Doctor Who: Terror of the Autons

Terror of the Autons is the first serial of the eighth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 2 to 23 January 1971.

The Master arrives on Earth and steals the sole surviving Nestene energy unit from the National Space Museum. He then hijacks the Beacon Hill radio telescope, which he uses as a bridgehead to channel energy into the Nestene unit, and kidnaps Professor Philips, a Ministry of Technology research scientist.

Reports of the theft and sabotage bring the Doctor, his new assistant Jo Grant and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart to investigate. At Beacon Hill the Doctor encounters a fellow Time Lord, who warns him that an “old acquaintance” is on Earth and will certainly try to kill him. The Doctor then identifies and successfully neutralises the boobytrap, which the Master has left behind.

The Master takes over Farrel Autoplastics, a nearby plastics factory, to build Autons. Jo, investigating the factory, is discovered by the Master, who hypnotises her and wipes her memory of their meeting. He sends her back to UNIT with a booby-trap, a box ostensibly containing the stolen energy unit. The Doctor realises she has been hypnotised and disposes of the bomb.

UNIT traces the missing Professor Philips to Rossini’s Circus at Tarminster. The Doctor visits the Circus, and is captured by Rossini, but freed by Jo, who has followed him there against orders. The Doctor removes something from the Master’s TARDIS but is attacked by Rossini and his men. Rescued by two policemen, the Doctor becomes suspicious and unmasks one of them as an Auton.

Fleeing from the Autons, the Doctor and Jo hide in a quarry until the Brigadier and Captain Mike Yates arrive. A firefight breaks out between the soldiers and the Autons, enabling the Doctor’s party to escape. Meanwhile, a larger group of Autons, disguised in weird Carnival masks, are touring the country handing out free plastic daffodils to the public. Soon deaths from asphyxiation, shock, and heart failure are being reported all across the country.

The Master infiltrates UNIT headquarters disguised as a telephone engineer, and installs an extra-long telephone flex in the Doctor’s laboratory. At the now-empty plastics factory, the Brigadier and the Doctor discover that Farrel, the owner, has chartered a coach. They also find a plastic daffodil, and a lurking killer Auton, proving the connection between the factory and the Master.

In the Doctor’s lab, as he tries to decode the Nestenes’ instructions imprinted on the cells of the plastic flower, a radio signal from a walkie-talkie accidentally activates it. The daffodil sprays a plastic film over Jo’s nose and mouth, nearly suffocating her, until the Doctor dissolves it with a chemical solvent.

The Master makes another attempt to kill the Doctor, by calling him on the telephone he installed earlier, and using a sonic signalling device to activate the plastic telephone cable. The extra-length cable attempts to strangle the Doctor, but thanks to the Brigadier’s quick thinking, fails.

The Master then breaks into UNIT HQ. As a bargaining counter, the Doctor reveals that he has possession of the Master’s dematerialisation circuit, and threatens to destroy it: but he is foiled by the presence of Jo, who the Master takes as a hostage.

The Master takes both Jo and the Doctor to the quarry near the radio telescope, to force the Brigadier to abort a planned RAF airstrike on the Autons sheltering there. But Farrel, struggling to break free of his hypnosis, unexpectedly causes a diversion, and while the Master is busy subduing him the Doctor and Jo escape.

UNIT troops engage the Autons, while the Doctor and the Brigadier pursue the Master into the radio telescope’s control cabin. The Doctor convinces the Master that the Nestenes are so utterly different they will not be able to distinguish between him and the humans once they arrive. Together, they use the channel opened for the invasion to force the Nestene energy back into space, causing the Autons to collapse.

The Master flees, returning to the coach only to re-emerge, apparently surrendering. When he pulls out a gun, Yates shoots him dead, but the Doctor peels back a facemask on the body to reveal it is the hypnotised Farrel, disguised to look like the Master. The real Master escapes in the coach. However, with his dematerialisation circuit in the Doctor’s hands, the Master is now trapped on Earth.

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