Spearhead from Space is a four-episode story from season seven of Doctor Who, first broadcast in 1970. It stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Caroline John as Liz Shaw, and Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
It is a notable story for several reasons, being Jon Pertwee's first in which he plays the Doctor, as well as the beginning of the UNIT era, where the Doctor is stranded on Earth and unable to use the TARDIS to have adventures in time and space (except when he is). It also introduces us to a new monster, a particularly scary one that the Doctor has not encountered before but which he will be forced to face again.
It starts with an establishing shot in space, where we see the Earth. Some mannys with a radar detect objects coming towards the Earth.
"They must be meteorites."says one. Just wait until UNIT hears about this, they won't be so blasé about potential incoming threats. Oh hang on - they are UNIT!
Sam Seeley sees the "meteorites" land and makes a face. He finds where one has been buried off-screen, perhaps by a doggy mistaiking it for noms. It is glowing and making a humming sound, which causes him to make another face.
Meanwhile the UNIT mannys are convinced they must be meteorites and that there is nothing to worry about. They really do need the Doctor's help, don't they? Speaking of the Doctor - the TARDIS appears and the Doctor falls out of it.
Liz Shaw arrives somewhere in a car with the incidental music sounding like it is from some late 1960s telefantasy series. She must think she's on her way to interview for Department S, or to be John Steed's new companion. It's actually only an interview with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who explains to her (and, by proxy, us viewers at home) what UNIT is about.
"We deal with the odd, the unexplained. Anything on Earth... or even beyond."
Liz is sceptical, until they begin talking about the "meteorites" and the Brigadier gives Liz the exposition about how another group already landed in the same place. This is enough to get Liz (and us) intrigued.
"Why is Earth any more likely to be attacked now than during the last 50,000 years?"
"In the last decade we've been sending probes deeper and deeper into space. We've drawn attention to ourselves, Miss Shaw."
The Brigadier then gives further backstory about UNIT, and just when he starts telling her about the Doctor, he gets a telephone call about how a mysterious manny and his police box has been found and taken to a hopistal.
The doctor at the hopistal (who is not the Doctor) is confused by the Doctor (who is the Doctor) having two hearts. He talks to another doctor (who is also not the Doctor) who has been confused by the Doctor (the Doctor)'s blood not being manny blood.
The doctor (not the Doctor) explains very carefully the situation to the other doctor (also not the Doctor) over the telephone so that he can be overheard by another manny, who has a HOOVER! Oh noes!
He's obviously a baddy if he's in league with Hoover.
The manny makes a telephone call of his own, trying to sell the story to "the Daily Chronicle." We then cut to Sam Seeley, who digs up the glowing "meteorite" and puts it in a sack, and by the time we cut back to the hopistal to see the Brigadier and Liz arrive, the press are already there and waiting to annoy the fuck out of them.
"Is it true there's a man from space in there?"
"Nonsense. I don't know where you get these stories."
"We heard there's something odd about him."
"I know nothing about a man from space."
"Then why are you here, sir?"The Brigadier then gives a perfectly timed pause before answering
"Training exercise."Nicholas Courtney puts across a convincing level of authority here in this scene.
Mr. J. G. Reeder (Hugh Burden) stands at the back of the scene to watch the confrontation between the journalists and the Brigadier and he carefully notes their questions and his non-answers, presumably so that he can report back to Sir Jason later. Like the journalists, he is led to the false conclusion that the Doctor "found one of those meteorites and won't tell them where it is."
The Brigadier and Liz meet with the doctor (not the Doctor) and ask him about the Doctor (the Doctor), but then the Brigadier doesn't recognise the Doctor (the Doctor) when he sees him - because the last time the Brigadier saw the Doctor he was being played by Patrick Troughton.
The Doctor wakes up and recognises the Brigadier straight away. His first words are
"Lethbridge-Stewart? My dear fellow, how nice to see you again."But his changed appearance means that the Brigadier can't trust him for now. The Doctor pretends to have sleeps so the Brigadier and Liz go away. He gets his shoes where there's a key hidden, but before he can enact any more of his plan two mannys come in and kittennap him.
They put him in a wheelchair and wheel him out of the hopistal where they meet up with Mr. Reeder, but before they can put him into Mr. Reeder's van the Doctor wheels himself away in an escape attempt. Mr. Reeder gives chase in his van and so the UNIT soldiers think he must be a baddy and start shooting at him.
One particularly trigger-happy soldier shoots at the Doctor, but when they run up to the wheelchair they find he has escaped off-screen between shots (although for a moment there I though he had regenerated into that pillow). The soldier shoots again, and the Doctor falls over. Another soldier says
"Who told you to fire, you stupid..."and the episode ends just in time to cut off his saying "...fucking cunt?"
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