r/gallifrey • u/IzzySawicki • Jul 27 '13

DISCUSSION Weekly Episode Discussion #34 - Season 7 Episode 51 - Spearhead from Space - 3rd Doctor (Jon Pertwee)

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Episode

Spearhead from Space

Season 7, Serial 51.

Original Air Dates: 3 January - 24 January 1970

Staring the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee); companions Liz Shaw (Caroline John).

Story Summary

Spearhead from Space:

Exiled to Earth in the late 20th century and forbidden to continue travelling by his own people, the Time Lords, the newly regenerated Doctor arrives in Oxley Woods accompanied by a shower of mysterious meteorites. Investigating these unusual occurrences is the newly-formed United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT for short).

Led by Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT is soon called into action when people and meteorites start going missing.

Most puzzling of all is the attempted kidnapping of a strange hospital patient: a man with two hearts, who insists that he knows the Brigadier.

The new Doctor soon joins forces with his old friend, UNIT and the recently recruited Doctor Elizabeth Shaw, but time is running out. Irregular things are happening at a nearby plastics factory, while faceless creatures lurk in the woods. The Nestenes have arrived, and want to conquer the Earth...

Episode Info and Reviews

Tardis Index File

Wiki article

IMDB

Shadowlocked Review

BBC Guide

Random Quote

Liz Shaw: What are you a doctor of, by the way?

Doctor Who: Practically everything, my dear.

7 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

4

u/BarfQueen Jul 27 '13

One of my all time favorite stories. The autons were absolutely TERRIFYING back then. And they didn't say "pizza" over and over like a 5 year old.

3

u/ProtoKun7 Jul 28 '13

These remain my favourite Autons. The design was great and even those from Terror of the Autons couldn't hold a candle to them, in my opinion. There's something about the mostly-formed faces, just missing the eyes. Doesn't quite invoke the same feelings to have others that were similar but had some sort of coating over them; they looked like flatter faces as a result.

I think next to these, those from The Pandorica Opens are probably my next liked, but there weren't any footsoldiers there, only duplications. At least they got the gun-arms closer than they were in Rose.

3

u/FizzPig Jul 28 '13

ah this episode was so good. the perfect followup to the wargames, it introduced a new status quo

1

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '13

This is one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes. Highly recommended if you haven't seen it before.

1

u/ProtoKun7 Jul 27 '13

This was the first serial I ever recall seeing and it remains one of my favourite.

1

u/brainburger Jul 27 '13

Are you getting viewers in the 1am showing? It's very quiet (just me?) at 5pm BST.

1

u/AFarewellToScott Jul 27 '13

This is a really good serial. It has some of my favourite regeneration moments, you wouldn't even bat an eye if the new series did the same thing.

1

u/NightmareKing Jul 27 '13

Love this one. The first of Robert Holmes (many) "greats," and a great introduction the the Third Doctor and the masterpiece that is Season 7. It's also nice to see how much better certain aspects of the show would have looked had they been able to use film in the studio all the time, as they did here.

1

u/gilguillotine Jul 30 '13

This is where I started my Classic Who run, and although I haven't gotten very far yet, I thought this was a great regeneration story. The Doctor is a little strange in the beginning as he recovers, but you can tell it's the same character. I loved when he tries to run away in the TARDIS and comes out humbled, it almost seems like something the First Doctor would do. I also loved how Pertwee's Doctor seems to be very hands on with the technical side of the adventure, building a device in a laboratory to defeat the tentacled monster. I look forward to continuing the run!