255 Spearhead from Space: Episode Two

EPISODE: Spearhead from Space: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 255
STORY NUMBER: 051
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 10 January 1970
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
RATINGS: 8.1 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Mannequin Mania Box Set - Spearhead from Space/Terror of the Autons
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm colour film

"The answer to your question's obvious, isn't it? By the time your search party arrived, the rest of these things had been collected. Collected and taken somewhere. The question is, where?"

The Doctor is returned to the hospital where the doctors find he is in a self induced coma. The Brigadier takes Tardis key and has the Tardis taken to UNIT HQ along with some meteorite fragments that UNIT has found. At the nearby Auto Plastics factory Ransome sees his former boss Hibbert demanding to know why he was sacked when he returned from a business trip to the USA. He is sent away, but observed by Hibbert's new partner Channing, who we saw at the hospital in the previous episode. Examining the meteorite fragment, Liz thinks it's been manufactured. Seeley hides the meteorite he has found in a box at home. A figure with a featureless face, an Auton, is tracking the signal from the sphere but looses the signal when it's put in the metal box. General Scobie comes to see the Brigadier. In the woods UNIT find a whole meteorite. Back at the hospital the Doctor is awake, steals clothes and a car belonging to the visiting doctor and escapes the hospital. The Brigadier tries to unlock the Tardis but can't. A soldier leaves to take the meteor/Nestene energy sphere to UNIT HQ in a jeep but is ambushed by the Auton and crashes killing him. The Doctor tracks the Tardis to UNIT HQ where he tries to convince the Brigadier of his identity. The Doctor examines the meteorite fragments and wonders what was inside and where the other meteorites were collected and taken to. General Scobie visits the Auto Plastics factory to have a plastic"wax" model of him made for Madame Tussauds. While he is there Ransome breaks in, returning to his old workshop which he finds full of advanced equipment and shop window dummys. As he examines the equipment one of the dummys comes to life and advances towards him....

Another cracking episode that puts the Doctor and UNIT together and introduces us to Channing, the villain of the story. The ending of the episode is overshadowed by the Autons activating sequence in part 4 but the sight of one of the dummys coming to life here is rather scary and even though you know it's coming you're never sure which of them is going to start moving!

As well as scary there's a slightly horrific element as we see the aftermath of the jeep crash as my wife Liz observed:

Liz: that was bloody!

Though I so wonder why the Auton carried the sphere away in the box UNIT were transporting it in?

Some nice exchanges between Liz Shaw and her new employers:

BRIGADIER: Still sceptical?
LIZ: Of course. I deal with facts, not science fiction ideas.
BRIGADIER: Miss Shaw, I'm not a fool. I don't chase shadows. What you don't understand is that there might, there is a remote possibility that outside your cosy little world other things could exist.
LIZ: No need to get tetchy.
BRIGADIER: Well, sometimes you can be very aggravating.
LIZ: Me? What about you? You really believe in a man who's helped to save the world twice? With the power to transform his physical appearance?
BRIGADIER: I'm not sure yet. It may not be the same man.
LIZ: An alien who travels through time and space in a police box?

Then later, when she meets one of the Brigadier's superiors:

SOLDIER: Major General Scobie to see you, sir.
BRIGADIER: Scobie? Well, what on Earth? All right, show him up. 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?
SCOBIE: Ah, thank you, thank you. Sorry to interrupt, Stewart.
BRIGADIER: Worry not, sir. It's always a pleasure to see you.
SCOBIE: This meteorite operation. Any further?
BRIGADIER: Not much, I'm afraid. We found the fragments of one though, sir. Miss Shaw is studying them.
SCOBIE: Ah.
BRIGADIER: Oh, Miss Shaw, General Scobie.
LIZ: How do you do.
SCOBIE: Ah, how do you do. 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. Dear chap, what are you doing with a police box?
BRIGADIER: Well, sir
LIZ: Camouflage, General. It's not really a police box. It's a spaceship.

This episode has proved to be a bit of a nightmare whenever it's been released as it features a section of the Fleetwood Mac song Oh Well playing in the factory over a sequence of plastic toys being assembled, which Liz found very sinister! The first video version, a compilation of all four episodes, has the track removed but it was mistakenly included on the 1995 episodic release, removed again for the original DVD release and then, following a change in rights agreements, included on the Special edition version in the Mannequin Mania Box Set.

The production line sequence was recorded on location inside Favourite Doll's Factory.

You might recognise the exterior of the plastics factory, TCC Condensors, from it's recent appearance in The Invasion as the location where the Doctor & UNIT battled the Cybermen.

Playing lead villain Channing is Hugh Burden a well known actor who for many years served the Actor's union Equity. Despite his long career the only other thing I've seen which he's been in is One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, which also features Jon Pertwee, where he plays Haines.

John Woodnutt makes his first Doctor Who appearance as Hibbert, the factory boss. He'll be back as the Draconian Emperor in Frontier in Space, in the twin roles of Broton and His Grace, the Duke of Forgill in Terror of the Zygons and finally as Seron in The Keeper of Traken. He was in Paul of Tarsus, alongside Patrick Troughton's Paul, as a Traveller in The Road to Damascus & The Feast of Pentecost. He'd recently appeared in the third season Out of the Unknown episode The Little Black Bag as Kelland: a large portion of this episode was found as a low grade print on a BBC video tape and was restored for the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. Children of my generation may remember him from the Look and Read story The Boy From Space where he played the Thin Space-Man: This too is available on DVD. He appeared in one of ITV's Doctor Who competitors The Tomorrow People as Spidron in The Vanishing Earth, The Sweeney as Dr. Clare in Stay Lucky Eh? and Children of the Stones as Link. Towards the end of his career he had a recurring roll in Jeeves and Wooster as Sir Watkyn Bassett.

Oddly Henry McCarthy, playing Dr. Beavis, looks the spitting image of Roderick Spode, played by John Turner in Jeeves & Wooster!

Dr. Henderson, who's had quite a prominent role in the first two episodes, is played by Antony Webb. I can't recognise anything else he'd been in on his CV.

I can't find this episode's nurse Christine Bradley on IMDB.

Ransome is played by Derek Smee who I will have seen in Agatha Christie's Poirot as the Auctioneer in Dead Man's Mirror.

The slightly odd looking Auto Plastics Secretary that Ransome encounters is played by Constance Carling.

Liz: What a frock!
Philip: Did you spot she's an Auton? The plastic looking face is the giveaway!

Constance Carling She returns in the next story, the Silurians, as a Plague Victim in The Silurians and as a Technician in The Armageddon Factor. In Monty Python's Flying Circus she's a Theatregoer in It's the Arts while in Doomwatch she's a Bar Customer in Tomorrow, the Rat which can be found on The Doomwatch DVD,

The same Doomwatch episode is a first appearance in that show for the version of The Minister played by Hamilton Dyce's, who plays Major General Scobie here. His Doomwatch character also returns in the episode Survival Code, which is missing. He'd also recently appeared in the third season of Out of the Unknown playing Dr. Lanning in Liar! which is likewise sadly missing. He was in the Adam Adamant Lives! episode The Terribly Happy Embalmers as George.

Two members of the production team crop up on screen in this story, and both can be seen in this episode. The original actor playing the UNIT Commissionaire proved to be inadequate and was thrown off set with producer Derrick Sherwin, then still an Equity Card holder, taking his place!

The lead Auton is played by the suspiciously sounding Ivor Orton..... who was in fact non equity card holder Assistant Script Editor Robin Squire. Initially pressed into service as an emergency stand in Squire was so good that he was used for all the main Auton appearances. He returns as the BBC3 TV Cameraman in The Dæmons, a Starliner Dweller in Full Circle and the Pharos Project Boffin in Logopolis.

During the lengthy "escape from the hospital" sequence, while the Doctor's in the shower Liz asks "Why does the Doctor have a tattoo?" when we see Pertwee's Dragon Tattoo, gained after a night out while he was in the Navy. I tell her that the generally accepted explanation is it's a Time Lord criminal brand.

254 Spearhead from Space: Episode One

EPISODE: Spearhead from Space: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 254
STORY NUMBER: 051
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 03 January 1970
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
RATINGS: 8.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Mannequin Mania Box Set - Spearhead from Space/Terror of the Autons
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm colour film

"Since UNIT was formed, there've been two attempts to invade this planet. We were very lucky on both occasions. We had help from a scientist with a great experience of other life forms....."

And off we go again. A brand new era for Doctor Who in more was than one. And we'll start by doing something I've not been able to do before:

During a meteor shower the Tardis materialises in Oxley Woods, the Doctor falling out the door unconscious.

Local poacher Sam Seeley finds a meteorite and conceals it, returning for it later. The Doctor is taken to the nearby hospital where questions about his biology puzzle the Doctors leading an orderly to ring the local newspapers to say they have an alien at the hospital. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT arrives with his newly forcibly recruited scientific advisor, Liz Shaw from Cambridge, and they fight their way in through the press. However reaching the Doctor's bedside he doesn't recognise his old friend and leaves. The reporters waiting for the Brigadier find the phone cubical occupied by a man who leaves in a hurry when they disturb him. The Doctor is kidnapped from the hospital by beings dressed as hospital staff, but escapes from them making for the Tardis where he is accidentally shot by UNIT troops guarding it.

That summary was mainly written before I'd watched the episode for this blog! I checked it afterwards and the only detail I had to add was the poacher. OK maybe it helped that I'd seen it relatively recently when Mannequin Mania came out, but even then it was so familiar to me. Even without my wife's prejudice against black and white stories it's the colour ones and especially the Jon Pertwee & Tom Baker stories that I watch most often for pleasure. This story was an early video purchase too, and an early DVD release so I've seen it quite a few times over the years. It's the coldest start and fullest reboot that the series gets during it's run: we get a new Doctor who we've not seen before who spends most of the episode unconscious or gagged, a new companion and new foes. There's no Tardis interior to make us feel at home just the Brigadier who previously appeared in eleven episodes over a year previously. So writer Robert Holmes, creating his third story in the last five and cementing his reputation as the go to man for Script Editor Terrance Dicks, raids his own back catalogue to provide the backbone for this episode, a large amount of which resembles the plot of the 1960s low budget British sci fi film The Invasion: Aliens found in a wood are taken to a local hospital. The film script was written by Roger Marshall but it's from a storyline by Robert Holmes. If you can't steal from yourself who can you steal from? It's interesting that the threat in this story, the Autons, almost take a back seat in this episode until they, for reasons unrevealed, attempt to kidnap the Doctor. In every respect the new Doctor's arrival on Earth and the organisation he'll find himself in is put front and centre.

Because this is the first colour episode I've got my wife Liz with me who much prefers the colour episodes to black and white. She'll be here for the whole story (No, I'm not trying to emulate the superb Adventures With My Wife In Space. Her eye was caught by Sam Seeley doing "Gurning yokel number 1" but thought that anyone of his age would automatically think the meteorites were a bomb and wouldn't sling it over their back in a bag!

She thought Liz's coat was *VERY* silly and described it as a plastic jumbo crocodile skin!

We both cracked up at Pertwee's acting when kidnapped and in the wheelchair: she described the "Doctor escaping in the wheelchair" as more Some Mothers Do Have Em than Doctor Who!

Lots of firsts for this episode of Doctor Who.

From a technical point of view, it's the first story shot in colour, it's the first story to feature the new title sequence with the new Doctor's face.

It's also the first story to have an end title sequence with static captions over graphics and the "sting" ending to the end theme music instead of just fading away, it's the first story shot 100% on 16mm film and it's the first whole story to survive in it's original transmission format.

There's a big revelation actually in the story: this is the first episode which explicitly says that the Doctor has two hearts.

From the acting point of view this story is the point that Nicholas Courtney joins the cast full time as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. He'd previously appeared in The Dalek Masterplan, as Bret Vyon, before playing The Brigadier in The Web of Fear and The Invasion.

Also returning is director Derek Martinus who'd previously been in charge of Galaxy Four, Mission to the Unknown, The Tenth Planet, Evil of the Daleks and The Ice Warriors.

More importantly there's two big débuts here: A new Doctor and a new companion.

Jon Pertwee (b 7 July 1919) came from an acting and performing family. His father was a playwright and his cousin, Bill Pertwee, is familiar to television audiences as Air Raid Warden Hodges in Dad's Army. His Godfather was actor Henry Ainley, the father of future Doctor Who villain Anthony Ainley and his first wife was the actress Jean Marsh, who already has two Doctor Who credits to her name by this point. Pertwee had made a name for himself as a comedy actor & performer on stage, television and radio. He was at this point appearing in the radio show The Navy Lark when his friend and co-star Tenniel Evans, who we'll see in a few years time, pointed out to him that the BBC were looking for a new Doctor Who. Pertwee's agent rang the BBC on his behalf and was pleased to find his client's name near the top of their shortlist. Other actors considered were Ron Moody, famous for playing Fagin in the 1968 film Oliver! and Stratford Johns, another future Doctor Who villain, who was at this point appearing in Z-Cars. Pertwee's casting was announced with a press call featuring a Yeti which gave rise to the "Yeti on a loo in Tooting Bec" line that the actor would use to illustrate how having monsters in a familiar setting was scary.

Caroline John had mainly worked on the stage when she was cast as Liz Shaw, initially due to a publicity photo of her that caught the attention of producers Peter Bryant & Derrick Sherwin which caused them to call her for interview. She's married to Geoffrey Beevers who, once again, will appear as a future Doctor Who villain.

There's a familiar faces making a minor appearance in this episode: On Who début as one of the reporters at the hospital is Prentis Hancock, who'll find fame as Paul Morrow in Space 1999. He makes three return appearances to Doctor Who as Vaber in Planet of the Daleks, Salamar in Planet of Evil and the Shrieve Captain in The Ribos Operation. He was also in Survivors as McIntosh in A Little Learning and plays Arnold Meyer in Chocky's Children & Chocky's Challenge, both written by this story's script editor Anthony Read He achieves a rare double by appearing in The Professionals as the Army Major in Lawson's Last Stand in 1982 and then 17 years later in CI5: The New Professionals a Carl Dietrich in Souvenir. You can hear him interviewed in Toby Hadoke's Who's Round #129.

His reporter colleague, named as Wagstaffe in the titles, is played by Allan Mitchell. He's in the same episode of The Professionals as Prentis Hancock, Lawson's Last Stand, playing The Professor and can be also seen in Inspector Morse: The Death of the Self playing The Coroner.

Also seen as members of the press are Dave Mobley, John Hughes and Alan Cooper, who have no further association with Doctor Who, Vicky Maxine, who's a Nurse elsewhere in this episode, and June Jenson, Trevor Cuff & Hugh Wood, who I can't find on IMDB or elsewhere in the Doctor Who production file.

The Speaking Nurse is Helen Dorward, who was in Are You Being Served? as The Irish Lady in Hoorah for the Holidays, Hi-de-Hi! as a woman in Marry Go Round and No Place Like Home: The Summons as Mrs. Pugh. Her non speaking nursing colleague is Vicky Maxine, who's also one of the Press in the episode.

I can't find any of the actors playing the patients in this episode, who are Rachel Hipwood, Arthur Judd and Marie Johnson, on IMDB and none has any other Doctor Who role. Hospital Receptionist Walter Dalby I can find on IMDB but I can't see anything I've seen him in on his CV.

The Nurses outside hospital are Lindy Russell, who I can't find on IMDB, and Rosemary Turner, who was in Doomwatch as Miss Jones in Train and De-Train.

There's two Autons disguised as Hospital Porters:

Roy Brent had been a Man in Firing Squad & Prison Sentry in The War Games and returns as a Control Room Assistant & UNIT Soldier in The Ambassadors of Death, a UNIT Soldier in Claws of Axos, a Miner in Monster of Peladon, a Double for Noah/Libri in Pallet in Ark in Space, one of the Collector’s Escort in The Sunmakers, a Shrieve in The Ribos Operation a Guard in Creature from The Pit, a Skonnan Elder in Horns of the Nimon and a Resistance Fighter in Trial of a Timelord: Mindwarp. In Monty Python's Flying Circus he was an Armoured Knight in Njorl's Saga.

Victor Croxford Returns as a Laboratory Technician in Claws of Axos a Peasant in woods in State of Decay and a Villager in The Visitation.

Mullins, the real hospital porter that rings the newspaper, is played by Welsh actor Talfryn Thomas. He'll be back as Dave in The Green Death, which features every Welsh sounding actor living within 20 miles of Shepherd's Bush. He can be seen in Doomwatch as Mr. Hetherington in The Human Time Bomb and Prisoner Warren in Fire and Brimstone. He also plays Private Cheeseman in Dad's Army, the character which replaces Private Walker following the death of James Beck and is in the first season of Survivors as Tom Price.

UNIT's Captain Munro is played by John Breslin. He'd worked with the previous Doctor Patrick Troughton playing Alan a Dale to Troughton's Robin Hood and was also in UFO as Dr. Charles Reed in the The Dalotek Affair.

Playing Corporal Forbes, the UNIT sentry at the Tardis, is George Lee. He'll return in The Time Monster as The Farmworker and can be seen in Blake's 7: Traitor as Igin as well as appearing in two Fawlty Towers episodes: The Builders as the Delivery Man and Communication Problems as Mr. Kerr.

Brian Nolan is the UNIT Soldier at the Hospital. He'd already been an IE Guard in The Invasion and a Confederate Soldier & Resistance Man in The War Games. He returns as a UNIT Soldier in the Silurians, a Sea Devil in The Sea Devils, a Solos Guard in the Mutants, a Prison Guard in Frontier in Space, a UNIT Soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, a Guard in The Seeds of Doom and the TV Cameraman in The Deadly Assassin. He was also in Doomwatch as a Man in Flood.

There's a few other UNIT soldiers in the episode: Pat Milner was a Foot Soldier, Resistance Man & German Soldier in The War Games He plays a Security Guard in The Silurians, a Unit Corporal in The Daemons, an Army Solider in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, an Android Unit Soldier in The Android Invasion and a Marine in Seeds of Doom, for which he also supplied a dog! You can also see him in Fawlty Towers as a CID Officer in A Touch of Class - there's a picture from that on his Avelyman entry which makes him easier to spot later but here and in The Silurians he's lacking his distinctive moustache!

Antonio de Maggio was a Warrior Monk in Abominable Snowmen and returns as a UNIT soldier in The Silurians. I can't see anything else on UNIT Soldier Iain Smith's CV that I recognise and David Dewhurst, who plays he soldier Munroe names as Hawkins, isn't on IMDB.

The UNIT Driver & an Ambulance Driver in this episode is Dennis MacTighe who returns as a UNIT Driver & Ambulance Man in The Silurians. In Monty Python's Flying Circus he plays Superman's Bus Driver in How to Recognise Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away.

Tessa Shaw plays the UNIT Officer at the Radar Station: she is in the Doomwatch episode Hear No Evil as Mrs. Lucy Reid & the Voice of the Secretary.

Her technician is played by Ellis Jones, who also voices Dr Lomax in this episode. He goes on to become a director and teacher at RADA.

Given Jon Pertwee's fondness for doing his own stunts, as long as heights weren't involved, I'm surprised to see a Stunt Double for Doctor Who listed in The Production File. Michael Horsburgh had been a Stunt Pirates in The Smugglers and returns as a Heavy in Ambassadors of Death, a Stuntman/Primitive & Stuntman/IMC Guard in Colony in Space, a Stuntman/Guard in Curse of Peladon, and a Castle/Château Guard, Sailor & Stuntmen/Sea Devils in The Sea Devils. He was in Adam Adamant Lives! as the Chauffeur in A Slight Case of Reincarnation, an uncredited role in Death Begins at Seventy and as an S.S. Man in A Sinister Sort of Service.

Lots of location work in this episode: The Tardis landing site and surrounding woodland was filmed at RHS Wisley. I hate Wisley, I was dragged round it too many times as a child by my garden loving father!

Hatchford Park serves as the exterior location for the hospital.

Liz's Taxi can be seen driving down the Euston Road: That's Camden town-hall visible through the rear window!

The street the Taxi drives down, and pulls off to go into the UNIT HQ is Midland Road near St. Pancras Station station.