Country of origin United Kingdom No. of episodes 25 | No. of stories 4 Original network BBC One | |
Starring Jon Pertwee
Caroline John
Nicholas Courtney
John Levene Original release 3 January (1970-01-03) – 20 June 1970 (1970-06-20) | ||
The seventh season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 3 January 1970 with Jon Pertwee's first story Spearhead from Space and ended with Inferno.
Contents
Main cast
Jon Pertwee makes his first appearance as the Third Doctor replacing Patrick Troughton in the role. Caroline John makes her first appearance as companion and assistant Liz Shaw in Spearhead from Space and last in Inferno.
Recurring cast
Nicholas Courtney returns as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and he would continue to make regular appearances in Doctor Who until season 13.
John Levene also makes his first appearance as Sergeant Benton since The Invasion in The Ambassadors of Death and would continue to make regular appearances until season 13.
Serials
Barry Letts took over as producer from Derrick Sherwin after Spearhead from Space. From this season onwards the programme was produced in colour. To accommodate the new production methods the number of episodes in a season was cut: season 6 has 44 episodes; season 7 has 25 episodes. The seasons would continue to have between 20 and 26 episodes until season 22. Following the opening four parter, the remaining episodes were divided into three serials each of seven episodes. This, along with setting the entire season exclusively on Earth, had been the choice of Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin, which Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks were unhappy with.
Spearhead from Space was intended to be produced identically to previous serials, with a mixture of location material shot on 16mm film, and studio based material on videotape. Owing to industrial action by studio technicians at the BBC, the planned studio recording sessions were cancelled, with instead all four episodes being shot on location on 16mm film.
Broadcast
The entire season was broadcast from 3 January to 20 June 1970. Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin had originally envisaged replacing Doctor Who with a Quatermass-style serial, with Nigel Kneale involved, but this fell through when Kneale refused to write for the show. The plan did, however, have an effect on the programme, seeing the Doctor exiled to a near-future earth as UNIT's scientific advisor.