Terror of the Autons

We're very fond of failing to define that essential ingredient - that magical "Who-ishness" - that makes our favourite series what it is. Or, occasionally, isn't. It's easier to spot when it returns than when it goes missing. As a DWM correspondent once memorably put it: "the magic is still there, even if has been misplaced a few times down the years".

So what better way to "define" that indefinable magic than by comparing a story that has it, with one that doesn't. Witness "Terror of the Autons" and it's butch older brother, "Spearhead from Space". One of these stories was made entirely on location, boasts classy performances all round and doesn't breach its integrity by showing a man sitting in a lunchbox next to his boiled egg. The other has discovered a new and unconvincing special effect which it will employ to realise almost all of its sets, features a cliffhanger where the Doctor is attacked by a telephone and ends when the chief baddie has a generous change of heart and swings everything into reverse, thus (according to a law the story creates) solves everyone's problems. Now guess which story is overflowing with the Doctor Who magic?

"Terror of the Autons" feels like Doctor Who has returned. This is a perhaps retrospectively applied definition, since more post-"Terror" stories sum up everything there is to love about the Pertwee era and all other lovably naff Doctor Who, much more than anything filmed in sobering monochrome. It's called "The UNIT family" which is always meant as a bad thing, a slight on dramatic impact and a tendency towards solutions involving wine bottles and tealeaves. But you care about your family, which is why no Season 7 story could ever drum up the pathos achieved when the Brigadier fears Yates is dead in "The Time Monster" or Jo later "flies the coup" in "The Green Death". True, these associations were born of time, but stick some dull people in a room for a few years and they'll still be dull at the end of it. What the production team realised when preparing Season 8, was that there was little love to be found amid the hard-nosed Liz and ruthless Brigadier that currently helmed their television programme. Things had to change.

Injecting a dose of camp into Doctor Who and with it, some good old-fashioned fun, gave Season 8 what its predecessor lacked: the warmth that imbued potential for drawing in regular viewers. If it has ever seemed strange to you that fan-favourite Season 7 achieved almost catastrophically low ratings then consider that Doctor Who was not just about making a good story, but getting people back for the next one as well. You probably love watching "Spearhead from Space" and "Inferno", but have you ever felt like doing Season 7 back-to-back? Conversely, one can easily get a feel for "Terror" and carry on through the rest of the season, and the ratings history shows us that families of the day were similarly inclined.

So "Terror" dispenses with power stations, witchy Liz and monsters like Earth Reptiles and Astronauts and brings us gay icon and diva Mrs Farrell, evil toys and an arch-nemesis with some genuine archness. It's also rather pleasing that "Terror" has a reputation for famously scaring the willies out of the kids of the day, so that base is covered too. And if you're struggling to remember why "Terror" is actually better Doctor Who than "Spearhead", then consider that whatever else we have defined our favourite series by over the years, it's always been nothing unless the whole family can watch. Nobody rung in about "Spearhead", but then there were probably just adults watching. "Terror" brought back the kids, the fun, and arguably the first real measure of "Whoishness" to the series for quite some time.