to the Nestene Consciousness if the body dies? Is it just stranded in whatever realm it inhabits, or is the part of the consciousness inhabiting the body killed? (Presumably, though, this is just one subset of the whole consciousness, so either way it’s not dead dead.)

• The Doctor pooh-poohs the idea of getting paid by UNIT, but surely he does need money if he plans to live on Earth? He’s not exactly the sort to live a life of penury! (One likes one's wine and cheese too much...)

So while the Nestenes don't perhaps get quite enough to do, their terrifying menace is established well, as are the new regulars and the series format. It all bodes very well for the new team's success and the popularity of the Earthbound stories. The one major downside of this story is that, because it limits the Nestene influence to the Autons and the facsimiles, it doesn’t really explore the potential of an alien menace that can control plastic (aside from the frightening idea of living murderous mannequins)... so it was crying out for a sequel. And that’s where Terror of the Autons comes in...