Doctor Who: 701-704 – “Spearhead from Space” (1970)

Going into this serial for the first time, I was pretty wary.  I loved, loved, loved the Second Doctor and all of his companions, and while I was excited to see more of the Brigadier, I wasn’t sure I was ready to meet a new Doctor.  Luckily, though, the Three years kick off to a fairly good start with this story introducing viewers to a new era for the show.

The Brigadier and UNIT have their hands full with odd reports of patterned meteors landing on Earth, but when the Brig hears of an unconscious man discovered beside an incongruously-placed police box, he decides to make time.  With newly-recruited (and highly skeptical) UNIT scientist Liz in tow, he meets the Third Doctor, still recovering from his recent regeneration.  The Brig takes some convincing that the Doctor is in fact the same man he knew before, but once that’s taken care and the Doctor has recuperated, he rather reluctantly joins the investigation into the mysterious meteors and these strange stories of people being attacked by mannequins.

Yep, our first appearance by the Autons and the Nestene consciousness.  With the Doctor exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, this is the start of a new earthbound period of the series, and the Autons are an excellent choice for the era’s first villains.  Since here the show is setting up an exponential increase to the frequency of alien invasions in England, it seems right that we begin with something that looks like an everyday, commonplace object – a shop window dummy – but is in truth a deadly alien monster.  Without Autons, there’d be no Weeping Angels (no matter how they’ve been mishandled since, you can’t argue with “Blink,”) and they’re wonderfully creepy in a somewhat cheesy 1970s way.

But of course, the Autons aren’t all that’s new.  On my first watch, the Third Doctor dispelled my apprehension pretty readily.  He’s nothing like Two – a fact he’ll come to prize later on – but he’s still rather wonderful, a quieter, more dignified Doctor with a keen scientific bent, a love of gadgets, and a twinkle in his eye.  He’s especially interesting here for a few reasons.  First, he initially dislikes his new appearance.  Though he’ll eventually take quite a high opinion of it and his foppish style, his gut reaction is that it’s no good and too old, which intrigues me.  Second, he’s not all that excited to help out.  This might at first seem like backsliding, as if he’s returning to One’s sometimes-standoffish tendencies, but in truth, it’s not about the Autons, the mystery, or the danger – it’s about the lack of choice.  The Doctor isn’t ready to believe the Time Lords have waylaid him here (they’ve changed the TARDIS base codes and erased his knowledge of how to operate it,) and he can’t bear the idea of being tied to one spot.  Getting orders from the Brigadier doesn’t exactly help matters, either.  Uncharacteristically, the Doctor attempts to leave UNIT in the lurch and take off at the first chance he gets, which results in the fabulous shot of the Doctor sheepishly emerging from a smoking TARDIS looking like a scolded schoolboy.

I love Liz as a companion, and this story is a nice introduction to her.  While she isn’t prepared to buy all this business about aliens and time travel, she doesn’t come across like a stick-in-the-mud.  Instead, she takes a wry, bemused attitude toward the whole idea, which is a lot more fun, and when she realizes that the Doctor and the Brigadier aren’t kidding around, she gets on board quickly enough.  I like her cool unflappability, her analytical mind, and her lovely habit of taking crap from no one.  She and the Doctor are maybe slightly too similar, so I understand why she was a short-lived companion, but I love her all the same.