Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Five

Green Face stops Pink Face from killing the Doctor, and we learn that Captain Hawkins and the other UNIT mannys aren't ded (phew!) but they are trapped and running out of air.

The Doctor continues to try and warn the Silurians, but now he is warning them that mannys will retaliate if they get killed. Major Baker tries to stop him, for some reason, but only gets hypno-eyesed for his trouble.

Pink Face conspires with another Silurian who appears to be his friend. Meanwhile Green Face talks with the Doctor.

"This is our planet, we were here before man. We ruled this world millions of years ago."

Actually the planet belongs to cats because cats are best. This is the story's big twist moment, although it has been carefully foreshadowed with things like the 200 million years old globe that the Doctor and Liz found. The Silurians aren't aliens at all, they are Earthlings - a clever reversal of the twist in Quatermass and the Pit where mannys turn out to be aliens.

The Doctor realises that the Silurians are really very stupid, and were having sleeps to hide from a "catastrophe" that "never happened."
Major Baker calls the Doctor a "traitor" because he is after the coveted position of most stupid character in this whole story. So far he is winning easily, in spite of the large amount of high-calibre competition he's up against.

The Silurians were only able to wake up when the mannys built their nuclear power station nearby. Or at least that is Green Face's excuse - I think they were just being very lazy. The Doctor tries to convince Green Face that there is room for mannys and Silurians to both live on the Earth in peace, and asks him to release the trapped UNIT mannys as a sign of good faith... and to counteract trapping them to die, which was a sign of bad faith.

One of the trapped mannys goes mad and attacks Captain Hawkins, like the manny in the hopistal did to the Doctor back in episode one. Green Face releases all the UNIT mannys just in time, and then tells Pink Face what he has done and why.

"This other species has developed its own civilisation. We must accept them as equals."

No! Not that kind of Civilization, Gandhi!

"I disagree! We must destroy them!"

Pink Face loses his shit and storms off in a huff.

Pink Face's friend is watching Major Baker on a Silurian TV, even though the real Major Baker is right there in front of him. He changes channels on the TV using his hypno-eye. It has so many uses. Pink Face wants his friend to help him become their new leader, and threatens to hypno-eyes him if he doesn't.

The Brigadier makes it back to the power station and Dr Lawrence's office set, where Liz and Masters were trying to be competent, but being hindered by Dr Lawrence and Miss Dawson acting like dicks.

Green Face and the Doctor reach an agreement, unaware of Pink Face's Starscreamesque plotting. Green Face leaves the Doctor behind an invisible door, giving Jon Pertwee an opportunity to show off his miming skillz.

Pink Face releases Major Baker as part of his plan, after first having secretly infected him with his friend's manny-killing plague. Green Face is angry when he finds out what Pink Face has done, and Pink Face says

"You are no longer fit to lead us."

to his face. Like Megatron, Green Face responds by saying

"I shall destroy you if you defy me again."

but he doesn't actually destroy him. Instead he tells the Doctor what has happened and gives him some of the plague in a jar as a present, hoping the Doctor can use it to find a cure (since the silly Silurians didn't think to make one).

Major Baker arrives back first and pretends to have escaped. The Doctor gets there soon after and tells him

"Major Baker, you are ill. You are very, very ill."

and there are signs of the plague on Major Baker's wrist. The Doctor gets everybody to stand back, at least two metres away from Major Baker.

Pink Face pewpewpews Green Face so that he can say 'I Pink Face am the new leader of the Siluricons!'
This must be the equivalent of a Silurian election, because all the other Silurians seem happy to go along with him after he's done it.

Major Baker gets taken to the hopistal so that he can start spreading the plague there. The Doctor tries too late to get the mannys to do a quarantine, but they are as hopeless as the UK government in 2020 (little bit of politics there, cats and doggys, oh yes indeed). Masters, for example, heads straight off to London, despite his starting to feel unwell before he has even left the office.

When the Doctor and the Brigadier arrive outside the hopistal in Bessie, they see Major Baker running around in his dressing gown trying to get away - by this point he has made more escape attempts from the hopistal than Number Six from the Village. But this is his last, because soon he goes

"Is he dead?"

asks the Brigadier, after unwisely touching him. Wash those paws, naughty Brigadier!

"Yes. The first one."

replies the Doctor - topical cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Four

Derp! Silurians look so derpy, lol.

Obviously the Doctor reacts not with fear but with "Hello. Are you a Silurian?"
He tries to make friends with it, but the Silurian hears a noise from outside and runs away.

Major Baker escapes from the hopistal. Liz asks the Brigadier if he wants to chase after him, but the Brigadier knows where he will be going - back to the caves. He's right, and when he gets there, Major Baker gets captured immediately by two Silurians, who pewpewpew him, or hypno-eyes him, or possibly both at the same time.

The Doctor tells Liz that Dr Quinn is ded, but he keeps this fact from the Brigadier because, so he says, "they're not necessarily hostile." I mean, hardly any mannys have been killed so far, and none that really count, right?

The Doctor has found Dr Quinn's map of the caves, so he and Liz follow the route marked on it. They find clues left behind by Major Baker when he got captured, and eventually they come to the door where Dr Quinn got hypno-eyesed back in episode two. They see a Silurian and hide while it goes through the door.

Dr Quinn's homing device also acts as a key and opens the door for them. They go inside and sneak around for a bit, dodging Silurians until they find Major Baker in a cage.

Baker tells the Doctor that the Silurians have been asking him "a lot of questions."

"What do they ask?"
"The population of the Earth, what weapons we use, what food we eat. Don't you see? They are trying to gather information for an invasion!"

Or they could be practising for an appearance on Pointless?

They see a Silurian waking up after a sleep, and the Doctor concludes that their alarm clock is what is causing the power drain of the mannys' nuclear reactor. They can't rescue Major Baker right now, so they decide to go back to warn UNIT and try to bring back more help. On the way out they see a pet dinosaur going rar, although it doesn't do anything else.

Back at the Cyclotron room, Masters, the Permanent Under-Secretary (Geoffrey Palmer), arrives and talks to Dr Lawrence. These two together are an appalling combination of unlikable characters who bring out the worst in each other.

"We've got to get this sorted out, you know. I'm under very heavy pressure from the Minister. The future of this centre is very much in question."

Masters may be a Permanent Under-Secretary, but he's more of a Sir Jason Fowler than a Sir Humphrey Appleby. However even he is more competent than Dr Lawrence, who projects his own failings onto the Brigadier in an attempt to avoid any blame for things going wrong:

"He's exaggerating this whole business out of all proportion merely to magnify his own importance."

Just as he did in Spearhead from Space, the Brigadier needs his reinforcements to come from the "regular army." In that story it was General Scobie who was responsible for them, and here it is Masters, and Masters won't give him any.

Two Silurians ask Major Baker some questions, including

"Is your species the only intelligent lifeform?"

Major Baker lies and says yes, obviously wanting to keep the existence of cats secret from the Silurians. When they ask him about weapons he refuses to answer, and one of them (who has a pinkish-coloured face) gets angry. Like with the mannys we have just seen in the previous scene, I think there is some projecting going on, because Pink Face says it is Major Baker who is "becoming aggressive."
The other Silurian (who has a green face) seems more reasonable. He wants to study mannys, while Pink Face wants to "kill them all."

The Doctor and Liz tell the Brigadier, Dr Lawrence and Masters what they saw in the caves. Masters wants proof (which actually sounds fairly reasonable under the circumstances) ad the Brigadier wants to go and get it from the caves. The Doctor wants to make peaceful contact with them, and reiterates his point about them only attacking in self-defence - he has not met Pink Face yet!

I think the story is trying to establish a thematic parallel between the contrasting methods of the Doctor and the Brigadier and Green Face and Pink Face, but the Brigadier at least is a lot more nuanced than Pink "wipe them out, all of them" Face would seem to be.

Anyhow, the Doctor's point about self-defence is undermined when Miss Dawson comes in and tells them about Dr Quinn being ded, and she knows he was killed by a Silurian. This gets Masters to agree to the Brigadier's plan to take UNIT into the caves, and he goes to get ready. The Doctor decides to warn the Silurians that UNIT are coming, telling Liz

"If the Brigadier won't listen to reason, Liz, maybe the Silurians will."

He gets there in the twinkling of a scene change, and meets with three Silurians. Pink Face asks

"Shall I destroy him?"

but Green Face says no. Even Green Face is not in the mood to listen to the Doctor though, and they put him in the big cage along with Major Baker. They open the cage door in the way they open all their doors - by hypno-eyesing it with their special hypno-eye that all the Silurians have, which is a neat trick that cats have yet to master.

The Brigadier and some UNIT mannys, including Captain Hawkins (purr, I thought for a while that he wasn't going to be in this episode at all, but it is suddenly looking a lot better now he is), are in the caves, and they get trapped by walls appearing where they weren't before. This happens to cats sometimes too, mew.

Pink Face goes to the Doctor and tells him he has "destroyed" the mannys - oh noes, I hope he doesn't mean Captain Hawkins!

"And now I shall destroy you!"

He pewpewpews the Doctor with his hypno-eye, and the Doctor makes a face - cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Captain Hawkins and the Silurians: Episode Three

After the recap of episode two's cliffhanger and some more POV shots of the wounded Silurian hiding from a policemanny, it cuts to Dr Quinn showing his "communications device" (wait, I thought it was a homing beacon?) to Miss Dawson, and from her he hears that UNIT are looking for the Silurian at the barn.

UNIT arrives at the barn and Captain Hawkins searches the place. I bet he's quicker on the draw than any of the other UNIT mannys, lol, but all he sees here is a chicken.

He smiles. Is this the first ever instance of a sardonic Paul Darrow smile? Purr.

He finds the hole out of which the Silurian escaped and tells the Brigadier, who decides they need to search "the whole area" for it. The Doctor asks Liz what she saw, and she describes the Silurian, but slowly, to increase the tension.

"It was like a reptile, but it walked upright like a man."

Dr Quinn arrives, and the Doctor grows suspicious of why he is there and the questions he asks, but the Brigadier wants him to help with their search.

There is some exciting footage of UNIT (including Captain Hawkins) on location doing their searching - they even have doggys to help them. No cats so far as I could see, although all the cats I know would have been happy to help Captain Hawkins.

Dr Quinn goes to a place where he can use the homing device to make the sound effect that is meant to summon the Silurian - I hope it doesn't summon any dinosaurs too, since it's the same as that noise. A doggy hears the noise, and so does Captain Hawkins, and he tells the Doctor and the Brigadier when they drive past him in Bessie. Captain Hawkins is even able to identify it as the sound they heard back when they were in the caves.

The sound gets faster and faster as Dr Quinn gets closer to the Silurian, and it uses its POV camera to see him and sneak up on him. The Doctor and the Brigadier hear the noise too, until it stops suddenly.

Fortunately for them there is another clue, as the Brigadier sees a Silurian footprint and they examine it, then he uses his own homing beacon to summon the rest of UNIT.

The Doctor is still suspicious of Dr Quinn so goes to his house, alone. He forces his way in and makes no secret to Dr Quinn that he is investigating. Even we cats can tell that Dr Quinn is lying when he answers the Doctor's questions with innoccent-seeming answers that he is forced to make up on the spot - the Doctor is like Columbo here, trying to trip him up.

"Only it is rather like the reptile house in the zoo, isn't it?"
"What do you mean, eh? What do you mean?"
"Nothing. I was just referring to the temperature of the room."

Eventually the Doctor says plainly

"You'd save yourself a lot of trouble if you'd let me help you."

But Dr Quinn only makes him leave as his way of answering.

I suppose I should have some pictures of things in the episode that aren't Paul Darrow, mew.

The Doctor and Liz investigate Dr Quinn's things, and find a globe where all the countries are wrong, which means it is from "200 million years ago." Miss Dawson catches them, but the Doctor quickly turns the tables on her and starts interrogating her. She is about to tell them what she knows when the Brigadier comes in and, for some reason, this changes her mind and she goes away without helping them. Even more inexplicably, the Doctor then acts as though this is the Brigadier's fault.

Miss Dawson goes straight to Dr Quinn's house and tries to persuade him to tell the Doctor what he knows. But Dr Quinn says

"He's a scientist too. He only wants to steal the credit for my discoveries."

This gives us further insight into Dr Quinn's motivation, and at the same time shows his increasing paranoia. Dr Quinn has decided to force the wounded Silurian, who he now has hidden in his house, to tell him the secrets of science before he will let it go. This seems like a foolproof plan that can't possibly go wrong.

The Doctor, Liz, the Brigadier and Captain Hawkins are having a meeting with Dr Lawrence to decide what to do, when Major Baker comes in uninvited and demands they attack the caves. Perhaps because the Brigadier would have been suggesting this himself before very much longer, he gets annoyed and orders Captain Hawkins to take Major Baker back to the hopistal.

As soon as Major Baker is gone...

"I must say, Brigadier, that I'm delighted that you didn't agree with him."
"Oh but I do. I intend to send for more men and mount a full scale search of those caves."

Told you so.

Dr Lawrence says the Brigadier must act quickly before the Master comes to take over. The Master! I didn't think he was going to be in this story - Roger Delgado and Paul Darrow in the same episode, purr. Best Doctor Who evar?

Oh, wait, I must have been getting overexcited - what Dr Lawrence actually says is

"I advise you to do your best to achieve some kind of results in the time available to you. Masters, the Permanent Under-Secretary, is coming down here to conduct a personal investigation."

Mew.

The Doctor decides to go and speak to Dr Quinn at his house again. After ringing the doorbell and waiting only a few seconds, he goes in - impatient Doctor, he must know the cliffhanger is coming up soon.

Dr Quinn is having sleeps in a chair. The Doctor finds him and takes the homing beacon from his paw. The Doctor turns it on and it summons the Silurian, who was hiding in the next room, and who walks into full view of the camera so that we see it properly for the first time only as the Doctor sees it. It's the big reveal at last and, unsurprisingly, the cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Two

The dinosaur is about to claw claw bite the Doctor when there is a sound effect that makes it change its mind and it goes away instead. Phew, that was lucky! The Doctor sees a dinosaur footprint and thinks it is a clue, as if seeing the dinosaur itself wasn't enough for him.

The Doctor gets back and tells everybody about what he saw - the Brigadier, Liz, Major Baker, and a new character Captain Hawkins, played by... PAUL DARROW!

*Explodes!*

The others don't believe the Doctor's story, not even after he does a komedy bit.

"Well, it was certainly some kind of dinosaur. Certainly nothing that I've ever seen before, though."

"In museums, you mean?"

Major Baker is today's straight manny.

"No, I do not mean in museums. Well, on second thoughts... perhaps... perhaps I do, yes."

However the military mannys do want to go to the caves themselves and find out if there is a problem there that they can solve by shooting it. The Doctor says

"That's typical of the military mind, isn't it? Present them with a new problem, and they start shooting at it."

But when the Brigadier wants to leave Liz behind, even the Doctor gets in on the patronising.

In the caves, Major Baker wanders off on his own. He sees a Silurian and shoots at it, then he gets attacked by a very stealthy dinosaur until the sound effect once again calls it off.

The Brigadier and Captain Hawkins follow the trail of the Silurian, while the Doctor takes Major Baker back to the hopistal - I know which of those I'd choose to go with, lol!

The Silurian is injured and makes its way to the outside of the studio, where it wanders around on location, accompanied by some classic POV shots and the sounds of heavy breathing - this is no time to make a dirty 'phone call, naughty Silurian! All the time we still don't get a proper look at it, clearly this is being saved for a big reveal.

I don't know how many different ways there are of us not seeing the Silurian, but that there are so many varieties used here is evidence of a director at the top of his game.

The Brigadier loses its trail when it gets dark, by which time the Doctor has worked out that the Silurians are in charge of the dinosaur and called it off both times, so he thinks they "may not be hostile." I think the Brigadier is annoyed by this suggestion, since he really wanted it to be something he could shoot.

The POV footage reaches some houses and goes inside a barn.

Dr Quinn goes to the caves to meet with the Silurians and they shine a red light on him, either to hypno-eyes him or else just for the lols. He goes into a control room where he looks confused for a bit - so he probably was hypno-eyesed - then talks to a mysterious disembodied voice. From this we can deduce that the Silurians were obviously fans of Dr. No.

The voice gives Dr Quinn a pider in a box "summoning device" that will help him find the wounded Silurian, as they want Dr Quinn to bring him back to them.

A manny goes into the barn and gets a surprise when he sees the Silurian's paw in his pile of hay. The Silurian uses its POV powers to attack the manny.

The Doctor wants to shut down the nuclear reactor so the Silurians can't drain it any more, but Dr Lawrence is a dick ("pompous idiot" the Doctor calls him) and says its "out of the question."

The Brigadier gets telephoned about the manny with the barn who has been killed by the Silurian. They all go straight there and see the Silurians have different claw attacks from the dinosaur, but the Doctor says the manny didn't die from claws but instead "you might say he died of fear."
Alright then I will say that: he died of fear.

The Doctor is still prepared to give the Silurians the benefit of the doubt, but with the number of attacks on mannys mounting up the Brigadier and Liz both think it doesn't look good for them. Again they leave Liz behind while the Doctor and the Brigadier go off to speak to Mrs Manny, who also saw the Silurian in the barn. When they ask her what the Silurian did next, she tells them it's still in the barn.

Of course, this is where Liz has been left. She is busy doing science in the barn, so the Silurian can sneak up on her with its POV powers, much as it did to the manny before. Liz screams and it claws her face (in self defence, the Doctor would no doubt claim) - cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode One

Doctor Who and the Silurians is a seven-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 also has a certain guest-star make an appearance, although he is not in episode one, alas and mew.

It starts with two mannys exploring a studio when they hear a rar. Either bravely or foolishly, they keep on exploring until one of them meets a studio monster, and this immediately set us cats who are watching into an argument with Dragon as to whether this was a dragon (as he claimed) or a dinosaur (which was our consensus opinion). One of the mannys gets nomed while the other one runs away.

The Doctor has acquired a car since the last story, and has been doing some science on it when Liz comes in with an "urgent message from the Brigadier." The message, which is doubtless full of important exposition to get this story going, reads:

"Miss Shaw and the Doctor will report themselves forthwith to Wenley Moor. Attend a briefing meeting at precisely..."

which is as far as Liz gets before the Doctor interrupts her. He isn't interested until Liz tells him about the famous caves.

The Doctor has named his car "Bessie," which understandably makes Elizabeth Shaw worried that he might be a loony.
"I see," she says when she sees him blow a kiss to the car, maintaining her outward calm while inwardly plotting to get out of her contract at the earliest possible opportunity.

After a brief scene of the Doctor and Liz driving around with the incidental music sounding like it's time to go nationwide,

we go from them to Peter Miles, famous as Davros's left-hand manny Nyder, but today playing Dr Lawrence. He is shouting at some other mannys while the Brigadier looks on. The Brigadier meets with the Doctor and Liz, and introduces them to important named characters - Dr Lawrence, Dr Quinn (played by Fulton "Mr" Mackay) and Major Baker (no relation, as far as I'm aware, to either Tom or Colin).

Their "atomic research centre" has been suffering from "unexplained leakages in the power supplied by the nuclear generator" and they need the Doctor to find the explanation. So far this seems a fairly mundane sort of problem for UNIT and the Doctor to use their talents on, but appearances can be deceptive and, since this is a seven-part story, there is still plenty of time for the mystery to deepen and for even better guest-stars to appear.

Dr Quinn shows the Doctor and Liz the nuclear reactor they use to power their cyclotron.

"What happens if one of these power losses occurs at a particularly crucial time?"
"So far, we've always managed to stabilise."
"If you didn't?"
"Well, theoretically..."
"Your nuclear reactor could turn into a massive atomic bomb."

You see, already its looking pretty serious. Dr Quinn tells the Doctor about the mannys from the first scene, and the Doctor goes to see the one that ran away.

The manny has been drawing on the walls of his room, and when the Doctor tries to ask him about it he goes mad and attacks the Doctor.

Even though we will not see a Silurian for a while yet, they are cleverly foreshadowed here in the manny's drawings.

Dr Quinn conspires with Miss Dawson, who is worried UNIT are "bound to discover something." This lets us know they are really baddys, and that there are others, who she refers to as "them," that are causing the power losses. Miss Dawson thinks she and Dr Quinn should change sides and tell the Brigadier what's going on. She says

"It's not worth the risk."

But Dr Quinn replies with

"The knowledge I shall gain is worth any risk."

This gives us an insight into Dr Quinn's motivation.

Dr Quinn does a nuclear test, which involves a big glowing red thingy on the wall. There is a power failure while they are doing it, and the more it goes wrong the more the camera zooms in on the glowing thingy.

One of the mannys goes mad and attacks Miss Dawson until the Brigadier and the Doctor rush in to help.

The Doctor works out that the cyclotron room is near the caves, and becomes convinced that all the clues he has found are pointing that way. So he goes to investigate the cave where the studio set from the first scene is, even dressing up like the mannys to recreate their exploring as closely as possible. This works out well for him, as almost immediately he hears a rar just like they did.

He sees a dinosaur and makes an 'oh noes!' face - cliffhanger!

Notice how, in later Doctor Who they would end episodes with a crash-zoom to the Doctor's face, but in a long story like this one there is time for a crash-zoom to both the Doctor's face and the dinosaur's.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space Episode Four

The Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier are working out what is going on, with the Brigadier asking the questions so that the other two can answer them, for our benefit as well as his. The Doctor thinks at the factory they are building a body to house the "collective intelligence" contained in the energy units.

Now that the dummy General Scobie has taken over, he is on the side of the Autons and orders the Brigadier not to go to the factory. When the Doctor hears that the factory was making a dummy of the general for the Madame Tussauds museum (which wasn't a secret, apparently), he takes Liz straight there to visit (any excuse, eh, lazy Doctor?) and, when he examines the brand new dummy of General Scobie he realises it is actually the real one!

Channing then gets the dummy General Scobie (the dummy one... I know, but I need some way to tell the real dummy from the dummy dummy, don't I? Mew) to go to UNIT and seize the unit.

The Doctor and Liz are still sneaking around the museum when it is closed, dark and empty. Channing and George Hibbert come in and many of the dummys come to life. It's lucky that George was there to ask Channing things about their plan, since it allows the Doctor and Liz to overhear them.

Channing leaves but then George sees the Doctor, who tries to undo the hypno-eyesing.

"Channing is controlling your mind, you must resist him. Channing is your enemy. The enemy of the entire human race!"

Channing comes back and George doesn't give the Doctor and Liz away, so we know he has partly resisted.

Back at the factory, in the control room, Channing has made a big box with lots of dials on it, and he puts the unit near it. At the UNIT laboratory, the Doctor is also making something, but we don't know what it is yet.



There then follows the iconic scene where the Autons in the shop window come to life with a sound effect and break out of the window (off-screen). A policemanny runs to investigate, and gets pewpewpewed, and so do a few other mannys including the manny on a bike wearing a silly hat.

This is the turning point of the story, as the Autons are no longer acting secretly, they are ready to put their full plan into operation. Somebody telephones the Brigadier to tell him what's happening.

"It's started, hasn't it?"

asks the Doctor, portentously. He knows a good dramatic thing when he sees it.

The Doctor knows they can't wait any longer, so he persuades the Brigadier to attack the factory with whatever UNIT mannys he has to paw. Just like the Doctor earlier, the Brigadier doesn't take much persuading.

Thanks to the Doctor, George is overcoming Channing's hypno-eyes, and he attacks the box in the control room with a stick until Channing comes in and catches him. George asks Channing

"Who are you? What are you?"
"We are the Nestene."
"Nestene?"
"We have been colonising other planets for a thousand million years. Now we have come to colonise Earth."

Some great exposition here, and played totally straight by the two actors. George is horrified, then Channing gets an Auton to pewpewpew him.

UNIT arrives at the factory but the dummy General Scobie (the dummy one) is waiting. The Doctor uses the machine he has made to turn off the dummy general.

"You've killed him!"
"I don't think so. You see, he was never really alive."

He takes off the general's face to reveal the Auton underneath.

Insert Scobie-Doo reference here.

In the museum, the dummy General Scobie (the real one) comes back to life and looks confused.

The Brigadier teams up with the soldiers that the dummy General Scobie (the dummy one) was commanding in time for a proper fight scene - guns, stunts, everything the Brigadier could possibly have wished for, while at the same time the Doctor and Liz sneak around the factory using the machine on the Autons, deactivating them one by one until they reach the control room.

 'He's behind me, isn't he?'

Liz hides while the Doctor goes in to confront Channing. Channing responds by turning the big dial on the box up to maximum and then he recalls. The Doctor tries to use his machine but it doesn't work. Liz tries to fix it while the Doctor gets grabbed by some naughty tentacles. This is Cthulhu's favourite bit.

The Doctor tries to fight it with some Venusian Gurning, but it is not until Liz manages to repair the machine that it blows up the box. All the Autons, including Channing, go

Back at the UNIT laboratory, the Doctor and the Brigadier "discuss terms" for if the Doctor is to W-word for UNIT. Oh noes, the Doctor doing the W-word! He's clearly no cat. Not yet.

The Doctor wants a car (not a cat, but such similar words maybe he just got them mixed up and only found out his mistaik later), and in return the Brigadier wants to know his name. The Doctor tells him it is

"Smith. Doctor John Smith."

and he smiles. Not such a big secret after all, eh Steven Moffat?

What's so good about Spearhead from Space?

Spearhead from Space is a great introductory story for Jon Pertwee as the Doctor and the establishment of the UNIT era. Indeed Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is the main Companion - practically the main character - for much of the story, perhaps because we have met him before (during the Patrick Troughton era) while Liz is new.

As a story in its own right, it is well-paced, ever escalating towards an iconic climax in episode four, when we get one of the most famous scenes in all of Doctor Who to pay it off - so good that Russell "The" Davies would later lift it completely for his first episode Rose.

Speaking of lifts, Robert Holmes was blatantly inspired by the 1955 BBC TV series Quatermass ii (he must have thought he could get away with it after 15 years and no DVD release), with several aspects of Spearhead from Space coming from it - most obviously the shape and purpose of the meteorites/energy units, but also in a key location being a factory under the control of the aliens, and the hypno-eyesing of mannys to make them go along with the aliens' plans. But Holmes makes these elements fit as part of a new plot (albeit still in the 'alien-invasion-by-stealth' sub-genre) and why not? He's stealing from the best after all.

There's also something to be said about the way that this story was made entirely on film, which lends it a 'cinematic' quality and an extra level of credibility that many of the studio-bound (or a mix of studio and film) stories lack. This is helped by the fact that the SFX throughout are impressive (by Doctor Who standards) and fit the story perfectly, which would probably have still been true even on videotape.

All in all, we're off to a great start to the season and the era, but I happen to know that the next story will be even better...

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space Episode Three

The dummy has a pewpewpew gun inside its hand, but John Ransome sensibly runs away before he can get pewpewpewed. The dummy gives chase, but has to stop to avoid being seen by General Scobie and George Hibbert.

Mr. Reeder gives the dummy a look as if to say 'just what do you think you're doing?'

and in response the dummy hangs its head in shame like a doggy that has been caught being naughty.

As he says goodbye to them, General Scobie calls Mr. Reeder "Mr Channing" so he is not Mr. Reeder after all! This explains a lot, although I did like the idea of a crossover episode between the two series so it is a shame that this hasn't happened.

Channing saw John escape, and tells George he is going to "send an Auton" to kill him. John runs straight to UNIT and babbles about what he saw like he's been in a Call of Cthulhu adventure. I'm not surprised when Cthulhu says he likes this story.

The Doctor says he needs "a lateral molecular rectifier" from the TARDIS, and Liz doesn't believe he has "an entire laboratory" in there. He explains about how the TARDIS is "dimensionally transcendental" and, while Liz doesn't fully believe everything he says, she does come round to believe that he needs equipment from the TARDIS and so agrees to get the key from the Brigadier.

Sam Seeley comes to UNIT to try and sell them a "thunderball," but it is quickly clear that he is in no position to bargain with them as during the UNIT era the rights were in dispute between Eon Productions and Kevin McClory.

John tells his story to the Brigadier and, while he is distracted with that, Liz manages to sneak off with the TARDIS key. It doesn't take the Brigadier long to notice it gone, and he enters the laboratory just as the Doctor goes into the TARDIS. They hear the TARDIS try to dematerialise, but it can't, and then there is the sound of a clap of thunder, as though the Doctor was trying to watch an episode of The Prisoner in there.

He comes out looking a bit sheepish and says "just testing." Liz is annoyed.

"Doctor, you tricked me!"

"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."

The Brigadier brings them to talk to John, and he tells them about Channing and his hypno-eyesing of George.

Mrs Seeley's curiosity has finally gotten the better of her, and she opens Sam's secret (but not all that secret) box. As soon as she does so the Auton can detect the energy unit again. Channing and George are following its progress back at the control room, with Channing's link to the Auton conveyed to us by the unusual directorial touch of an extreme close up of his face.

The Brigadier, the Doctor, Liz and John arrive where the soldiers and Sam are, so the whole adventuring party is finally assembled in one place, but then they immediately split up by leaving Sam and John behind as the others go to get the unit from Sam's house.

Mrs Seeley hears a doggy barking as she puts the box away again, then there are noises of things being smashed so she gets worried. When she sees it is an Auton, her first response is to run to get a gun. Maybe she is the Player Character, not Sam?

She shoots the Auton, but this doesn't stop it (as all veteran Call of Cthulhu players know). After going to another close up of Channing and George, it cuts back to show Mrs Seeley having sleeps (tired out from all the excitement, no doubt) as the Auton proceeds to smash the house up while searching for the unit.

The Brigadier knocks on the door just as the Auton finds the shed with the box in it. He immediately starts shooting the Auton and calls for reinforcements (but then we already knew that he was a veteran player of the game), so Channing tells the Auton to "recall" i.e. run away.

High Burden is excellent as Channing - despite having no obvious monster make-up to differentiate him from other mannys, he has gradually revealed his alien nature over the course of the episodes purely through his acting.

John is sitting quietly in a UNIT tent when suddenly an Auton comes in and pewpewpews him. Channing orders "total destruction" so John's body vanishes into some smoke. John may be gone but his testimony is what leads the Doctor and UNIT to the factory.

George speaks to them while Channing acts weird. George has a cover story that John was lying to get the factory in trouble with UNIT but, as convincing as he is, unfortunately for him the Brigadier recognised Channing. He wants to get General Scobie's permission to do a legitimate raid on the factory, one with guns and stunts and everything.

General Scobie is on the telephone with the Brigadier, promising he'll "give you all the support you'll need" when there is a knock at the door.

He opens the door and it is himself, or rather his dummy - exactly like him in every detail except for it wearing a hat. Cliffhanger!

It seems there were two generals in this story after all - and both of them General Scobie!