Review of Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space (1970) by Mikael K — 14 Apr 2015

Probably the biggest game change Doctor Who has ever gone through during its 50 year run was at the beginning of season seven of the original run. Patrick Troughton's incarnation of the titular character was forced to regenerate in the season six finale and was told that he would no longer travel in space and time. He was to be confined in Earth in one time, his memories of higher Timelord technologies locked.

"Speaheads from Space" opens season seven and introduces us to John Pertwee's incarnation of the Doctor. The show starts a unique, Earth and time bound period in the series. It's also the first Who story shot in color. I think that the current episodes- and most of the episodes of DW overall- resemble the first seasons of the show more than season 7, which acts kind of as a precursor to Torchwood, handling then current settings and situations.

"Spearheads" has quite a bit of comedy in it, also something we didn't see a lot of during the classic run. The simple space invasion story works well enough as a new pilot episode for a completely reborn series, introducing Liz Shaw's much loved character as well as brings back familiar quest stars as permanent cast members.