|
Plot Outline from Wikipedia When the TARDIS lands in London near the Post Office Tower, the Doctor is unsettled by it. There the Doctor and Dodo meet Professor Brett, the creator of WOTAN (Will Operating Thought ANalogue), an advanced computer that even knows what TARDIS stands for. On C-Day, WOTAN will be linked to other major computers to take them over, including those of the White House, Cape Kennedy and the Royal Navy. WOTAN begins to have its own agenda and takes control of Professor Brett through a hypnotic beeping noise. WOTAN's hypnotic influence is exerted over many humans including Dodo until the Doctor breaks her out of it. He subsequently arranges for her to be sent to the country house of Sir Charles Summer, leader of the Royal Scientific Club, who has come to the aid of the Doctor. WOTAN uses its hypnotised workforce in a secret warehouse near Covent Garden to construct an army of War Machines to take over the world. Major Green, the chief of security at the Post Office Tower, has been programmed to oversee the construction of the War Machines. He ensures that any intruders are dealt with and all humans continue working on the project until they drop. Polly, Professor Brett's secretary, is one such production line convert, though a friend of hers, merchant seaman Ben Jackson, evades the production line. He seeks out the Doctor, whom he met through Dodo before her conditioning, and helps flesh out what is known about the threat of WOTAN and the War Machines. The Doctor alerts the army to the warehouse production factory, but their bullets are useless against the War Machines. He knows WOTAN is behind the plot too, but can do nothing as humans cannot enter the Tower through the strong hypnotic beams being emitted. Given scientific and political support, the Doctor manages to capture a War Machine using an electromagnetic trap. He changes its programming and then uses it to enter the Post Office Tower and destroy WOTAN. This ends the threat and immediately releases the human slaves from the hypnosis. Ben and Polly, the two "fab" young people the Doctor has befriended during the adventure, meet him at the TARDIS to explain Dodo has got in touch and decided to stay in London. The Doctor thanks them and heads into the Police Box - followed by Ben and Polly, who enter the TARDIS to return the old man his key. They are whisked off into time and space...
Analysis by Cuisle Decades before The Terminator or War Games, a computer that decided
that humans were inferior to it. This is going to be a science fiction
stand by in years to come, but in 1966 computers were still relatively
new things. most people knew nothing about them. They were housed
in big buildings with lots of security and only very clever chaps
who went to Oxford andCambridge could operate them. So the idea that
a computer could become the enemy of mankind was one which was very
easy to introduce to the public, but it was not quite the idea of
familiar things becoming unfamiliar the way the walking shop dummies
of the Autons were, for example. Computers were in themselves unfamiliar
and frightening to the average person in the street in 1966. But they
WERE of this Earth. That much was true of them, and it was a fact
that in this episode there was no alien malevolance. The evil comes
from a computer designed by a man. And it could be argued that THIS
is more frightening than aliens from other planets.
|
<< |
< |
< |