Season 7



The seventh season of Doctor Who ran between 3rd January 1970 and 20th June 1970. The debut season of Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, it was the first season produced and broadcast in colour and the first set entirely in one time period and almost entirely on Earth. Although the season did not have an overall story arc, it did feature a recurring subplot of the Doctor trying to adjust to life as an exile while trying to circumvent the restrictions placed upon him by the Time Lords. Beginning with this season and continuing for the next few years, most storylines involve the Doctor working with UNIT.

It consisted of 4 serials, and 25 episodes and was the shortest season of Doctor Who to date (and had the fewest number of serials until Season 23). It has the distinction of being the earliest Doctor Who season to exist in its entirety (though not completely in colour) in the BBC archives. This is also the first season to not feature any returning monsters from earlier stories.

Beginning with this season and continuing through the Pertwee era, the BBC changed the show's scheduling with new, shorter seasons from this point beginning in either January or very late December, rather than fall as had been the previous format; the series would return to a fall season start in the Tom Baker era. The new scheduling reflected the change from around 40 to 45 episodes a season to more or less 26 per season, though the length of the episodes remained the same.

Stories

 * Spearhead from Space - First appearances of the Third Doctor and Liz Shaw; first colour episode; only 1963-89 series episode completely produced on film
 * Doctor Who and the Silurians
 * The Ambassadors of Death
 * Inferno - Final appearance of Liz Shaw; first multiverse story

Main Cast

 * The Doctor - Jon Pertwee (Introduced in Spearhead from Space)
 * Liz Shaw - Caroline John (Introduced in Spearhead from Space)
 * Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
 * Sergeant Benton - John Levene

VHS

 * Spearhead from Space
 * Doctor Who and the Silurians
 * The Ambassadors of Death (partly in Black and White)
 * Inferno
 * The Pertwee Years (Inferno episode 7)

DVD

 * Spearhead from Space
 * Doctor Who and the Silurians
 * Inferno

Novelisations

 * Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion
 * Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters
 * The Ambassadors of Death
 * Inferno