A new decade, a new Doctor and now in thrilling colour! Our celebration of key Doctor Who adventures reaches 1970’s scare-fest Spearhead from Space.
A newly regenerated Third.
Cambridge scientist Liz Shaw and UNIT commander Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
A new Doctor crash-lands on Earth during a shower of meteorites. As the Doctor recovers, something nasty is collecting the meteors at a local plastics factory, where the future of mankind is being formed…
An Auton goes about its horrific business:
Liz: What are you a doctor of, by the way?
The Doctor: Practically everything, my dear.
Despite being over forty years old, it features one of Doctor Who’s scariest sequences – when the hollow-eyed, unstoppable Autons slaughter members of the public in broad daylight. Being shot all on location film rather than a mixture of film and studio video (due to a BBC studio strike), makes it feel more like a serious movie than a family TV show, and it’s helped by some of the uncompromising shots used (a bloodied windscreen in a crashed jeep, for example). Finally, it’s a fantastic vehicle for Jon Pertwee – cementing his relationship with the Brigadier and making his mark on the role for the next five years.
Read more about Spearhead from Space at the BBC Doctor Who website, or get to know more Doctor Who adventures.