56 Years Ago Today, Doctor Who's Biggest Ever Relaunch Changed the Show Forever

Regeneration has always been the secret to Doctor Who‘s success. It means change and evolution is literally baked into the franchise’s DNA, because every regeneration is an opportunity for the world’s longest-running sci-fi TV series to reinvent itself. Modern Doctor Who even tends to switch showrunners at the same time, with Stephen Moffatt taking over with Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor, Chris Chibnall with Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor, and Russell T. Davies returning for a new era of David Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa.

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Classic Doctor Who regenerations were just as important, of course. Most TV shows die when their lead departs due to ill health, but regeneration allowed the series to keep going with Patrick Troughton taking over from William Hartnell. Years later, the BBC even forced a regeneration when execs became dissatisfied with the show’s performance during the Colin Baker era, clearly believing a change of star had the potential to breathe new life into a then-struggling show. And yet, for all that’s the case, the most important regeneration of all was actually in 1970, when Jon Pertwee took over.

Jon Pertwee’s Arrival Changed Everything for Doctor Who

Pertwee arrived as the Third Doctor at a time of change. “Spearhead from Space,” which first aired on January 3, 1970, was the first episode broadcast in color; due to behind-the-scenes drama, it was also the first story to be shot on film, which made it easier to adapt for new mediums like Blu-Ray decades later. The title sequence was revamped to work in color, setting a new standard for the show and even giving it a proper logo for the first time. Most importantly, though, Pertwee’s debut was accompanied by an epic change in the show’s format.

Hartnell and Troughton had both been portrayed as wanderers in the fourth dimension, lacking any real control over the TARDIS. Troughton’s last story, “The War Games,” saw the Doctor finally face a problem too great for him to handle; he sent out a cosmic SOS across time and space, summoning the Time Lords to sort the mess out. We finally learned that the Doctor was a renegade because he believed powerful people had a responsibility to fight for the powerless, in breach of the Time Lord doctrine of non-intervention, and the Doctor was placed on trial. As part of his sentence, a regeneration was forced.

This was only part of the Doctor’s sentence, though. The regeneration came with exile to Earth, with the TARDIS dematerialization circuit deliberately removed and the Doctor’s knowledge of how to fix it erased. For the first (and only) time, the Doctor was no longer a traveler; he lived at a single moment in space-time, albeit an unclear near-future that was a little different to the real world. The Troughton era had already introduced an organization called UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, and they would become the Doctor’s supporting cast.

U.N.I.T. and Alien Invasions were the Key to the Pertwee Era

Doctor Who had never really had supporting cast before; the nature of the show meant each story featured the Doctor and his companions, and then a whole new cast because the wandering Time Lord had visited a new place in space and time. All that changed now, though, because the Third Doctor settled into U.N.I.T. as their Scientific Advisor. In addition to companions such as Caroline John’s Liz Shaw and Katy Manning’s Jo Grant, we got Nicholas Courtney’s Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Richard Franklin’s Mike Yates, and John Levene’s Corporal Benton.

Naturally, Doctor Who would always require aliens to make the stories work. The show had done alien invasions before (notably in the Troughton era story “The Invasion,” best seen as a proof of concept for Pertwee’s entire run). Now, though, invasions became the norm rather than the exception, swiftly boosted by the introduction of the Master as the Doctor’s nemesis. Played by the delightful Roger Delgado, the Master became the final member of the Pertwee era’s recurring cast, with Doctor Who morphing into something fresh and original.

Looking back, “Spearhead from Space” was the biggest regeneration in Doctor Who history. While the format wouldn’t last, key elements of Doctor Who lore were established that would allow present-day Earth to become a recurring destination for the Time Lord, rather than somewhere each incarnation only stumbled into once or twice. Classic tropes and characters such as alien invasions and the Master were embedded in the franchise from this day forward, changing it forever.

When Russell T. Davies relaunched Doctor Who in 2005, he made a conscious decision to mimic the lessons of “Spearhead from Space.” Like the Pertwee era, the first RTD run saw the Doctor heading back to Earth time and again, building up a cast of recurring secondary characters; it even opened with the same threat as “Spearhead from Space,” the Nestene Consciousness and the Autons. Given the similarities, it’s impossible to overestimate just how important this particular regeneration was.

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