The Tiger Who Came To Tea: Terror of the Autons

Season 8, Story 1/5, Serial EEE: 4 x 25min episodes, 2nd to 23rd January 1971, Writer: Robert Holmes, Director: Barry Letts (uncredited), Script Editor: Terrance Dicks, Producer: Barry Letts

PART ONE
5.15pm 2nd January 1971
7.3m viewers
UK No.1: "I Hear You Knocking" by Dave Edmunds

Our story opens at a circus, where owner Luigi Rossini makes his way past the caged lions to find a quiet spot to light a cigar.

His peace is disturbed by the familiar sound of materialization that usually accompanies the arrival of a certain blue police box, but this blue horsebox isn't the TARDIS we expected!

Here he is, ladles and jellyspoons: Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto. As he tells Rossini, he is "usually referred to as the Master!"

The Master instantly has the upper hand, calling the "insolent primitive" by his real name, Lew Russell, and holding him in a vice like grip to exert his hypnotic personality.

"Rossini" wasn't completely wrong when he thought the Master is a conjurer, as he sets about making a Nestene sphere disappear.

We join the Doctor in his lab at UNIT HQ, exiting a smoky TARDIS and singing "I don't want to set the world on fire." In the story immediately after Inferno? Too soon!

The newest, and youngest, member of UNIT, Josephine Grant enters the lab, brandishing a file. The Doctor thinks she's the tea lady and tells her to hop it! Bit rude.

When the Doctor switches on his experiment it erupts in clouds of smoke, so the quick thinking Jo douses it with a fire extinguisher. Only snag is, it wasn't actually on fire - and the Doctor's furious!

"Three months delicate work and now look at it, you ham-fisted bungler!"

The Doctor goes on to explain that steady-state micro-welding always creates more smoke than fire, like that was something she could have known.

Jo finally has the chance to introduce herself properly: "I'm your new assistant!" "Oh, no!" Jo is a fully trained agent, with skills in cryptology, safe-breaking, and explosives. #DoctorWho says he needs a scientist, but don't worry, she's got that covered, too: "I took general science at A-Level!"

Anyway, the report Jo had come in to show him is actually quite important: It's about the theft of the Nestene energy unit from the National Space Museum.

"The Brigadier's an idiot!" for loaning it out according to the Doctor.

The Master arrives at the the Beacon Hill Research Establishment radio telescope...

...where Scientist Goodge complains to his colleague Philips about his packed lunch. "Cut out the hard boiled eggs, I said. Apart from their effect on my digestive system, they're aesthetically booooring."

#Beardy70sScientistProblems

The Master's turned up to fiddle with their aerial. Can't get any decent phone reception for the Nestenes.

The Doctor tries to get the Brig to dump Jo for him. The Brig confesses that she only got the job thanks to relatives in high places, but won't do his dirty work for him.

Jo returns, having checked all the reports on the whereabouts of the stolen "meteorite" and chased the Doctor's electronic spares for him. When it comes to it, he bottles dumping her - and flashes the Brig an unforgiving glare!

One of the reports is from Captain Yates - sabotage at the radio telescope, and two disappearing scientists. The Doctor decides to check it out.

Odd little non-intro long shot as we meet Mike Yates for the first time. He introduces Jo and the Brig to the Research Centre's Director while the Doctor goes on ahead to the telescope control room.

The Doctor's about to enter the control room, when he hears the familiar sound of a materialization, but rather than a TARDIS, it's a single Time-Lord, just standing there, suspended in mid-air.

Dressed in a pin-stripe suit and bowler hat and umbrella, the Time-Lord couldn't look more out of place, yet his appearance as a toffee-nosed civil servant is somehow entirely fitting.

The Doctor is no mood to humour the very people that exiled him here, but the Time-Lord has come with a friendly warning that an old acquaintance is in town: The Master.

The Doctor isn't particularly troubled ("That Jackanapes!"), even when the Time-Lord says that the Master will certainly try to kill him. Seems the renegade has upskilled himself since he and the Doctor last met.

The Master's done that old "bucket over an ajar door" trick. But with a grenade. What a prankster.

Having delivered his message, the Time-Lord buggers off rather than help. Typical.

Nice bit of man-of-action from Pertwee as he dives through the door to defuse the grenade.

Yates and the Director arrive just in time to find the Doctor on bomb disposal duty.

The Doctor's attention turns to the missing scientists...

...and the half-eaten egg tips him off to a startling discovery: Goodge is now a part of his own packed lunch!

It's Davros before the accident. The Master takes over his plastic factory; no more new paradigms, thanks.

"Vanity is his weakness" says the coiffed, frilly shirt and velvet jacket wearing Doctor of his nemesis.

Yates, having been in charge of clearing up after Spearhead from Space, is pretty rubbish at explaining the Autons.

Doesn't matter though, she failed A-level science and doesn't know her cephalopod from her elbow.

UNIT begin their long pursuit of the Master...

The Doctor obliterates the Master's grenade rather than let UNIT's research bods have a gander.

Jo takes the initiative & checks out plastic factories. By a stroke of luck she finds Davros & Sons Ltd. first time out.

The Master hypnotizes Jo into forgetting all about Davros. If she'd drawn a sketch of him, she could have attempted to sue the BBC years later.

Good old Harry Towb turns up. Doesn't usually last past episode 1 in my experience. Good luck, Harry. McDermott is a stereotype and a half though. "Sure, I remember when I was a wee lad, begorrah, fiddle-dee-dee, so it was!"

Davros nearly falls victim to the first of the Master's new-style Autons, but the Time-Lord calls off the hounds.

Jo's been hypnotised into setting the bomb off. Also thinks she's a chicken.

Episode Two (9th January 1971) 8.0m viewers

The Doctor chucks the bomb, Benton worries what the neighbours will think. Shits given by the Doctor: Zero.

Having failed to blow everyone to bits, Jo has zoned out.

The Master's invented a self-inflating blow-up chair. Obviously looking to target the student market.

"You're a magician as well as a conjurer?"
"I am many things. I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker. I get my lovin' on the run."

McDermott sits down and just... slips away.

Bye bye Harry.

CHAIR: Nom, nom, nom.

Jo comes round but can't remember Davros. Terry Nation breathes a sigh of relief.

Davros Senior has come out of retirement, unhappy at his son's preposterous new design changes.

The Master fails to hypnotize Davros senior but has another trick up his sleeve.

Imagine the size of the pencil that troll doll would fit on the end of. Is that it? The Master's planning to take over with giant pencils? Wouldn't put it past him.

The Doctor fancies a trip to the circus but won't take the Brig or Jo.

Yates tries to talk Jo out of going anyway. She goes anyway. As effective as ever, Yates.

The Doctor goes on a Professor Phillips hunt at the circus... Sorry, pal, never seen him.

Old man Farrell goes back to his CSO house after a long day's rhubarbing & trolls his Mrs.

Rossini has the circus strongman restrain the Doctor when he checks out the Masters box uninvited.

What is with Mrs. Farrell talking straight to camera with her "I'll go and make the coffee."? Weird direction.

The troll's finally done for Old Man Farrell. Mrs. Farrell forgets all about that coffee she offered us.

The Doctor tries to goad Tony into speaking but he's got no lines. Jo massages his head with sugar glass.

The Master sends Phillips to polish off the Doctor and Jo with another grenade. Noticing a lot of the Master's cunning Machiavellian schemes end with a bomb or grenade.

The Doctor's able to do a bit of dematerialisation circuit part exchange, but the circus folk are not amused...

The Doctor and Jo have been rescued but they're not real policemen... Great cliffhanger.

Episode Three (16th January 1971) 8.1m viewers

The Doctor takes the Autons for a fight on home turf - it's a quarry!

That's a great bit of stunt work when the Auton goes tumbling down the hillside and simply gets up and climbs back up. Looks like an impossible, superhuman feat, convincing you they're animated plastic. But Terry Walsh actually did that.

The Brig & Yates arrive to rescue them, and they regroup at UNIT HQ.

The Brig makes a nerdy list that bores the Doctor.

Jo chides the Doctor for messing with the Brig. "I'll apologise... if I have the time!" Never, then.

The Doctor's nicked the Master's dematerialisation circuit but it won't work in his TARDIS.

Pertwee having another crafty cig in the TARDIS...

The Master has the Autons wear papier mache heads and give out free plastic daffodils.

The Brig has brought yet another 'man from the ministry' to bluster at the Doctor.

The Doctor snobs Brownlow off the face off the Earth. "Who's in charge of you pen pushers these days; Old Tubby Rowlands, isn't it?"

The Doctor and Jo have gone to the CSO house to see the giant pencil troll.

Yates doesn't trust the phone engineer. He got one thing right then. Still okays his pass, though.

The Doctor conducts a meticulous scientific experiment on the troll... by stabbing it with a scalpel.

"Do you mean that they haven't got a scanning molecular structure analyser in stock? Oh really, Brigadier!"

The Brig pulls rank to get a day out of the office. Yates has some important mugs of cocoa to make.

Whatever they're paying Yates, it's too much.
Would love to hear the other side of Jo's phone call. I imagine it like this...
JO: You're a Dolly Scotsman
CAMPBELL: Isn't that a little bit racist?
JO: Yes, of course!

The troll doll attacks Jo so Yates blows its head off. On about the 3rd attempt.

DOCTOR: First a flower, now this doll. BRIG: What are you getting at Doctor? DOCTOR: His plans are all over the shop.

The Master left an Auton in the safe at Farrell's to jump out and say boo to the Brig.

Now the Master's prank calling the Doctor with the choking phone cable of doom. He's a proper wind-up merchant, this one.

Episode Four (23rd January 1971) 8.4m viewers

"Afraid I cut your connection!" One back for the Brig there.

"There's a lot of plastic around - did you see that episode of Doomwatch? Or Spearhead from Space?"

The Brig calls in the RAF while the Doctor scans a daffodil "cell."

Jo's choking on a daffodil. Do not try this at home, kids.

The Brig's had a good long think about it... and has decided to blow stuff up.

Pertwee's breath can melt plastic.

The Master finally stops mucking about and walks straight into UNIT HQ to point a gun at the Doctor.

He really could have just done this right at the beginning of the story. He just wanted a few laughs first. There is just no-one cooler than Roger Delgado. Super-suave and totally in control.