Doctor Who Is Classic: Terror of the Autons

Today's post is another installment of Doctor Who Is CLASSIC where I post about episodes of Doctor Who from the classic era.

But before I get into that...

What's new?

It seems that before we can even see any episodes of the first season of Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, there are already changes afoot for his 2nd season.

Millie Gibson will be departing her role as companion Ruby Sunday at the start of the 2nd season. Varada Sethu will take over as the new companion.  

Changing companions is not new for Doctor Who with characters like Amy, Clara and Yaz sticking around for years being an outlier from the norm. 

Still it is weird there are changes in the show for the 2nd season before we've seen one minute of the 1st seaon. 

Speaking of changing companions....

That brings us to this edition of  Doctor Who Is CLASSIC.

Today's post is about "Terror of the Autons" written by Robert Holmes that was serialized on the BBC in January 1971.    

Going through the backlog of classic Doctor Who can be daunting so instead of barreling through every episode in order, I'm looking to introduce Andrea to certain key stories. 

"Terror of the Autons" is a good one to introduce Andrea to Jon Pertwee as the 3rd Doctor.  

• Andrea follows Katy Manning on Twitter and enjoys her posts.  This story is Katy's debut as companion Jo Grant. 
• The story also introduces Roger Delgado as the Master. Andrea's seen the Master in the modern era so this is her chance to see the performance that started it all and the portrayal of the Master all others have been measured against for over half a century.  
• The Nestene Consciousness (the first alien menace of the modern era in the episode "Rose") makes it's 2nd appearance in Doctor Who with "Terror of the Autons".

On the subject of a new companion, the Doctor wasn't too keen on Jo Grant being his assistant.

• The Doctor wanted a scientist like his previous assistant, Liz Shaw. The Brigadier tells the Doctor that Liz Shaw left because all the Doctor really wanted was someone to hand him test tubes and remind him how brilliant he is.
• Jo Grant got her gig at UNIT through nepotism. Her uncle is a big wig in the United Nations.
• Jo ruined an experiment the Doctor was working on. It caught fire. Jo put out the fire. How dare she!  

The Brigadier told the Doctor he didn't have to keep Jo Grant on as his assistant but only if the Doctor fired her himself. Looking into Jo's wide expressive eyes, he couldn't bring himself to do it. 

Meanwhile, the Master is up to sketchy shit. 

He's fucking around with a space telescope to bring the Nestene back to Earth. And he's mind whammied the manager of a plastics factory to make new Autons for the Nestene. 

Plus homicidal plastic ugly troll dolls.

And murderous plastic daffodils.  

The Master's busy. 

A bit too busy, maybe? Look, we've got four 1/2 hours to fill. 

The Doctor and the Master do not physically interact until part 4 where the Doctor convinces the Master that he's not in control as he would like to think, that the Nestene will zap the Master into goo once the Master's usefulness is over.    

In the end, the Master gets away from the Doctor and UNIT but he's stuck on Earth for the moment. The Doctor stole the dematerialization circuit from the Master's TARDIS.  

(The dematerialization circuit looks just like the one that Missy gives the Master at the end of Series 10 of modern Who.) 

"Terror of the Autons" can be a bit of a muddle with the Master doing too many thing it seems to accomplish a relatively simple goal.  But Roger Delgado's performance as the Master sets the template for the Doctor's arch nemesis for decades to come.

And Jo Grant quickly proves her worth to the Doctor who finds this new assistant very endearing.

I'll be back in a few weeks with another edition of   Doctor Who Is CLASSIC as  we look back at Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor.