256 Spearhead from Space: Episode Three

EPISODE: Spearhead from Space: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 256
STORY NUMBER: 051
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 17 January 1970
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
RATINGS: 8.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Mannequin Mania Box Set - Spearhead from Space/Terror of the Autons
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm colour film

"Destroy! Total destruction!"

The Auton walks toward Ransome, it's hand dropping away to reveal a gun. Ransome flees the factory. Channing sends an Auton to kill Ransome. Ransome finds the UNIT command post in the nearby woods. The Doctor dupes Liz into obtaining the Tardis key for him on the pretext of needing some equipment from within. Seeley asks UNIT if there's a reward for finding a "Thunderbolt" as he calls the meteorites. Ransome describes what he saw at the factory to the Brigadier. The Doctor tries to dematerialise but the Tardis won't leave & smoke pours out of the doors. The Timelords have changed the dematerialisation code confining the Doctor to Earth. The Doctor suggests visiting the plastics factory. Mrs Seeley, suspicious that her husband has been thieving, opens the box in the shed exposing the Nestene Energy UNIT which transmits a signal to the searching Auton. Sam Seeley tells UNIT where his "thunderbolt" is. Ransome is left in the UNIT command tent in the woods as everyone leaves to retrieve the meteorite. The Auton enters Seeley house searching for the energy UNIT. Mrs Seeley, alarmed by the intruder, finds her husband's shotgun and shoots the Auton, but it's uninjured. UNIT arrive at the Seeley house and drive off the Auton, preventing it from recovering the energy UNIT. The Auton is sent to the UNIT tent where it kills Ransome. The Brigadier, Doctor & Liz visit plastics factory, where the Brigadier recognises Channing from the hospital. General Scobie answers his front door and finds his Auton duplicate waiting for him.....

This is the point where The Doctor discovers that he is actually stuck on Earth, almost as if he doesn't believe the threats the Time Lords made at his trial:

BRIGADIER: Miss Shaw, where's that key? You've given it to him.
LIZ: He needed some equipment.
BRIGADIER: Equipment? I had no idea you could be so gullible. That's an excuse. We shan't see him again.
LIZ: Oh, what do you mean?
BRIGADIER: Listen. He's going.

DOCTOR: Just testing. I wanted to see if the controls
LIZ: Doctor, you tricked me.
DOCTOR: Yes. The temptation was too strong, my dear. It's just that I couldn't bear the thought of being tied to one planet and one time. I'm sorry. It won't happen again.
BRIGADIER: It won't? Give me the key, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Must I? The Tardis no longer works, as you saw.
BRIGADIER: Well, will you give me your word not to try to escape again?
DOCTOR: I couldn't escape now if I wanted to. They've trapped me here!
LIZ: Who have?
DOCTOR: That mean, despicable, underhanded lot! They've changed the dematerialisation code.
BRIGADIER: The what?
DOCTOR: The dematerial...... It doesn't matter, you wouldn't understand anyway.

This possibly gives further credence to Season 6b theory if he had been allowed to travel on missions for the Timelords afterwards.

There's some good stuff in this one, especially the scenes of Channing watching what's happening through the Auton and Scobie answering the door to his duplicate.

The Pertwee era is the point where location filming comes into it's own for Doctor Who. By allowing for a week's filming ahead of the studio work more frequent filming could be accomplished without eating into the actor's studio schedule or free time. Spearhead from Space has more location filming than the average story for this era but this came about by accident..... A week's location filming took place during 13th - 19th September 1969 featuring RHS Wisley, Hatchford Park, Euston Road & Midland Road, all for episode 1, TCC Condensors & Favourite Doll's Factory, both for episode 2, and Ealing Broadway, High Street & Lancaster Road, for episode 4,

After the location filming the the intention was to proceed to four weeks in the studio to record the interior scenes for this story. However a this point Spearhead became the first (but not last by any means) Doctor Who story to be affected by union strike action. Pertwee then decamped to his holiday home in Ibiza. In the meantime Derrick Sherwin was at work trying to save the production and hit upon an idea. Why not film the interiors on location? So armed with 16mm cameras the team, reunited with it's star summoned home by telegram (although nowhere near as quickly as Sherwin would have liked!), ventured westwards basing themselves out of Wood Norton, a BBC facility near Evesham in Worcestshire. It was here that most of the interior shots for the story, which would have been recorded in the studio on video, were filmed.

The exterior of Wood Norton hall is also used briefly in episode 2 for a meeting between The Brigadier and Captain Munroe. You can't see the house itself, which later features in the Doctor Who story Robot, but you can see the wooden huts in it's ground which are visible in the later story:

The house can be seen in robot and is also visible in the site's appearance in and the site's appearance in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Indeed the scenes with the Doctor in the Hospital Bed are filmed in a very similar room to the one used for Smiley's interrogation in Tinker Tailor!

The nearby Evesham Hotel forms the locations for General Scobie's home:

Wheel Barrow Castle Cottage is where the scenes at the Seeley's cottage were filmed

Meg Seeley is played by Betty Bowden while her husband Sam is played by
Neil Wilson who was a policemen in The Quatermass Experiment episodes Persons Reported Missing & Contact Has Been Established, which survive and are on the The Quatermass Collection DVD.

Clifford Cox plays the sergeant in episode 3. He'd been in Quatermass and the Pit as the First Private in The Halfmen, The Ghosts and Imps and Demons and as the First Sapper, presumably the same character, in The Enchanted and The Wild Hunt. In Out of the Unknown he was in Something in the Cellar, which is missing from the archives, as The Inspector, and To Lay a Ghost, which does exist and is on the Out of the Unknown DVD Set, as Ewan McKenzie. InDoomwatch he was the Radio Operator in Fire and Brimstone, which is also missing from the archives.

Somewhere in this episode is an Auton/Commissionaire played by Ronald Mayer who returns as a Man in Pub/Coven & Villager in The Daemons, a Time Lord in The Deadly Assassin, and a Skonnan Elder in Horns of the Nimon. He's been in Quatermass and the Pit as a Journalist in The Wild Hunt and a Dead Photographer in Hob.

Likewise at some point Robert Willman, who I can't find on IMDB is used as a Walk On. Now I can see a similarly named Bob Williman, also with no IMDB, playing an Auton in episode 4 so I'd suggest they're likely one and the same person playing the same role in both episodes.

This episode is the last known appearance for a prop that's been with us in Doctor Who since 1965! It first appeared in Doctor Who during The Chase:

Apparently the dome shaped thing was originally created for Curse of the Fly.

There it powered the Xeron freezing equipment but later on it appeared in the Warehouse in The War Machines, the X-Ray laser in Wheel in Space, in the Tardis Power room in The Mind Robber and finally here in the Lab in Spearhead from Space.

For viewers of my age it really stands out due to it's resemblance to the Palitoy Star Wars Death Star playset!

However in the background of that shot you can see another odd looking prop with blue boxes round it:

It's not 100% clear in the picture but we saw this in The Invasion as a Cyberman Spaceship!

This episode sees our first look at one of the distinguishing features of the Autons, the gun hands, where the four fingers drop away and the gun emerges! Having read the book as a child this wasn't quite how I'd imagined it: I thought the entire hand fell away at the wrist!

And speaking of the book....

In 1972 publisher Universal Tandem were looking to set up a children's book imprint and hired Richard Henwood to be the editor for Target Books. He visited publishers Frederick Muller and licensed from them the three Doctor Who novels they published in the Sixties: The Daleks & The Crusade, both by former script editor David Whitaker, and the Zarbi by Bill Strutton. They were published on the 2nd May 1973, two days before my birthday and in between Planet of the Daleks episodes 4 & 5 and were a roaring success. Wanting more titles he was put in contact with the Doctor Who Production Office. Current Script Editor Terrance Dicks was eager to write a book and adapted Spearhead from Space into the Auton Invasion, which was one of the two launch books for the range along with it's following story on television, The Silurians, which was novelised by it's original author, Malcolm Hulke, under the title of The Cave Monsters. Both books were released on 17th January 1974 and were a huge success with further titles following quickly on. Both of these early titles are still regarded as two of the best in the range.