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.

[1] The season sees the beginning of the Doctor's exile to Earth by the Time Lords and his attachment to UNIT as its scientific advisor.

Barry Letts also took over as producer, beginning with the second serial, Doctor Who and the Silurians, when Derrick Sherwin left to co-produce another BBC series, Paul Temple.

Setting the entire season on Earth had been the choice of Sherwin, who had introduced the military organisation UNIT in his earlier serial The Invasion (1968), which he had written and Peter Bryant had produced.

Sherwin had also produced the final black-and-white serial, The War Games (1969), in which the Second Doctor had been put on trial by the Time Lords and exiled to Earth in the 20th century.