Talk:Terror of the Autons (TV story)

What are these referring to?
I have found some bits of dialogue that I would like to know what they are referring to:

1)When the Time Lord comes to warn the Doctor that The Master has arrived, this discussion takes place:

TIME LORD: I came to warn you. An old acquaintance has arrived on this planet. DOCTOR: Oh? One of our people? TIME LORD: The Master. DOCTOR: That jackanapes! All he ever does is cause trouble. TIME LORD: He'll certainly try to kill you, Doctor. The tribunal thought that you ought to be made aware of your danger. DOCTOR: How very kind of them. TIME LORD: You are incorrigibly meddlesome, Doctor, but we've always felt that your hearts are in the right places. But be careful. The Master has learnt a great deal since you last met him. DOCTOR: I refuse to be worried by a renegade like the Master. He's a, he's an unimaginative plodder.

This seems odd. First, because this is the Master's first appearance, yet they speak like he is a character that has already been on the show. It is interesting that the Doctor doesn't consider the Master to be a real threat, and has to be warned that "learned a lot". The Doctor calls the Master an "unimaginative plodder", and a "jacknapes" who only "causes trouble". According to the dictionary "jackanapes" means 'am mischievous or childlike man' and derives from 'Jack Napier' who was a medieval man who attempted(badly) to replace the English monarch with his preferred choice. Funny that the Doctor should use that term to refer to the Master.

2)After Jo has nearly blown up UNIT, the Doctor and Mike have this discussion:

YATES: What's wrong with her? DOCTOR: Almost certainly post-hypnotic alienation. YATES: She's been hypnotised? DOCTOR: Well, of course. Why else do you think she tried to blow us all to pieces? Come on, my dear, come and sit down over here. Get a chair, Captain Yates. Come on, you sit down here. There. Good. YATES: Well, I understood that under hypnosis it was impossible for DOCTOR: You thought that under hypnosis it was impossible for a subject to be persuaded to do anything that was against his nature? YATES: That's right. DOCTOR: Well, it's a fallacy, Captain. The Master can completely control the human mind. BENTON: So he can just take over anyone he likes? DOCTOR: No, not quite. No, some minds are stubborn enough to resist hypnosis. In any case, it doesn't last. Away from the Master's influence, the mind struggles constantly to free itself.

Now, the Doctor clearly knows that the Master hypnotises people for his plots(as he also did to farrell). But the Doctor seems to know a lot more about the Master's hypnotism and the "some minds [that] are stubborn enough to resist hypnosis" than what he can pick up from just Jo's attempted bombing(the Doctor hasn't met Farrell yet). It's almost as though the Doctor has recently met the Master hypnotising people, but some were able to offer Resistance to the Master's pans.

Intriguingly, Terror of the Autons overran by several minutes, and ceratin scenes were edited(or removed altogether(such as Bill Mcguirk's scene). However the originally scripted and recorded "and old acquaintance has arrived" scene was as follows:

TIME LORD I came to warn you. An old acquaintance has arrived on this planet.

DOCTOR Oh? One of our people?

TIME LORD The Master as he calls himself these days.

DOCTOR That jackanapes! All he ever does is cause trouble! You’re sure he’s here?

TIME LORD We tracked him on the monitors. Then there was some kind of alien interference and we lost contact.

DOCTOR Is his TARDIS still working?

TIME LORD I’m afraid so. He got away before it could be de-energized.

DOCTOR Lucky for him.

TIME LORD Don’t be bitter, Doctor. Your punishment was comparatively light.

The Doctor snaps, furious, as he looms over the Time Lord.

DOCTOR Whatever I’ve done, I too am still a Time Lord! Do you know what it’s like to be restricted to one TINY planet, one LIMITED era of time?!

The Time Lord shrugs.

TIME LORD It IS your favorite planet, after all.

The Doctor tries to control his temper.

DOCTOR Why did you take the trouble to warn me?

TIME LORD The Master knows you’re on this planet, Doctor. You interfered with his scheme and he has sworn your destruction. He'll certainly try to kill you, Doctor. The tribunal thought that you ought to be made aware of your danger.

The Doctor sneers.

DOCTOR How very kind of them!

The Time Lord takes a deep breath to control his patience.

TIME LORD You are incorrigibly meddlesome Doctor. But we've always felt that your hearts are in the right places.

The Doctor folds his arms.

DOCTOR There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?

The Time Lord glances around, as if checking no one is watching.

TIME LORD You and the Master will inevitably come into conflict. If, in the process, he should be captured – or destroyed - then...

DOCTOR I see. You want me to do your dirty work for you!

TIME LORD Your sentence will come up for review one day, Doctor. Any service you have rendered the Council will be... considered. But be careful. The Master has learnt a great deal since you last met him.

DOCTOR I refuse to be worried by a renegade like the Master. He's a...

The Doctor shrugs, temporarily unable to think of an insult.

DOCTOR He's an... unimaginative... plodder!

The Time Lord is unimpressed.

TIME LORD His degree in cosmic science WAS of a higher class than yours.

Abashed, the Doctor rubs his neck.

DOCTOR Yes, well, er, yes, well I...I was a late developer.

Meanwhile, Terrance Dicks' novelisaton has the scene as follows:

He spun round and saw a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman in the full rigout of a city businessman, dark suit, rolled umbrella and bowler hat. The peculiar thing was that the stranger was nonchalantly standing in thin air, hundreds of feet above the ground. The Doctor showed no particular surprise at this. Nor did the new arrival as he became aware of it. ‘Dear me, my co-ordinates must have slipped a bit.’ He blurred, shimmered out of existence and reappeared, standing next to the Doctor on the little platform. The Doctor looked at him grimly. He’d recognised him at once, of course. One of the High Council of the Time Lords. Last time they had met was at the Doctor’s trial. After many years of happily wandering around the universe in his ‘borrowed’ TARDIS, the Doctor had been captured at last by his own people, and condemned to exile on the planet Earth for an indefinite period. But why had a Time Lord materialised himself here now? To give himself time to recover the Doctor said, ‘May I say you look quite ridiculous in those clothes?’ The Time Lord gave a complacent smile. ‘Merely merging with the natives, old chap. We Time Lords don’t care to be conspicuous.’ He shot a quick glance at the Doctor’s usual flamboyant outfit of narrow trousers, smoking jacket, frilled shirt and swirling cloak. ‘Most of us, that is,’ he added pointedly. A hope flashed into the Doctor’s mind. ‘You’ve come to tell me the exile is over...’ The Time Lord shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not, Doctor. As a matter of fact, I’ve come to bring you a warning, An old friend of yours has arrived on Earth.’ ‘One of our people? Who is it?’ The Time Lord pronounced a string of mellifluous syllables—one of the strange Time Lord names that are never disclosed to outsiders. Then he added, ‘These days he calls himself the Master.’ The Doctor was silent for a moment. The Master was a rogue Time Lord. So too was the Doctor, in a way. But all his interventions in the course of history were on the side of good. The Master intervened only to cause death and suffering, usually in the pursuit of some scheme to seize power for himself. More than that, he seemed to delight in chaos and destruction for its own sake, and liked nothing more than to make a bad situation worse, Already he had been behind several Interplanetary Wars, always disappearing from the scene before he could be brought to justice. If ever he were caught, his fate would I be far worse than the Doctor’s exile. Once captured by the Time Lords, the Master’s life-stream would be thrown into reverse. Not only would he no longer exist, he would never have existed. It was the severest punishment in the Time Lords’ power. The Doctor knew that the Master’s presence on earth made matters far worse than he had feared. ‘You’re sure he’s here?’ he asked. The Time Lord nodded gravely. ‘We tracked him on the Monitor. Then there was some kind of alien interference and we lost contact.’ ‘Is his TARDIS still working?’ ‘I’m afraid so. He got away before it could be deenergised.’ ‘Then he was luckier than I,’ said the Doctor sadly. He had never really got used to his exile. ‘Don’t be bitter, Doctor. Your punishment was comparatively light.’ The Doctor rounded on him angrily. ‘Whatever I’ve done, I too am still a Time Lord. Do you know what! it’s like to be restricted to one tiny planet, one limited era of time?’ The Time Lord shrugged. ‘It is your favourite planet after all!’ For moment the Doctor gazed up at the summer sky without speaking. Then he said, ‘Why did you take the trouble to warn me?’ ‘The Master knows you’re on this planet, Doctor. You have interfered with his evil schemes in the past, and he has sworn your destruction. The Council felt you should be warned of your danger.’ The Doctor looked at him suspiciously. ‘There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’ The Time Lord paused, choosing his words carefully. ‘You and the Master will inevitably come into conffict. If in the proven he should be captured or destroyed...’ ‘I see. You want me to do your dirty work for you?’ The Time Lord twirled his umbrella. ‘Your sentence will come up for review one day, Doctor. Any service you have rendered the Council will be—considered.’ The Doctor knew he was trapped, but perversely refused to admit it. ‘I’m not going to worry about a renegade like the Master. The fellow’s an unimaginative plodder.’ The Time Lord chuckled. ‘You graduated at the same time, did you not? I believe his degree in Cosmic Science was in a higher category than yours?’ ‘I was a late developer,’ said the Doctor defensively. ‘Besides,’ the Time Lord went on, ‘would you call that little surprise unimaginative?’ He pointed towards the door of the control cabin. The Doctor peered through the crack. At first he saw only a deserted control room. Then he noticed an elaborate arrangement of thin twine leading from the inside handle of the door to a small metal canister perched precariously on the edge of a tall computer cabinet. The Doctor peered at the canister. ‘It’s a Volataliser,’ he said incredulously. ‘The Xanthoids use them for mining operations. If that thing falls—’ The Time Lord nodded. ‘It will destroy this tower, the Research Centre and about one square mile of the surrounding countryside. You will observe, Doctor, that the door opens outwards. The tension on the twine is such that the slighest touch on the door will cause the cylinder to fall. An amusing idea.’ The Doctor looked at him grimly. ‘Then you’d better think up some witty way of dealing with it.’ ‘I’m sorry, Doctor,’ said the Time Lord. He shimmered and vanished, leaving a faint ‘good luck’ floating on the air. The Doctor turned back to the door and considered the problem. He could try to untie the twine at the doorhandle end. But the door was open the merest crack. He’d never get his fingers through. He could climb on top of the cabin and get through the skylight—but the vibration he would cause might make the cylinder roll off. No, there was only one thing for it. The Doctor paused for a moment, calculating tension, angle velocities, and the effects of gravity on the estimated weight of the cylinder. He took a pace back, braced a foot against the guard rail, and gripped the door handle. Then he yanked the door open and catapaulted himself head first into the cabin.

But it's a good thing that we have Tardis Data Core to confirm that this is the character's first ever appearance. Otherwise someone may come to the "Wrong" conclusion!


 * The passage from Terrance Dicks's novelisation of this serial which you quote surely answers your question. Terrance was the script editor on the televised serial: in his novelisation of it he drew on the script, and (perhaps inadvertently) he included additional details which were not present in the televised episode itself -- but which tie up the loose ends that were left hanging on television. As to the terminology, some of it was old-fashioned even in 1970; but Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado had been actors since before the Second World War, so would be familiar with many terms which the younger members of the audience were not.  The story was attempting (successfully, I thought) to use the character of the Timelord who warns Pertwee of the bomb to build some 'back-story', as I believe it's called, for the new character of The Master. You don't need to look any further than Terrance Dicks's book The Making of Doctor Who (Piccolo, 1972) (ISBN: 0330232037 9780330232036), though, to understand that Dicks and producer Barry Letts were introducing The Master as a new character in 1971 (although as someone who has seen or heard all the Hartnell and Troughton serials, I can assure you that the character had not appeared previously). Stephen Poppitt  ☎  06:51, January 10, 2018 (UTC)

Uncredited cast and crew
Removed uncredited cast and crew. Please do not add back to the page until a reliable source is given for them. -- Tybort (talk page) 14:56, October 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * Troll doll - Tommy Reynolds


 * Assistant Floor Manager - Bruce Best
 * Title Music - arranged by Delia Derbyshire
 * Production Assistant - Nicholas John
 * Director - Barry Letts (not credited)


 * It seems odd to take that out, and leave in the following, which refers to Nicholas John being the Production Assistant. Why can't DWM 311 be used as a reliable source for Nicholas John's role?:-


 * "While filming the Doctor and Jo's escape from the Auton policemen in the quarry, on location, which was virtually Katy Manning's first scene in her first ever Doctor Who serial (all the location filming was carried out weeks before the studio scenes were recorded), the short-sighted Katy tripped and sprained her ankle. Production assistant Nicholas John took her to hospital, and joked about the producer having to replace her. Manning took this seriously, but when Jon Pertwee found out he told off John for upsetting his new co-star. (DWM 311)"165.225.80.225talk to me 10:41, January 2, 2018 (UTC)


 * Doctor Who Magazine is a perfectly valid and most common source for uncredited cast/crew. Amorkuz ☎  10:45, January 2, 2018 (UTC)


 * It seems ridiculous that someone has removed Delia Derbyshire from the uncredited crew for each story. It's a basic fact that Delia Derbyshire arranged the theme.  She's credited on every story on the BBC website, if someone must have some sort of "source" for it.  Poor old Barry Letts is credited there as well.165.225.76.70talk to me 14:04, January 2, 2018 (UTC)


 * It is clearly absurd to challenge the contribution of Delia Derbyshire -- if any written reference or first-hand source is needed then I would point to the book The Making of Doctor Who by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks, published by Piccolo in 1972 (Pan Books, 1972, ISBN 0330232037 9780330232036). Stephen Poppitt ☎  08:01, January 10, 2018 (UTC)


 * We know from producer Barry Letts himself that he directed one serial each season whilst he was producer, and that this was the serial he directed in the 1971 season: he remarks on this in his autobiography, Who and Me, published in 2009 (ISBN: 9781906263447). Stephen Poppitt ☎  07:05, January 10, 2018 (UTC)

The third Doctor and the Time Lords
"There are only two other Pertwee serials in which any Time Lords (other than the Doctor or the Master) appear: Colony in Space (1971) and The Three Doctors (1972)". This is wrong. There is another Time Lord in Planet of the Spiders. 165.225.80.59talk to me 11:53, August 11, 2016 (UTC)


 * Depending upon your point of view, there were not one, but two, Time Lords in Planet of the Spiders (1974) in addition to the Doctor himself. Both the monk Cho-Je and the abbot K'anpo Rinpoche were revealed in episode six to be Time Lords who had fled from Gallifrey. If you accept that three Time Lords appear in The Three Doctors (1972) (i.e. the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Doctors) (let's ignore all the additional Time Lords in the scenes on Gallifrey for a moment), then by the same logic the two characters in Planet of the Spiders do represent two Time Lords, as one appears to regenerate into the other at one point in the episode. I might add that since Tom Baker also appears in the episode, albeit briefly, no less than four Time Lords in all do feature in it! Stephen Poppitt ☎  07:22, January 10, 2018 (UTC)


 * Not strictly an appearance, I suppose, but images of both Bill Hartnell and Pat Troughton were also seen in the serial Day of the Daleks, in the scene in which the Doctor's previous selves are revealed by the Daleks' mind analysis machine. Stephen Poppitt ☎  07:39, January 14, 2018 (UTC)

Retrospective bomb
"The Doctor boils away the contents of a volatiser (a bomb planted at the Radio Telescope by the Master, roughly equivalent to a 15 megaton atom bomb), to prevent it falling into the hands of Earth's military. Retrospectively, this was subsequently described as a Sontaran weapon (a race created by scriptwriter Robert Holmes in a later serial)". This is also wrong. It is the grenade at the circus that is subsequently described as a Sontaran weapon, in the novel Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons. 165.225.80.59talk to me 11:58, August 11, 2016 (UTC)


 * What you say is correct, of course. It is curious that the novelisation of this 1971 serial (Target Books, ISBN: 9780426106395) was written by the script editor (Terrance Dicks), not by the serial's scriptwriter (Bob Holmes), and was not written until 1975, i.e. not until after Holmes had created the Sontarans in a later Pertwee serial screened in 1973 (The Time Warrior). It appears to be a case of revisionism, i.e. of Dicks re-writing history with the benefit of hindsight, hence it does not in truth establish that Holmes created the Sontarans in 1971. They were not mentioned in the 1971 serial on television. Stephen Poppitt ☎  07:40, January 10, 2018 (UTC)

Letts the multitasker
"Letts had to obtain permission from his boss, the Head of Series and Serials, in order to direct this story because, obviously, he was being paid twice on each episode: once as its producer, and a second fee as its director." It would be interesting to see a reference for this. Letts took the producer job on condition he still be able to direct now and then. 165.225.80.59talk to me 12:09, August 11, 2016 (UTC)


 * We know from producer Barry Letts himself that he had a contract as producer of Who that allowed him to also direct one serial in each season whilst he was in the job, provided that he was credited only once (and he seems to have had the right to choose in each case whether to be credited as producer or as director): he remarks on this in his autobiography, Who and Me, published in 2009 (ISBN: 1906263442, 9781906263447). He recalled that he needed his boss's permission because it was contrary to BBC policy for a producer to commission himself to direct a serial which he also produced, as it meant receiving a second fee as director on top of his salary as producer, hence the situation might be open to abuse. Therefore any such arrangement had to be cleared in advance by his boss, the Head of Serials. Letts in fact requested that a clause be written into his contract whereby the BBC agreed to the arrangement. His boss desired no publicity for this type of arrangement, so the clause contained a condition -- an absolute prohibition on Letts being allowed a screen credit as Director on serials where he was credited as Producer. But in practice he was allowed a choice: so on Terror of the Autons he chose to be credited as producer (and no director was credited), while on Planet of the Spiders he chose to be credited as director (and no producer was credited). On Spiders it was more use to him to take a director's credit, as he was then within weeks of leaving his BBC staff job as producer of Who and resuming his former freelance career as a director (and indeed would return to the show as director, in Tom Baker's second season, on The Android Invasion). Stephen Poppitt ☎  07:59, January 10, 2018 (UTC)


 * Additionally, on checking my files, I find that Barry Letts explained in an interview in the 1980s, for the fanzine An Adventure in Space and Time #89, whilst discussing his directing of the 1974 serial Planet of the Spiders, that he in fact had an option in his BBC contract to direct one serial per season. For technical reasons, he usually exercised this option in such a manner that ensured he would be directing either the first or the final serial of a season, in order to minimise the disruption which that inevitably caused to his job as Producer of the show, in that he would have to spend either four or six weeks in rehearsals and on the studio floor as director (and, on one occasion, 7 weeks: he had to take over from director Douglas Camfield at short notice when the latter was taken seriously ill during studio production on Inferno). Stephen Poppitt ☎  15:53, January 10, 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup tag
We don't allow columns of images on pages. Because of the length of story-page infoboxes, which push images further down the page, as a guideline we usually only want one image per episode of a classic DW story. Many of these images will need to be removed from the page. Shambala108 ☎  23:48, November 20, 2016 (UTC)

Comic Strip
"Finally, it was also the only televised Doctor Who story to be at least partially adapted as a non-satirical comic strip, in DWM 164."

But Colony in Space had already been partially adapted as a comic strip in the Radio Times.165.225.80.225talk to me 11:54, January 10, 2018 (UTC)