Doctor Who is required.--WOTAN
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Episode 1, 25 June 1966
Episode 2, 2 July 1966
Episode 3, 9 July 1966
Episode 4, 16 July 1966
Written by Ian Stuart Black
Directed by Michael Ferguson
Script editor: Gerry Davis
Produced by Innes Lloyd
William Hartnell as the Doctor
Jackie Lane as Dodo Chaplet (final appearance)
Anneke Wills as Polly (first appearance)
Michael Craze as Ben Jackson (first appearance)
The TARDIS materialises in London in 1966, the first time it's landed on postwar Earth (at least, in its normal size and apart from a brief interlude atop the Empire State Building) since abruptly abducting a pair of schoolteachers from Totter's Lane in 1963; since this raises the possibility that someone might now mistake it for an actual police box, the Doctor leaves a notice on the front door: OUT OF ORDER.
The Doctor and Dodo have arrived in London shortly after the completion of the GPO Tower, whose futuristic, highly technological silhouette dominates the skyline. Fascinated, the Doctor decides to visit the Tower. On its top floor, he finds WOTAN (Will-Operating Thought ANalogue), the most powerful computer the world has ever known. WOTAN, effectively a functioning artificial intelligence, is so powerful that it is able to instantly solve the mathematical problems the Doctor sets it.
(I think it's a wonderful artefact of its time that the production team apparently think that the greatest challenge a human being could pose to a computer would be in presenting it with a straightforward maths question.) Rather more impressive is Dodo's question for WOTAN, "What does TARDIS stand for?", which it also manages to answer correctly.
From WOTAN's operator, Professor Brett, the Doctor learns that in a few days, all the computers in the world will be linked up under WOTAN's control. Intrigued, he decides to learn more by heading across London to a meeting of the Royal Scientific Club, which is holding a press conference about the linkup chaired by Sir Charles Summer. Dodo, means while, heads off to go clubbing in London with Brett's assistant, a pretty twentysomething named Polly.
But of course, all is not well with WOTAN. The machine has apparently determined that humanity has reached its maximum potential, and that further development of Planet Earth cannot occur with us in charge. It therefore decides to take control itself. After the Doctor, Dodo and Polly have left, the machine uses some sort of thought ray to take control of Brett, and shortly thereafter of a second operator, Professor Krimpton, and the security chief for the Tower, Major Green.
Polly takes Dodo to the Inferno, "the hottest nightspot in London", where they meet Ben Jackson, a Royal Navy able seaman. At first, Ben and Polly take a dislike to each other, as Polly finds Ben rather grumpy. But when Ben comes to Polly's defence after a male clubgoer tries to impose himself on her, the two soon become fast friends.
Dodo misses out on this, as she's been called away by a phone call--from WOTAN. The machine has determined that in order to take over the world, it needs to add the Doctor to its hypnotically controlled army. It therefore takes control of Dodo over the phone, so that she can gain control of the Doctor. (In my head, when Dodo put the phone up to her ear, she heard the class 1990s staticky whistle of a modem, which instantly hypnotised her.)
The next morning, the Doctor is having breakfast at Sir Charles's house when Dodo gets him on the phone with WOTAN. The machine transmits its hypnotic signal, but the signal has no effect on the Doctor. At this point the Doctor realises that Dodo is under mind control, so he places her into a hypnotic trance to remove WOTAN's influence from her. She then falls into a deep sleep; the Doctor says she'll probably sleep for two days. Sir Charles therefore orders her taken out to his country house, where his wife can take care of her while she recovers. This rather underwhelming departure moment is Dodo's very last appearance in Doctor Who--we won't see her again.
From Dodo, the Doctor has learnt that WOTAN has ordered the construction of "war machines" at strategic points around London, to facilitate its takeover of the city and from there, the world. When Polly fails to show up for a lunch appointment, the Doctor sends Ben to look for her.
She has, of course, been hypnotised by WOTAN. Ben finds her at a warehouse in Covent Garden, where she and a team of other WOTAN-whammied labourers are busy constructing one of the war machines, which are essentially small, unmanned robotic tanks. Ben doesn't understand that she's under hypnosis, and so attempts to rescue her, but this results only in his own capture by WOTAN's servants.
He's put to work on the war machine's construction, albeit without being hypnotised. Soon enough, he escapes; Polly, though still under mind control, sees him but fails to raise the alarm. Ben returns to the Doctor and Sir Charles and tells them about the war machine.
At Sir Charles's instigation, an army unit descends on the warehouse, but the war machine makes short work of them. As the army retreats, the Doctor stands his ground with the war machine bearing down upon him, and he's able to get behind the machine and pull out its connections, cutting its power.
But the danger isn't over yet--other war machines are under construction all across London. And one of them now emerges, trundling its way through the streets and sending Londoners fleeing in panic. The streets become deserted, and for the first time in Doctor Who, we get a faux-news report, with a real television news anchor (Kenneth Kendall, in this case) warning Londoners that the government wants them to stay inside.
At the Doctor's direction, the army lure this new war machine into a three-sided square of giant electrical cables. As soon as the war machine enters the square, Ben drags a fourth electrical cable across the ground behind it, closing the square and completing the circuit. This cuts the war machine's signal from WOTAN, and it powers down.
The Doctor is now able to reprogramme the captured war machine, and once that's done he restores power to it. He then leads it to the GPO Tower, where it destroys WOTAN, thus freeing all his victims from mind control.
The Doctor now makes plans to leave London once again. He's standing outside the TARDIS, waiting for Dodo to arrive, when Ben and Polly approach him with a message from her--she's decided to stay behind and won't be returning. A little disappointed, the Doctor heads inside, preparing to depart for points unknown. But as she and Ben are leaving, Polly realises she forgot to return the TARDIS key that Dodo had given her. She and Ben therefore head back to the TARDIS, which they of course think is just a normal police box. They find the door unlocked and, despite Ben's protestations that he has to be back to his barracks soon, head inside. Of course, as soon as they do, the TARDIS dematerialises.
What Lisa thought
I don't know that this one made much of an impression on her. She says only that she was constantly surprised that the war machines being constructed kept turning out to be war machines and not Daleks.
We did both get a chuckle out of WOTAN's famous line that, "Doctor Who is required," rather than "The Doctor is required." My theory? Well, it's established when WOTAN deduces the meaning of the word "TARDIS" that it's capable of understanding things without having any input that should enable it to reach that understanding. I think WOTAN has correctly deduced that it's in a television programme.
The next story is "The Smugglers", in which the Doctor, Ben and Polly land in seventeenth-century Cornwall and get caught up with a band of pirates trying to discover the whereabouts of Avery's Gold. (It's not until the 2011 prequel "Curse of the Black Spot" that we discover what actually happened to Avery's Gold--it was dumped overboard by Captain Avery, the Doctor, Rory and Amy Pond to prevent the Siren that was hosting their ship from having any reflective surfaces in which to manifest itself.)
"The Smugglers" has now been lost, so our next story will be "The Tenth Planet".
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