Feature: The Eleventh Hour vs Spearhead from Space

Our story begins in outer space, with a shot of the Earth, and, after a final climactic struggle against the Time-Lords that ended with the outgoing Doctor having to regenerate against his will, we see a new Doctor falling out of the TARDIS as it crashes to Earth...

But hang about... just which story is this, exactly?

Well, if you’re in 1970, it’s Spearhead from Space, and, after being put on trial by the Time-Lords on his then nameless home planet at the end of ten-part epic The War Games, Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor has had to bid farewell to his companions  before being exiled to Earth, and, having last been seen spinning into darkness with cries of “No! No!”, he’s regenerated into Jon Pertwee’s (initially) Earth-bound Third Doctor.

Whereas, if you’re in 2010, it’s The Eleventh Hour, and after sending the Time-Lords, Gallifrey, and old enemy the Master back into the last great Time War, David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor has heard Wilf’s four knocks in The End of Time, and has had to absorb the radiation that would have killed his friend.  

He too has said goodbye to his companions (all of them), and after regenerating on New Year’s Day despite a final cry of “I don’t want to go!”, it’s Matt Smith making his full debut.

So as we’ve got new Doctors to get to know, we need new companions to help us meet the Time-Lord’s latest incarnations.

In Spearhead, it’s scientist Elizabeth Shaw, who’s been drafted in to help someone we’ve met before – Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, a familiar face from the previous season’s Cybermen tale The Invasion, and also the preceding series’ The Web of Fear, where the Yeti invaded the London Underground (although not, as Jon Pertwee might have had us believe, any WCs in Tooting Bec).

Right now the Brig needs a scientific expert, so Liz has been summoned from Cambridge.  She’s not exactly happy to be there, but it’s not the strike that’s seen the production move to the BBC’s rehearsal rooms at Wood Norton that’s bothering her, nor the fact that, Monty Python-style, they’re all surrounded by film and the Brigadier has failed to tell everyone how silly this is.

No, Liz is concerned that UNIT are going to be sending messages in invisible ink.  Like what?  “Prisoner Zero has escaped”, perhaps?  She should be thankful that the Brigadier doesn’t respond to her scepticism like little Amelia Pond faced with another disbelieving psychiatrist...

(The Third Doctor seems to be attempting to bite the Nestene tentacle that’s throttling him towards the end of Spearhead, so maybe she should have tried the same in the room that’s hidden behind the perception filter when Amy’s menaced by the tentacle-like multi-form known as Prisoner Zero!  In the Time of Angels, it’s the Doctor biting Amy, so clearly Moffat’s got some sort of biting agenda.)

Of course, Amelia’s a much more willing participant in our story, and much more comfortable on film (or film-ised digital video at any rate) and out of the studio, so while Liz Shaw scoffs at the thought of “little blue men with three heads”, Amelia’s quite happy to ask Santa to send a policeman to help with the crack in her wall, and the voices coming through it.

It’s a master-stroke from Steven Moffat that the first person the new Doctor meets is the young Amelia Pond.  Right away any niggling doubts that the 27-year-old Smith would be able to act every inch the 900-year-old grandfather are forgotten as we’re put in the shoes, or red wellingtons, of young Amelia looking up to the mysterious raggedy newcomer, and just like her we’re in awe of this reassuring grown up. We can trust him, he is the Doctor.

We soon see that on the other side of the crack is a giant eyeball, not unlike the pulsing eye seen in the Nestene Consciousness’s tank towards the end of Spearhead.  Just like the plastic-loving Nestenes, Prisoner Zero also has the ability to change its shape, and while the Nestenes’ victims are frozen in Madame Tussauds, Prisoner Zero has a psychic link to a ward full of coma patients, all muttering “Doctor”.  See – everybody’s sold on Matt Smith already, even the unconscious patients in the hospital!

Apart from a bit of business about not recognising his new face in a mirror, though, (even if it is “rather distinctive”), Jon Pertwee unfortunately doesn’t get much of a chance to convince us in his first episode that he’s up to the task of following the Mighty Trout.

It’s not long before the Third Doctor is berating car park attendant and show Producer Derrick Sherwin, blustering his way into UNIT HQ (having located his TARDIS thanks to a homing detector in his watch), and proceeding to introduce himself to Liz in Delphon eyebrow-speak.

The Eleventh Doctor doesn’t recognise his own face either when Prisoner Zero imitates him, as he hasn’t had the time to check a mirror.  “That’s rubbish,” he says, “Who’s that supposed to be?”  He knows that he does have a new face (“New face - first time on”) but he’s had what he calls a “busy day” – possibly the understatement of the year.

In fact, it’s been pointed out that from the beginning of The End of Time, the Doctor doesn’t get a break until after the events of The Beast Below, but then who knows what he really got up to when running the TARDIS in with that trip to the moon?  Of course, that’s not to say that he actually needs to grab forty winks that often, after all, “sleep is for tortoises” (The Talons of Weng-Chiang).

He certainly could have benefitted from the self-induced coma and bed rest the Third Doctor is afforded while the Autons potter around pestering local poachers for meteorites they’ve half-inched for the finder’s fee, but despite suffering bizarre cravings, pangs of cramp, and bizarre emissions, the Eleventh Doctor doesn’t get himself down to the hospital until there’s mere minutes to save the day.

 

Nobody seems to know who anybody is - The Brigadier doesn’t recognise the new Third Doctor, and the Eleventh Doctor fails to recognise the older Amelia, although to be fair this is at the point where he’s just been hit with a cricket bat.  Then again, half of Leadworth knows the Doctor thanks to the countless tales they’ve heard about her “Raggedy Doctor”.

 

Certainly Rory Williams knows all about the Doctor, as Amy’s made him dress as the “Raggedy” Doctor all his life.

Of course, if clothes make the man, then both Doctors are on something of a similar wavelength in so much as the hospital to them is just somewhere to nick a new outfit.  (Something that they also share in common with the Eighth Doctor!)

 

At least Pertwee’s Third Doctor takes a shower first (“look away if it embarrasses you”, just don’t mention his tattoos), but despite his best efforts, the Beeb of the seventies was NOT flooded with enquiries from fans convinced that they’d seen Pertwee’s Worzels after wearing out their TV remotes, unlike the fuss over Matt Smith’s own shower scene some ten or so weeks later (The Lodger). In the Eleventh Hour, Amy completely fails to avert her gaze, and we can only assume that this later incarnation’s tattoos are somewhere else entirely...

 

Clotheshorse that he was, no doubt the Third Doctor would very much have approved of the sentiment behind “I’m saving the world, I need a decent shirt!” but whilst the Third Doctor dispenses with the flat cap after only trying it on, by the end of his first series, the Eleventh Doctor is all fezzed up, with threats of an “evolving” look for the series ahead.

Both Doctors figure out that they’re going to need some wheels, so whilst Pertwee pinches himself a nice red Edwardian roadster, Smith goes for a no less red and no less ostentatious Fire Engine (which naturally, is far more impressive than Rory’s red mini).

Before they’re up and running, though, the Doctors have other things on their minds.  All the Eleventh Doctor can think about when he first arrives is apples, but the Third is more concerned with shoes. Of course, after the Eleventh Doctor has tried Yoghurt (“stuff with bits”), Bacon (“Are you trying to poison me?”) Beans (“beans are evil - bad, bad beans”), bread and butter (“...and stay out!”) before settling on fish-fingers and custard, it’s probably just lucky that Amelia didn’t suggest he try a fresh pair of footwear first (which he would probably think no less “insane” than her suggestion of carrots).

If the Eleventh Doctor’s food tasting is supposed to mirror Tigger’s arrival at the House at Pooh Corner, then who’s the authoritative, no-nonsense Third?  Know-it-all Owl?  Fusspot Rabbit? And does that make the stick-in-the-mud Brigadier the dreary Eeyore? Answers on a postcard...

Of course, for any successful Doctor and Companion teaming, the pair have to hit it off and gel, but whereas (in The Eleventh Hour) Doctor number Eleven seemingly arrives in direct answer to Amelia’s unseasonal Christmas wish, in Spearhead from Space, Doctor number Three doesn’t even notice Liz Shaw at all when he first meets her, and doesn’t properly introduce himself until he arrives at UNIT HQ (one of them, anyway)!

It’s the second of that story’s four episodes before Liz and the Third Doctor discover a mutual love of all things scientific and an equal disdain for the Brigadier’s military bluster. The Doctor isn’t too keen on calling her “Miss Shaw” all the time, though, and is much happier calling her “Liz” rather than her full name.

The Eleventh Doctor, on the other hand, is rather disappointed to find that after 12 years, his new friend has abandoned the fairy tale “Amelia Pond” for the diminutive “Amy” after having bonded with the little girl who, just like him, has no parents.  In fact, he doesn’t even have an Aunt (and he’s worse than everybody’s) so he’s one up on her there. Maybe the balance is restored when she turns him from a fairy story into a comic strip.

But then, just as soon as it’s been formed, the Eleventh Doctor’s bond with his new companion is broken thanks to the tolling of the Cloister bell, signalling a malfunction of the TARDIS.  The engines phase, and twelve years, a rebuilt shed and an interesting career choice later she’s giving him a cricket bat in the face and handcuffing him to a radiator. Admittedly, though, that could just be a normal night in for this older and wilder Amy.

At least it’s the actual villains, the Autons, gagging and kidnapping the wheelchair-affixed Third Doctor in Spearhead, rather than his own companion, but not to be outdone, his supposed friends from UNIT are the ones shooting at him at the end of his first episode in the role.

The arrival of the Third Doctor at the cottage hospital has caused quite the media scrum, although as Spearhead hails from the early seventies, the assembled hacks are all queuing for the phone booths whilst in the Eleventh Hour, not only does the end come “as it was always going to – down a video phone”, but the Doctor eventually saves the day by sending a computer virus from Rory’s mobile phone.

 

Whilst it’s never explained how Rory’s able to afford this enormous phone bill threatened by the Doctor, the red mini is never seen again so perhaps it was sacrificed to Auto Trader in order to appease his mobile network. Either that or he was the beneficiary of one of the Doctor’s increasingly regular impersonations of Mystic Meg, after the teacher in School Reunion and as recently as Donna in the End of Time part two.  After managing to pack in the smoking after An Unearthly Child, the Doctor does seem to still have the gambling bug evidenced when he lost the TARDIS in a game of Backgammon in Marco Polo, and obliquely in the chess playing for high stakes in The Curse of Fenric.  In fact we’ll learn later in this series that the Doctor also lost a bet to Casanova and owes him a chicken...

Anyway, considering Pertwee’s oft-quoted love of gadgets, it’s the Eleventh Doctor that seems the most tech-savvy when comparing their respective maiden outings.

The Third Doctor has his TARDIS-tracking watch as already noted, and uses UNITs lab equipment to analyse the Nestene meteorite fragment, before proceeding to create a device for destroying the Nestene in the tank.

However, when he’s not dispensing handy advice on laptops (“delete your internet history”) or arranging to unmask the villainous Prisoner Zero via Facebook, Bebo and Twitter, the Eleventh Doctor, far from tinkering in the lab with Liz Shaw like his counterpart,  is dismissively proving his scientific credentials to Patrick Moore and co. at NASA, Joddrell Bank, and the Tokyo space centre, with Fermat’s last theorem, an explanation as to why electrons have mass, and the secret of faster than light travel with two diagrams and a joke.

Both Doctors end up cutting things a bit fine – The Third only just destroys the Nestene’s plastic cephalopodic form in the nick of time, and of course the Eleventh, even though he does have a couple of minutes to spare, does miss out twelve years along the way so that he’s only left himself twenty minutes to deal with the Atraxi’s fiery eviction notice to Prisoner Zero. Whilst the Third Doctor tells the Auton Channing that “It’s never too late”, our favourite Time-Lord always seems to leave it until the proverbial Eleventh Hour to save the world.

 

The Eleventh Doctor actually calls the Atraxi back (“Leaving is good, never coming back is better”) but even though the Nestenes are defeated, the Third Doctor – and the Eleventh Doctor too – will have to face the Autons again.  The Atraxi are given their marching (or running) orders, though, and while Rory holds a familiar looking velvet jacket, the Eleventh Doctor settles on his now familiar tweed and bow-tie ensemble.

By the conclusion of both these highly regarded debuts, Jon Pertwee and Matt Smith, as well as the Third and Eleventh Doctors, are firmly cemented in Doctor Who history, and assured their places in the hearts of fans and TV critics the world over.

 

I wonder if the next Doctor’s debut will have more in common with The Twin Dilemma or Time and the Rani?  Amy might roll her eyes at the Eleventh Doctor’s “cool” bow-ties, but just imagine if he’s tried to stare down the Atraxi wearing Doctor number Six’s amazing technicolour dreamcoat!  Don’t have nightmares...

TTFN! K.