3.5: Terror of the Autons
In which we meet the Doctor’s best enemy.
Broadcast: January 1971
Watched: December 2019
Terror of the Autons, Episode One
“Vanity is his weakness.” Not blessed with self awareness, this Doctor.
Have they redone the credits?
The TARDIS noise is a bit bewildering when you realise it isn’t the TARDIS. So is the fact it takes 10 seconds to go from the circus guy threatening violence to helping with a break in. You can tell the Master’s important because he gets his own theme.
Two scenes, two new regulars. “I took general science at A-level” is a mission statement after Liz’s twelve degrees isn’t it? Anyway, Jo is more immediately loveable than any companion since, what, Steven?
Was the radio telescope in Logopolis a call back to this? Also the tissue compression eliminator… Bidmead watched this when writing didn’t he? [Christopher H. Bidmead wrote the last fourth Doctor story, Logopolis, broadcast in 1981.]
The Brig putting the Doctor in his place is becoming a running theme.
Mike Yates doesn’t get quite as exciting a debut. He’s said to have been around since Invasion. Why did they decide to bring in a new regular? [Two reasons. Sensible one: most UNIT stories have a captain in them, so the Brigadier can bark orders from HQ: it seemed to make sense to make it the same one every week. Silly one: so the Brig didn’t have to speak directly to sergeants and so forth.]
The Time Lord scene is very charming. Consciously Avengers-y? The British one, not the American one.
The way the face of the director isn’t shown for ages feels like they’re teeing up someone familiar which they’re not.
Terror of the Autons, Episode Two
The killer chair sequence, in black and white, was one of the first bits of old Who I ever saw. Resistance is Useless? [A 1992 documentary, my first exposure to the history of the show.]
I like how Jo is instantly very game – just keeps trying, however uselessly, even when told not to.
This must be the Who story with most elephants in it, beating The Ark. Tony is an awful racist cliche, only three seasons since the last identical character.4
Is this the first time we get CSO in Who or have I missed some? [It isn’t. There was loads in season 7: dinosaur, spaceship, lava, etc.]
The lynching scene is bloody horrible. The Autons in the police car is a huge influence on modern WHo.
Thinking about it, this is probably the scariest episode yet. “Monsters!” is a different type of scary to “Your chair/toy/the police may try to kill you”.
Terror of the Autons, Episode Three
“Til you’ve had a mug of army cocoa, you just haven’t lived.” Mike means [redacted for legal reasons.]
The Doctor is an abject prick in this one. He hasn’t been this awful since Susan left. The Brig saves his life, a man dies in the attempt and is never mentioned again, and the Doctor is just bloody rude and attempts to leave in the TARDIS. Prick. Then he uses the class system to bully some poor civil servant. [Others argue that the latter is an attempt to thank the Brig for his help. I’m not sure.]
The repair man isn’t also played by Delgado is he?
Love a quarry. Is this the first not pretending to be an alien planet?
The autons with the flowers are really creepy.
Terror of the Autons, Episode Four
“I’m afraid I cut your connection.”
I love that this one ends with evil daffodils and an evil bus.
The first proper scene between Pertwee and Delgado is lovely – they’re just so polite to each other! – but surprisingly low key. Also love the way the Brig’s attitude to his scientific advisor has settled in a sort of bemused tolerance. This is the version that makes it possible that it can endure as a long-term feature of the series.
Also, random thought – Courtney is a Troughton guest star, Pertwee regular, and Baker guest star. Kingston is a Tennant guest star, Smith regular and Capaldi guest start. Expect her back for the 60th I guess.
[Writer Robert] Holmes is good, isn’t he? I don’t always get on with his scripts – so much of it’s in the production. But he packs a lot in, there’s new stuff in every episode, he doesn’t just pick up one idea and then beat it to death. There’s also, in both this and Spearhead, a sense of building to a finale – the stakes are higher in the last episode, even if a lot of it is communicated verbally rather than visually. Am slightly conscious that, as with Moffat’s puzzlebox stories, he’s going to lose that when he takes over as script editor.
Although the ending is a bit silly. The Master realises the Nestenes will kill him because the Doctor tells him so, and then instantly switches sides. And this happens about 30 seconds after he pushes a man to his death, which is the most violent thing we’ve seen him do. It’s quite exciting but deeply odd.
Love Jo’s escapology. The final twist – it being Farrell in a mask... [No idea what I thought there, words lost to time.] Anyway, yes, I really enjoyed that, and there’s a reason this set of regulars are remembered so fondly.