Terror of the Autons Episode Three

The one where the Autons distribute deadly daffodils...

The opening sequence, with the Doctor and Jo fleeing from the Auton policemen in "some sort of a quarry" as Jo puts it, is very well-staged stuff. I find the Auton trying to get out of the jammed police car door quite unsettling as it struggles away, then calmly opens fire with its hand gun. I really think these Auton faces are scarier than the previous ones, which is a change of opinion for me this time around as I always used to prefer the Spearhead mannequin ones. As terrifying as the shop window dummies are, I find these blank-faced "template" Autons even eerier.

These Autons are relentless, pursuing the Doctor and Jo with determined aggression, firing at them as they run, and firing at Yates in the faithful UNIT Austin car! When Yates drives the Auton over the cliff, Terry Walsh's stunt fall is sustained and impressive, and the most terrifying thing is when the Auton reaches the bottom of the slope, it just gets straight back up and starts scrambling its way back to the top! There's no tense pause at the bottom as it lies still, then bursts into life. Director Barry Letts opts to show how completely unstoppable the Autons are by allowing no time for doubt. This thing will just keep on coming for you!

Back at UNIT HQ the Brigadier's itemised account of the situation so far is as dull and unnecessary as the Doctor makes out, but what I find most alarming is the moment where the Doctor attempts to leave in the TARDIS (with the Master's circuit replacing his). If the circuit actually worked, I'm convinced he'd be off and not come back. We've seen how desperate the Doctor has been to leave Earth for the last few stories now, so it seems pretty irresponsible of him to want to leg it at what is a pretty desperate time for Earth, what with that jackanapes the Master at large. This Doctor cares about the human race, but only to a point, it seems. He cares most of all about himself and his liberty.

I love the Doctor's dressing down of "pen-pusher" Brownrose, just the latest in a string of authority figures to feel the sharp blade of the Doctor's ire. The Doctor's name-dropping of Tubby Rowlands is rather amusing, adding that he drinks with the lord of the realm in "the club". I'm pretty sure the Doctor is joshing with Brownrose here just to demean him; I'd hate to think of this anti-Establishment hero supping port and lemons with top politicos in Westminster men-only clubs.

When the action cuts to the streets of Tarminster, with the Autons handing out plastic daffodils to unsuspecting housewives, things take a surreal twist. These are Autons wearing papier-mache face masks, wearing daffodil-coloured jackets and huge straw boaters. They look like fat-faced Maplins yellowcoats, Charles Laughton as Frank Sidebottom. They're weird and funny and silly and uncanny all at once, I almost don't know how to react to them. Are they scary or are they silly? Actually, when they climb aboard their bus and start talking, that's when they get scary! An Auton has never spoken before (it's actually more likely the Nestene entity speaking through them), but Haydn Jones manages to make them sound really monstrous, with that grating, chafing, rasping intonation (rather like the Daleks, or Davros-to-come).

While UNIT and the Doctor flail about aimlessly trying to grasp any clue they can to track down the Master, the evil-doer himself continues to make palpable gains and run rings round our heroes. He infiltrates UNIT HQ disguised as a telephone technician and installs a new trimphone in the Doctor's lab with an unusually long plastic flex (because the Doctor likes to walk up and down a lot when he speaks!). This means that actor Norman Stanley is the second person ever to play the Master, but he always gets forgotten despite the fact he has more screen time than the TV Movie's Gordon Tipple!

There's an awful lot of jeopardy packed in to this one episode (perhaps Chris Chibnall could learn from that?). As well as the chase at the quarry, there's the attempt by the revived troll doll to kill Jo, the Auton in the safe, and the deadly trimphone cord.

I want to address these last two points, because here I think writer Robert Holmes and director Barry Letts got it wrong. The Auton in the safe is absolutely pant-wettingly terrifying - it's unexpected, shocking and surreal, the perfect material for a cliffhanger. The actual cliffhanger used, of the Doctor being strangled by the phone flex, is equally as strange, but spoiled by one of Jon Pertwee's perennial failings - his ability to portray fear. Every time this Doctor has been under attack (whether from a giant octopus, a Silurian's third eye, or being flung into limbo), Pertwee has pulled the most ridiculous faces (Sylvester McCoy is often guilty of this too). Staring boggle-eyed into camera, the Doctor's final plight just makes me laugh. I'd much prefer the safe cliffhanger, because it's sudden and shocking, even if the sense behind it needs work (plus, we know the Doctor isn't going to be killed by the flex - he's got four more adventures to come after this).

We're three-quarters of the way through this story and the Doctor and the Master have yet to meet (though they have spoken briefly). UNIT and the Doctor seem at an utter loss as to how to deal with the Master and his Auton army, or even find out where they are and what they're up to. The good guys are particularly ineffectual, and the charming new villain is running rings round them (although his plan to "destroy humanity" seems motiveless). There's been lots of running around on wild goose chases, but so far the story hasn't felt very cohesive or well-structured. It's just a series of events. I wonder if episode 4 will bring it all together nicely?

First broadcast: January 16th, 1971

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The Autons are really scary, especially the Auton policeman and the Auton in the safe!
The Bad: Our heroes are getting nowhere fast, finding little out and getting little done.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 11
Neck-rub tally: 1 - at last, we get a neck-rub... and it's a proper, two-handed "look, I'm rubbing my neck because it's aching" kind of rub, at 9m 57s.

NEXT TIME: Episode Four...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Four

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/04/terror-of-autons.html

Terror of the Autons is available on BBC DVD as part of the Mannequin Mania box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Mannequin-Mania-Spearhead/dp/B004P9MROY