Spearhead From Space

"Alien Invasion For Dummies", "Fax Machine"

“The One With Consumer Vandalism" (USA), "Doctor Who and the Faceless Ones 2" (Target)

Doctor Who has changed faces again and messes about with eyebrows and tentacles

*** - It sets out to introduce a lot of 1970s concepts and, with industrial action disrupting production, it succeeds.

"This voice box will be very useful on the planet Troutbridge where they communicate with silly voices" (cut from episode 1)

"In the last decade, we've been sending probes deeper and deeper into our pants. We've drawn attention to ourselves, Miss Shaw"

Doctor Who has always been made in colour but all colour footage from before 1970 was used to line the Director General's hamster's cage as the Beeb only broadcast B&W

This story was shot entirely on location after a BBC production mistake. Two memos – one authorising use of a studio and one the use of a film crew were sent to the wrong departments. Hence the FA Cup final being played in Television Centre’s studio six.

It is well known that Caroline John was cast after sending bikini pictures of herself to the producer. Trust me, you don’t want to know how Jon Pertwee was cast.

New boy Jon Pertwee was the subject of a practical joke on his first day. All the cast donned eye patches and everyone roared with laughter.

John Woodnutt was known on set by his nickname – ‘The Big Bad Booty Daddy’ – until Caroline “Carrie” John complained that it made her feel sick.

The Cornwall Clarion’s TV reviewer commented ‘Arghhhh – the colour is blinding me – my television is possessed by evil spirits’ while his editor added a note to the effect that he’d never heard of ‘television’ and assumed his columnist was writing a piece of satire.

Mr Pastry watched this episode with one of his wives and commented ‘I wouldn’t mind having a bash at that’. Sadly, Mr Pastry’s career ended when he was molested on live television by Ian Levine and a big spoon.

...is that it doesn't matter how many degrees you have, a woman should always wear a miniskirt if she wants men to take her seriously

Si Hunt

"Some years ago I was honoured to be included in the new Bendaton Wax Museum's gallery of notable locals. After some rather intimate evenings spent being measured and cast in wax it was time for the grand unveiling. I looked magnificent surrounded by the immobile forms of the honourable Mr Urine (mayor of Bendaton since the 1950s), Arnold McTestes (the famed "Heads in the Satchel Murderer" of 1972), Billy "Nipper" Skinflick (the only man from Bendaton ever to represent Wales at Rugby) and Elisabeth Sladen (who doesn't actually come from Bendaton but was available to open the museum so it was only polite to display a well sandpapered effigy of herself). My time in the museum was a remarkable one for mere days after the unveiling my dummy began crying tears of what turned out to be feculence. Day after day they would remove the dust sheet and find tears of urine on my waxy cheeks. An expert was called in and, after over an hour of careful study, he proclaimed that there were two possible explanations. Firstly that it was a miracle and that me crying tears of urine was conclusive proof that God had gone insane or secondly that someone was unscrewing my head every night and p-e-e-i-n-g on my face. Confronted with this shocking news I had no alternative but to send messages of condolence to Cliff Richard, the Archbishop of Canterbury and his Holiness the Pope. "

Writing in "Shockeye's Warts", Simon Quilt said Spearhead From Space was "so good that it could only be bettered if it cloned itself and the new version featured more of Jon Pertwee in the shower". "Gallifrey Hermit's" Barry Mendel debuted his regular feature in which he described how much of his body he would be prepared to give up in order to own a particular story on video cassette (this was the early 1980s when people were so amazingly primitive that they actually thought buying shows on magnetic tape was a pretty neat idea). He said Spearhead From Space would be worth "at least three toes or something internal like a few yards of guts or a handful of teeth." There was a dissenting voice in "Mucky Devastation" where Jeff Wicks called it "childish filth which openly mocks all that came before and c-o-c-k-s a sneering snook at all that will come after it." He only gave it three marks out of a possible fourteen.