Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space (1970)

"Spearhead from Space" was a Doctor Who first in more ways than one. In addition to being Jon Pertwee's debut as the third actor to play science fiction's most beloved Time Lord," Spearhead" was also the first DW story in color, opening Season Seven after six years in black and white only. Also, this was the first story to feature the Nestene Consciousness and their creepy plastic killers, the Autons. Finally, "Spearhead" marked the beginning of the newly-regenerated Doctor's exile on Earth, which would last until the end of "The Three Doctors" during the show's tenth season.

Jon Pertwee gets his Doctor off to a strong start in this story. Nicholas Courtney and John Levene are great to watch as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Sergeant Benton, respectively. Hugh Burden gives us a delightfully cold, calm villain in Channing. And Caroline John starts her season-long run as companion Liz Shaw. On this DVD, she joins with Nicholas Courtney for the commentary track.

The TARDIS brings the newly-regenerated Doctor to Earth, where he collapses and is taken to a nearby hospital by UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) troops. UNIT has been tracking some meteorites which fell to Earth during a recent meteor shower. The troops are searching for about fifty small meteorites which had landed in the area where the TARDIS had materialized. The "meteorites" are, in fact, hollowed out orbs containing the Nestene Consciousness, an alien intelligence which is somewhat plastic-based. Meanwhile, a plastics factory has been infiltrated by Channing, a Nestene agent. There, he uses the energy from the orbs to produce and activate the Autons, which resemble mannequins.

While UNIT had been introduced a year earlier in "The Invasion," "Spearhead" marks the beginning of the Doctor's relationship with the organization, and with Lethbridge-Stewart, as the Time Lord accepts the Brigadier's offer to stay on as an unpaid scientific advisor.

Writer Robert Holmes would bring back the Nestenes and the Autons a year later in the Season Eight opener "Terror of the Autons." Holmes' creepy villains were scheduled to return in 1985 for a story being written for Season Twenty-three. That plan was scrapped after the infamous hiatus of 1986 when the writers and Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner chose to produce the infamous "Trial of a Time Lord" story. When the BBC relaunched Doctor Who in 2005, the Nestene Consciousness and the Autons were featured in the debut episode "Rose."

This was also the first Doctor Who DVD to feature the information text, or "Pop-Up Production Notes"--an extra which has become so popular with DW fans it has been included on every Doctor Who DVD released ever since. Spearhead from Space was a strong start for the Jon Pertwee era, and for a period running through the Pertwee era into the mid-Tom Baker era which many fans of the classic series recall as the Golden Age of Doctor Who