Auton (home video)

Auton
Main character(s):	Lockwood Sally Arnold
Featuring:	UNIT
Main enemy:	Autons
Main setting:	UNIT storage facility, Earth
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::BBV Productions]]
Writer:	Nicholas Briggs
Director:	Nicholas Briggs
Producer:	Bill Baggs
Release details
Release date:	1997
Format:	57 minute, VHS

Synopsis

The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce was set up to tackle human contact with the extraterrestrial and paranormal - especially when that contact proved dangerous. But when the battles were over, when the top-secret 'clean ups' had been completed, where was all the alien technology taken?

The Warehouse... UNIT's highly classified storage and research establishment. Here lie the dead, forgotten relics of past battles and encounters.

But what happens when one of these relics is reactivated?

UNIT has only one way of dealing with its mistakes. The Containment Team has been summoned... and the outcome is far from certain...

Plot

to be added

Cast

• Lockwood - Michael Wade
• Dr. Sally Arnold - Bryonie Pritchard
• Graham Winslet - George Telfer
• Dr. Daniel Matthews - Reece Shearsmith
• Sergeant Ramsay - Andrew Fettes
• Janice - Verona Chard
• UNIT Soldiers - Roy Hughes, Gabriel Mykaj, Mike Parry, David Ringwood, Richard Smith
• Autons - John Ainsworth, Gareth Baggs, Blaine Coughlan, David Ringwood

Production crew

to be added

References

• UNIT headquarters is in Geneva, and UNIT owns several deep space satellites, one of which is the most powerful such satellite yet developed.
• Lockwood is the head of a UNIT containment team.
• Lockwood uses the call sign Greyhound Leader, which is normally used by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
• UNIT's containment teams are for dealing with (extra-terrestrial) contamination risks. A risk of contamination is afforded a Code 7 categorisation - UNIT automatically prepares the death certificates of any personnel involved in advance, as a precaution.
• Ramsay uses the call sign Greyhound One when requesting back up.

Story notes

• Nicholas Briggs originally planned for this story to feature Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but Courtney had to drop out at the last minute due to health reasons. So the character of Lockwood was created to replace the Brigadier.
• The crates containing the other energy unit and the Autons are coded AAA/RH/2961 (AAA is the story code for Spearhead from Space and RH is of course the initials of Robert Holmes, the creator of the Autons).

Myths

to be added

Filming Locations

to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

to be added

Continuity

• The Doctor's UHF transmitter from DW: Spearhead from Space makes an appearance, additionally this story is very much a sequel to Spearhead from Space.
• The Autons first appeared in DW: Spearhead from Space, this story is set thirty years after DW: Terror of the Autons, the Autons appear again in BBV: Auton 2: Sentinel and Auton 3: Awakening. Following this their next on-screen appearance is in DW: Rose.

DVD and Video releases

• Released on Video in 1997 by BBV Productions.

See also

Auton and the Nestene Consciousness stories

• DW: Spearhead from Space
• DW: Terror of the Autons
• BBV: Auton 2: Sentinel
• BBV: Auton 3: Awakening
• PDA: Synthespians™
• NSA: Autonomy
• DW: The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang

External links

• Auton at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Auton at The Whoniverse