Doctor Who - Terror of the Autons (1971)

SPOILER WARNING!!! This Post spoils Doctor Who episode Terror of the Autons (1971).

Third Doctor brought two major changes to series. It was shot on color. Previous two Doctor were shot black and white. Another change was that everything happened on current day Earth. Doctor was punished his actions in last story of second Doctor by disabling Tardis and exiling him to earth. Doctor started to working for UNIT, that was introduced in The Invasion story.

Writers of Doctor Who felt that Doctor needed his Professor Moriarty. They created The Master, evil time lord with hypnotic powers. This is episode that introduced Master to series. Horse-box appears inside circus. Man dressed in suit comes out of it. With goatee and sinister look, you know he is evil. He introduces himself as Master and hypnotizes owner of the circus. This is all introduction you need for character like Master.

In this story Master uses Autons, animated plastic dolls to kill human race. I wasn't sure what his actual plan was. He created almost unstoppable Autons and when The Nestene, power that animates Autons, arrives to earth, Doctor talks him out of his plan. Did he think he could control The Nestene and Autons? If he wanted to rule earth, why kill all humans? Master is like someone, who wants to do evil things, but in the end he finds out that he doesn't like the things he has done. Or then he is so excited being evil, he forgets something that let good guys win. Usually his goals are something that doesn't make much sense in long run. Doctor and Master are both outcast time lords. This gives them special bond. There are even times when they work together and when Master helps Doctor. hHen Master has change to kill Doctor, he hesitates, because he really doesn't want to kill Doctor.

Master can regenerate like Doctor and we have seen few incarnations of him. His personality hasn't changed as much as Doctor's has. Master had used all his degenerations during classic series, but managed to get more by taking control of a another body. Doctor is almost out of his degenerations. We might see something similar happening to him or they have to invent something else for him, if they want the series to continue.

I know I haven't talked much about Terror of the Autons. Story is not that interesting. Most of the story is used for establishing Master's character. Roger Delgado has such presence, that he makes all scenes he is in interesting even when story is not that interesting. I honestly don't understand why he wanted to kill humans with Autons and plastic based weapons. This is almost like The Invasion redone badly. So many things happen same way. In Invasion things made more sense than in this. Invasion was whole story. This is first act that introduces main villain.

This is all from classic Doctors this time. I might return to other stories from first three Doctors later. I already wrote about only story I have from fourth Doctor and others I don't have anything. I saw those stories from tv and didn't want to buy them on dvd. Next time it is time to see what happened to Doctor between classic Doctor Who and relaunched Doctor Who.