Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion
Page 15
There are many small changes to the action, too. The opening moments of Episode 2 are revised slightly to form the cliffhanger ending to Chapter 4, and the soldiers’ discovery of an intact Nestene sphere in Chapter 6 is extended so Captain Munro can gallantly share the honour with his corporal. Forbes’s grisly fate, too, is given more detail – on screen, the unnamed corporal is simply forced off the road by an Auton. Chapter 7 bypasses a brief scene in which the Doctor berates the concierge on duty at UNIT’s main gate, in favour of an internal phone call to the Brigadier. Although the Brigadier doesn’t discover how the Doctor located UNIT’s top secret base in print, readers have already seen the Doctor consult his TARDIS detector during the previous chapter; on screen, the Doctor answers the Brigadier’s question and shows him the detector. The Doctor’s claim to have passed his driving test ‘on the Mars to Venus route’ is new to the novel, although it fits well with the Third Doctor’s regular boasts and anecdotes in other TV stories. On his visit to Madame Tussaud’s, the Doctor’s plan to arrest the waxworks and take them back to UNIT for testing is invented for the book.
The launch of the Nestene assault is greatly extended. On television, the conditions of early morning location filming restricted the attack’s representation to the sound of a window smashing, a policeman and several pedestrians and cyclists being shot down, and a group of Autons progressing eerily down a now-deserted street, while the Brigadier reports Autons coming to life all over the country. In print, Terrance Dicks is able to add waves of attacks across London, the police deluged with calls, televised public warnings, and the declaration of martial law. He shows the effects of the placement of Auton duplicates in positions of authority, and describes how the Replicas begin to be uncovered. UNIT’s operation at Auto Plastics is also revised to allow a lengthier standoff with the Regular Army troops, before General Scobie’s duplicate is destroyed. Once inside the Restricted Area, Dicks has the Doctor contemplate climbing into the Nestene tank, before Channing’s arrival brings events back in sync with the TV original. On screen, Liz is slower to realise that the power lead has detached from the Doctor’s device, and it is only the Doctor who is grabbed by the Nestene’s tentacles.
The final paragraphs of Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion also introduce a phrase heard in full just once on television by that time, but which would return in numerous future novelisations and become a famous part of the Doctor Who mythos. Contemplating how he might repair the TARDIS, the Doctor wonders for the first time what might happen if he reversed the polarity of the neutron flow…
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Published in 2011 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
A Random House Group Company
First published in 1974 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co., Ltd.
Novelisation copyright © Terrance Dicks 1974
Original script © Robert Holmes 1970
Illustrations © Chris Achilleos 1974
Introduction © Russell T Davies 2011
The Changing Face of Doctor Who and About the Authors © Justin Richards 2011
Between the Lines © Steve Tribe 2011
Autons © Estate of Robert Holmes
BBC, DOCTOR WHO and TARDIS (word marks, logos and devices) are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
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ISBN 978 1 849 90193 2
Commissioning editor: Albert DePetrillo
Editorial manager: Nicholas Payne
Series consultant: Justin Richards
Project editor: Steve Tribe
Cover design: Lee Binding © Woodlands Books Ltd, 2011
Cover illustration: Chris Achilleos
Production: Rebecca Jones
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