Spearhead From Space - Episode 4

We start off the episode with the great chilling shot of the Auton Scobie approaching the normal Scobie. It’s good how they’ve gone to the trouble of making the auton duplicates look different and its simply by making it look like they are sweating. It’s simple but effective. The action moves around to various locations and it does feel like someone has hit the fast forward button because no sooner does it seem like their just bumbling along to executing their plan so quickly.

Hibbert is showing signs of not being quite under the control of Channing. From the moment in the museum to where he tries to destroy the nestene, there is a great decline and unlike Ransome, I was sad to see Hibbert go. It was clear that he wasn’t going to see the end of this story but he was a good character. In fact all the supporting characters have been good and the only thing that would have been better is if we had more Sam Seeley. Seriously, I loved this character.

The thing about this episode is that it features one of the most iconic scenes in Doctor Who. This is where the shop window dummies wake up and ‘smash’ their way through the windows. I laugh when I remind myself that they didn’t and it wouldn’t be until 2005 before they would. This isn’t just about smashing (or not) through the windows. The scene of shop window dummies walking along the highstreet killing people as they go along is something that stands out even by todays standard. It’s still a creepy and well done. Another thing I notice are the shops that appear, not one bookies or payday loan and no empty shops. That’s the main difference between 1970 and 2014.

The only thing that I’m not keen on about this episode is the scene where Liz is trying to get the machine used to kill the autons working and takes an age when its clearly visible (even from her angle) that the cable has popped out. It seems a bit silly and serves no purpose other than to have Jon Pertwee pull weird faces and delay the action a few moments.

The line of “Smith…Dr John Smith” was used by Patrick Troughton and I think its used here to remind us that Jon Pertwee is the Doctor and I think that this story has worked well to establish Pertwee in the role. It was the best possible story to launch the new era in Doctor Who, a solid story, a scary monster and it wasn’t padded out or rushed in the final episode (like I fear in the previous episode). Doctor Who is in safe hands and the stories are only going to get better.