Spearhead from Space

051 – Spearhead from Space
Doctor Who serial
The Auton invasion begins.
Cast
Doctor Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor)
Companion Caroline John (Liz Shaw)
Others Nicholas Courtney — Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart Hugh Burden — Channing Derek Smee — Ransome John Woodnutt — Hibbert Neil Wilson — Sam Seeley Betty Bowden — Meg Seeley Hamilton Dyce — General Scobie John Breslin — Captain Munro Clifford Cox — Sergeant George Lee — Corporal Forbes Tessa Shaw — UNIT Officer Antony Webb — Dr Henderson Henry McCarthy — Dr Beavis Helen Dorward — Nurse Allan Mitchell — Wagstaffe Talfryn Thomas — Mullins Prentis Hancock — 2nd Reporter Ellis Jones — Technician Edmund Bailey — Museum Attendant
Production
Directed by	Derek Martinus
Written by	Robert Holmes
Script editor	Terrance Dicks
Produced by	Derrick Sherwin
Executive producer(s)	None
Incidental music composer	Dudley Simpson
Production code	AAA
Series	Season 7
Length	4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Date started	3 January 1970
Date ended	24 January 1970
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The War Games Doctor Who and the Silurians

Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion

Author	Terrance Dicks
Cover artist	Chris Achilleos
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	6
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	17 January 1974
ISBN

Spearhead from Space is the first serial of the seventh season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 3 January to 24 January 1970. It was the first to be produced in colour. The serial introduced Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor and was the first to feature the Autons. It also introduces Caroline John as the Doctor's new assistant, Liz Shaw. Nicholas Courtney reprises his role as Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart and becomes a regular cast member beginning with this serial.

The Doctor, having had a "change of appearance" forced upon him by the Time Lords (see The War Games), has been exiled to Earth. The Doctor collapses outside his TARDIS and is taken to Ashbridge Cottage Hospital in Epping, where his unusual anatomy confounds doctors.

Simultaneous with the Doctor's arrival, a swarm of meteorites falls on the English countryside, and a poacher discovers a mysterious plastic polyhedron at the crash site. In the meantime, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT is trying to recruit Dr. Elizabeth "Liz" Shaw as his scientific advisor and investigate the unusual meteorite falls. Shaw, however, is sceptical of the Brigadier's claims of alien invasion and is resentful of being taken away from her research at Cambridge. Soon, the Brigadier is faced with another mystery; not far from where the meteorite impacts were reported, a man in hospital claims to be the Doctor (whom Lethbridge-Stewart last encountered in The Invasion). However this Doctor looks nothing like the Doctor the Brigadier knew.