Season 7, Episode 1 | 4 parts | First broadcast: 3–24 January 1970 | Writer: Robert Holmes | Director: Derek Martinus
Cast
- Jon Pertwee as the Doctor
- Caroline John as Liz Shaw
- Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
- Hugh Burden as Channing
Summary
Freshly regenerated and exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, the Doctor is recovering in hospital when a meteorite shower seeds the countryside with plastic-controlling Nestene energy. Recruited by UNIT alongside new scientific advisor Liz Shaw, the Doctor must stop the Nestene Consciousness from animating an army of deadly plastic Autons, including its infamous shop-window mannequins, before it can seize control of the planet.
Interesting Facts
- This was the first Doctor Who serial made entirely in colour, and the first to be shot substantially on film rather than videotape, giving it a distinctive cinematic look.
- It marks Jon Pertwee’s debut as the Third Doctor and establishes the Earth-bound UNIT format that would define his early era.
- All four episodes survive complete and in colour, unlike many serials from the preceding black-and-white years.
- The killer-mannequin sequences proved so effective that Auton attacks became one of the series’ most iconic recurring images, revived decades later for the 2005 revival’s first episode.
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