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Autons
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Living plastic automata
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Nestene Consciousness
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Unknown (possibly Polymos )
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The are an artificial life form from the
British Science Fiction Television series ''
Doctor Who '', and adversaries of
The Doctor . First appearing in
Jon Pertwee 's first
Serial as the Doctor, ''
Spearhead From Space '' in 1970, they were the first
Monster s on the show to be presented in colour.
Autons are essentially life sized
Plastic dummies, animated by the , an
Extraterrestrial , disembodied
Gestalt intelligence which first arrived on
Earth in hollow plastic
Meteorite s. The name comes from "Auto Plastics", the company that was infiltrated by the Nestenes and subsequently manufactured their Auton shells in ''Spearhead''.
Autons conceal deadly
Weapon s within their hands, which can kill or vaporize their targets. The typical Auton does not look particularly realistic, resembling a mannequin, being robotic in its movements and mute. However, more sophisticated Autons can be created, which look and act human except for a slight sheen to the skin and a flat sounding voice.
The Nestenes' first attempt to invade the
Earth , using these more human-looking Autons to replace key government figures, was thwarted by
UNIT with the help of the Doctor, who also destroyed their invasion form, a multi-tentacled
Cephalopod .
The Nestenes subsequently returned in the first serial of Pertwee's second year as the Doctor, ''
Terror Of The Autons '', which also featured the introduction of the
Master . In this attempt, the Nestenes also made use of more mundane objects, animating plastic toys, inflatable chairs and artificial flowers in addition to their Auton servants. The Doctor convinced the Master that the Nestenes were too dangerous to be reliable allies, and they reversed the
Radio beam the invasion force was coming in on, sending it back into space.
Early drafts of ''
The Five Doctors '' (1983) featured a scene where
Sarah Jane Smith encountered some Autons and is rescued by the
Third Doctor , but it was dropped before filming after it was judged too expensive. A third appearance was planned for the aborted
1985 season during
Colin Baker 's tenure as the Doctor, but never materialized. Titled ''Yellow Fever and How to Cure It'', it was supposed to be set in
Singapore , with appearances by the
Rani and the Master. The story, which was to be scripted by veteran writer
Robert Holmes , only exists in outline form.
Although the Autons only made two appearances during the original television series run, they remain one of the more memorable monsters associated with ''Doctor Who''. The image of store mannequins coming to life in ''Spearhead'', in full colour and shooting people down in the street, is one of the series' iconic moments, and is often cited as an example of the series' ability to make everyday things terrifying. The use of even more ordinary objects in ''Terror of the Autons'' — including the unmasking of a police officer as an Auton — caused public controversy about whether the programme was too frightening for children and raised questions in the
House Of Lords about its effect on the public perception of the police.
When the series was revived in 2005, producer and writer
Russell T. Davies chose the Autons as the first monster to be featured. The Nestenes infiltrated Earth once more, using
Warp Shunt Technology , in the opening episode of the
2005 Series . In ''
Rose '', it was revealed that the Nestenes lost their food supply in a war when their
Protein planets rotted. Their intent was to overthrow and destroy the human race, as Earth was ideal for their consumption needs, being filled with smoke, oil and various
Pollutant s. The Doctor eventually defeated them when a vial of his "anti-plastic" solution spilled into the vat of molten plastic which housed the main bulk of the Consciousness, causing it to explode.
''Rose'' also featured an Auton facsimile that could change the shape of its features and limbs, and established that the Nestenes animate the Autons by means of
Telepathic projection. When duplicated, the originals are kept alive to maintain the copy. It is not yet clear if the war mentioned was also the motivation behind their earlier invasions or a recent development, but it is likely the same as the
Time War that is mentioned in subsequent episodes of the 2005 series.
The filming of scenes involving the Autons were witnessed by the public at location shoot in
Cardiff for the
2006 Series in March 2006.
The Nestenes have also appeared in the ''Doctor Who''
Spin-off novels (which linked the Conciousness with the
Great Old One s of the
Cthulhu Mythos , in particular as an offspring of
Shub-Niggurath ). In the
Sixth Doctor Novel ''Business Unusual'' by
Gary Russell (which gave
Melanie Bush a belated introduction story), the Nestenes used computer games and plastic toys in another bid for world conquest. In ''Synthespians™'' by
Craig Hinton , a far-future television station's artificial actors were not what they seemed. This novel also featured the
Time Lord s launching an assault on the Nestene homeworld
Polymos , which may or may not be connected to the war mentioned in ''Rose''.
In the ''Doctor Who Annual 2006'', an article written by Russell T. Davies mentions the loss of the Nestene Consciousness's planets during the Time War, and states that it "found itself mutating under temporal stress". This may be a reference to the difference between the portrayal of the Consciousness in ''Spearhead from Space'' and ''Rose''.
In the late 1990s, . These stories featured UNIT battling the Consciousness. In the first film, a Nestene energy unit and several Autons captured by UNIT in ''Spearhead from Space'' are accidentally reactivated. In the sequels, the escaped Autons attempt to awaken several dormant Nestenes put in place since before the development of human civilization. Though BBV was licensed to use the Nestenes, Autons and UNIT by the writers who created them, as with all spin-off productions the
Canonicity of these films is unclear.
