Terror of the Autons
| 055 – Terror of the Autons | |||
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| Doctor Who serial | |||
| File:Terroroftheautons.jpg | |||
| Cast | |||
Others
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| Production | |||
| Directed by | Barry Letts (uncredited) | ||
| Written by | Robert Holmes | ||
| Script editor | Terrance Dicks | ||
| Produced by | Barry Letts | ||
| Executive producer(s) | None | ||
| Production code | EEE | ||
| Series | Season 8 | ||
| Running time | 4 episodes, 25 minutes each | ||
| First broadcast | January 2–January 23, 1971 | ||
| Chronology | |||
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Terror of the Autons is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast in four weekly parts from January 2 to January 23, 1971. The serial opened Season 8 of the series, introducing Katy Manning as the Third Doctor's new companion, Jo Grant and Roger Delgado as his arch-nemesis, the Master. The character of Captain Mike Yates, played by Richard Franklin is also introduced.
Plot
Synopsis
 | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (July 2008) |
At a circus, a lorry materialises out of thin air with the distinctive sound of a TARDIS. The occupant is a thin, bearded man dressed in a black suit who introduces himself as the Master to the circus owner, Rossini (though his real name is Russell), and hypnotises him. Subsequently, the Master and Russell break into the National Space Museum and steal a translucent plastic polyhedron, one of the energy units used by the Nestene Consciousness in their attempted invasion of Earth. The Master then takes the energy unit to a radio telescope facility, killing the technician on duty with a weapon that shrinks the victim, leaving a twisted, doll-sized body. The Master then hooks up the energy unit to the radio telescope and sends a signal into space.
At UNIT headquarters, the Doctor meets his new assistant, a young, enthusiastic but slightly scatter-brained trainee named Josephine Grant. Dismayed at first that he is not getting a scientist to replace Liz Shaw, who has returned to Cambridge, he reluctantly accepts her when he hasn't the heart to tell her otherwise. Reports of the theft of the Nestene unit and sabotage at the radio telescope facility lead the Doctor, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Jo to investigate. At the facility, the Doctor encounters a fellow Time Lord who warns him that his old enemy, the Master, is here and will try to kill him. The Master, in the meantime, has hypnotised Farrel, the young manager of a plastics factory. Under the name of Colonel Masters, he takes over the factory's production to build Autons. McDermott, Farrel's assistant, gets suspicious of Masters and calls up Farrel's father, the owner of the factory.
Jo, investigating Farrel's factory, is discovered by the Master who wipes her memory of meeting him and sends her back to UNIT. When the chained-up box that used to contain the unit is brought to UNIT headquarters, Jo offers to open it. The Doctor realizes that Jo has been hypnotised and that the box contains a bomb.
The Doctor manages to throw the open and smoking box out the window, where it explodes in the river. Jo falls into a catatonic state from which the Doctor revives her, but she is unable to remember where she met the Master. At the factory, McDermott confronts the Master, and is killed by a plastic chair that swallows him up and suffocates him. The elder Farrel arrives, threatening to retake the factory, but his will is strong enough to resist the Master's hypnotism. The Master sends the elder Farrel home with a plastic doll of a troll, which comes to life when placed next to the radiator and strangles him.
Searching for Phillips, the other scientist missing from the facility, the Doctor visits Rossini's circus. He is captured by Rossini just as he is about to open the Master's TARDIS and tied up. He is freed by Jo, who had followed the Doctor there against orders. Phillips, also under the Master's influence, tries to kill Jo and the Doctor with a grenade. The Doctor urges Phillips to resist, and he is killed while trying to throw the explosive away. The Doctor enters the horsebox and removes something from it, only to be attacked by Rossini and his men. Seemingly rescued by a police car, the Doctor gets suspicious and unmasks them as Autons.
Escaping from the vehicle, the Doctor and Jo hide as the Brigadier and Captain Mike Yates arrive. A firefight breaks out between them and the Autons from which they manage to escape in the Brigadier's car. Back at UNIT, the Doctor fits the dematerialisation circuit he "borrowed" from the Master's TARDIS and tries to take off, but only manages to produce a lot of smoke. His frustration turns into amusement, however, when he realizes that without the circuit, the Master is now trapped on Earth as well.
Meanwhile, Autons appearing like men dressed with big plastic heads hand out plastic daffodils to the public. Soon deaths from asphyxiation, shock and heart failure are being reported across the country. The only connection is between the first two victims - McDermott and the elder Farrel. Interviewing Mrs Farrel, Jo and the Doctor discover the elder Farrel's concerns about "Colonel Masters". The Master, meanwhile, has infiltrated UNIT headquarters disguised as a telephone technician and installs a long, plastic telephone cable in the Doctor's laboratory. The Doctor brings the troll doll back to UNIT to examine it, but it is simply solid plastic. While the Brigadier and the Doctor are at the factory, the doll comes to life due to its proximity to a Bunsen burner and attacks Jo, until Yates shoots it. At the now empty factory, the Brigadier and Doctor discover that Farrel has chartered a bus. They also find a plastic daffodil and an Auton, proving the connection between the factory and the Master.
Back at UNIT, Yates tells Doctor about the doll, but using heat on the daffodil fails to activate any sinister function. The telephone rings, and it is the Master, who bids the Doctor goodbye. The Master sends an electronic signal across, animating the telephone cable which then tries to strangle the Doctor.
Luckily the Brigadier hears the Doctor's cries for help and disconnects the cable. The Brigadier calls out an airstrike on the Auton bus. As the Doctor tries to decode the Nestene instructions imprinted in the plastic flower, a radio signal from a walkie-talkie accidentally activates it. The daffodil sprays a plastic film over Jo's face, nearly suffocating her until the Doctor removes the film with a spray. The plastic quickly dissolves soon after, explaining why it was not found at the sites of the deaths.
The Master arrives at UNIT to retrieve his dematerialisation circuit, threatening to kill Jo if he does not hand it over. Jo, trying to convince the Doctor not to, foolishly blurts out that the airstrike has been confirmed. With this revelation, the Master decides to bring Jo and the Doctor to the Auton bus parked in a quarry. The Brigadier has no choice but to abort the airstrike, and the bus drives off to the radio telescope. Farrel, regaining his wits at last, tries to crash the bus in a field, and the Doctor and Jo escape. UNIT troops engage the Autons while the Doctor and Jo pursue the Master into the facility's control room where the Master is opening the radio frequency for the Nestene invasion force to come through. However, the Doctor convinces the Master that the Nestenes will not distinguish between ally or foe once they arrive. Together, they close the channel for the invasion, driving the Nestenes back to wherever they were coming from and causing the Autons to collapse. While the Doctor and the Brigadier catch their breath, the Master vanishes.
At the bus, the Master emerges, apparently surrendering, but when he pulls out a pistol, Yates shoots him. The Doctor peels back the disguise on the corpse to reveal that it is Farrel made up look like the Master, as the real Master drives off in the bus. However, with the dematerialisation circuit in the Doctor's hands, the Master is still trapped on Earth. The Doctor remarks to Jo that he looks forward to their next encounter.
Continuity
This serial is the first appearance of the Master, Jo Grant, and Captain Mike Yates. Along with the Master, this serial introduces his signature weapon, the Tissue Compression Eliminator — though the device itself was not named until Time-Flight (1982).
The Nestene Consciousness and its Auton drones first appeared in the 1970 serial Spearhead from Space; thirty years later, they would appear in the Ninth Doctor's introductory story, "Rose".
Production
Template:DoctorWhoEpisodeHead Working titles for this story included The Spray of Death.
This story is the second time in the programme that a quarry stood in for an actual quarry (as compared with an alien planet or other environment). Quarries would also serve as actual quarries in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Terror of the Zygons and The Hand of Fear.
The dramatic scene at the start of Episode Three, where an Auton is hit with a car and tumbles off a cliff, was quite real. The car that Richard Franklin was driving bumped into stuntman Terry Walsh harder than was intended, and Walsh fell clear off the edge while the cameras were rolling. No one was harmed.
Casting
- Harry Towb, who plays the unfortunate McDermott, had previously appeared in the Second Doctor serial The Seeds of Death, in which he also came to a sticky end.
- Michael Wisher, the young Farrel, had also done uncredited voice work for Seeds, and had previously appeared in the Third Doctor serial The Ambassadors of Death and, later, Carnival of Monsters. He would go on to do various Dalek voices and become well known as the first actor to play the evil genius Davros in the Fourth Doctor serial Genesis of the Daleks.
- Strong Man Roy Stewart previously appeared as another strong man in the Second Doctor serial Tomb of the Cybermen.
- Although credited on-screen, Bill McGuirk (Policeman) does not actually appear; his entire contribution having been edited out prior to transmission.
Broadcast and reception
Certain scenes in the serial, particularly the killer doll and the Auton policemen, caused controversy in the press as being too frightening for children. In an unconnected House of Lords debate about the effect of mass media on the public, the serial was cited as an example of a programme that might be too 'scary' for younger children. (Common Doctor Who fan knowledge has it that the serial provoked questions or a debate in the House, but this is not the case.)
Although the BBC wiped the serial's original 625-line videotapes for reuse, they kept 16mm monochrome telerecording film prints. In 1993, these prints were combined with the color signal from an off-air 525-line NTSC domestic videotape recording, resulting in relatively high-quality color masters for a pending VHS release.
In 1999, an improved restoration was prepared for a planned repeat on BBC Two. In the event, however, the run was abandoned before the serial was shown.
A short clip from Episode One, depicting the Doctor's first meeting with Jo Grant, still survives in its original original 625-line format, on a clip reel prepared for a 1973 edition of the news show Nationwide. Template:Doctorwhobook
Commercial releases
In 1993, the surviving black-and-white film prints were combined with an off-air color signal from a 1970s US broadcast, to produce a reasonably high-quality color master; this version of the serial was released to VHS in April of that year.
In 2001, Katy Manning, Barry Letts, and Nicholas Courtney recorded a commentary for this story; however, no DVD has yet been released.
That said, the short Nationwide clip (see "Broadcast and reception", above) is presented on the DVD of The Aztecs, in a featurette discussing the VidFIRE restoration process.
As of August 5, 2008, this serial has been included for sale on iTunes.
In print
A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in May 1975. The cover art depicts a fully-developed Nestene, almost identical to the monster from the film The Trollenberg Terror.