‘THE AUTON INFINITY’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Autons and the Master with the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Turlough, the Brigadier and Kamelion
‘The Auton Infinity’ is a six-part story featured in the second ‘Forty’ box set of ‘Doctor Who’.
It stars Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, joined by his companions Janet Fielding as Tegan and Mark Strickson as Turlough. There’s also Jon Culshaw who plays three characters throughout this six-part story. He plays the Brigadier, the Anthony Ainley/Tremas Master and the robot companion Kamelion.
I must admit, the second ‘Forty’ box set of ‘Doctor Who’ by Big Finish wasn’t what I expected it to be. I was expecting it to be a glorious celebration of 40 years of the Fifth Doctor, featuring him, Nyssa, Tegan, Adric, Turlough, Kamelion, the Brigadier and Peri in a showdown against the Master. 🙂
You know, in a similar style to how the Tenth Doctor and his companions battled against Davros and the Daleks in ‘The Stolen Earth’/’Journey’s End’. Sadly, it wasn’t to be, which is a shame, as I enjoyed the first ‘Forty’ box set very much, since it has more variety in terms of stories compared to ‘Forty 2’.
Now, that’s not to say ‘The Auton Infinity’ is terrible. On the contrary, I think the writer Tim Foley has done a decent job in tying up the things that have been going on in the ‘Forty’ saga so far in this six-parter. ‘The Auton Infinity’ is compelling to listen to and it makes you wonder what will happen next.
But initially, I was led to believe that Sarah Sutton and Matthew Waterhouse were going to appear in ‘Forty 2’ as well with Mark Strickson and Jon Culshaw. So, you can imagine my disappointment when Sarah and Matthew’s names were taken off the cast list for ‘Forty 2’ on the Big Finish website.
Yes, there are cameos of Nyssa and Adric in ‘The Auton Infinity’ in the opening recap and during the sixth and final episode, but they’re just audio clips of them taken from ‘Secrets of Telos’ and ‘God of War’ from the first ‘Forty’ box set. They don’t count as actual proper appearances of the characters.
It’s like how the cameo appearances of most of the classic Doctors in ‘The Day of the Doctor’ don’t count as appearances, since they’re mostly stock footage from previous ‘Doctor Who’ stories. Admittedly, Nyssa and Adric’s cameos in ‘The Auton Infinity’ are way better than ‘The Day of the Doctor’ cameos.
You can at least hear what Nyssa and Adric are saying from the audio clips of ‘Secrets of Telos’ and ‘God of War’ compared to trying to make out what the Doctors in ‘The Day of the Doctor’s climax were saying when it seemed a rush and there was a lot of Murray Gold’s music in the background. 😐
But at the end of the day, Nyssa and Adric’s cameos in ‘Forty 2’ are what they are in matching to most of the Doctors’ cameos in ‘The Day of the Doctor’. They’re stock audio footage of previous stories. Nyssa and Adric don’t even get to help out at all in resolving the crisis in ‘The Auton Infinity’.
And yes, yes. I know not every Fifth Doctor story has to feature Nyssa and Adric when Big Finish are doing Fifth Doctor era stories every year. I’ve come to that realisation quite contentedly. But it’s sad the last Fifth Doctor era 40th anniversary story in the ‘Forty’ saga doesn’t have all the companions.
I know it sounds ambitious and it’s a lot to expect from Big Finish to have every element of the Fifth Doctor era in ‘The Auton Infinity’, including having every companion the Fifth Doctor knows in the finale story of the ‘Forty’ saga. But sometimes, I would like Big Finish to be ambitious in that manner. 🙂
They could at least make a meal of it by having Nyssa and Adric join the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion and the Brigadier for a bit to help sort out the Master and the Autons. Even Peri can pop in too. It would disrupt the timelines, but that can be easily resolved in a six-parter, can’t it?
Anyway, that’s enough ranting on my reservations about the second ‘Forty’ box set. Let’s talk about what ‘The Auton Infinity’ is all about. This story takes place during Season 21 of ‘Doctor Who’. In fact, it takes place between ‘Frontios’ and ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’, which is unusual to discover.
For the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough, it starts after they have left Frontios, having dealt with the Gravis and the Tractators, before they’re caught up in the adventure on Earth in ‘The Auton Infinity’. At the story’s end, once they’ve returned to the TARDIS, they’re caught in the Daleks’ time corridor.
It’s interesting how Tim Foley places ‘The Auton Infinity’ in-between those two stories of Season 21 in the Fifth Doctor era of ‘Doctor Who’. It helps to add on to Tegan’s anxiety and her decision to leave the TARDIS at the end of ‘Resurrection’, which we will discuss more on later during this review.
After leaving Frontios and ending up on Earth, the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough exit the TARDIS to find themselves in Snowdonia, sometime during the 1980s, I believe. I liked the in-joke about the Doctor wondering whether it was Snowdonia or Tibet that the TARDIS had landed in during the story.
I’d just seen ‘The Abominable Snowmen’ on Blu-ray recently. 🙂 The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough soon come across U.N.I.T. running a training exercise with the Brigadier in attendance as an observer. But it transpires the fake aliens in the training exercise aren’t really fake aliens at all in the adventure. 😐
Actually, they turn out to be the Autons, who are in league with the Anthony Ainley/Tremas Master, who’s brought his TARDIS disguised as the circus tent from ‘Terror of the Autons’. Can the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough with the Brigadier and U.N.I.T.’s help solve the crisis of Autons and the Master?
Another reservation I have to bring in here is that there are elements of the Third Doctor era in this story as opposed to the Fifth Doctor era. Now, I appreciate the Brigadier knew the Fifth Doctor when he encountered him in ‘Mawdryn Undead’ and it was good to hear echoes of that in this audio story.
But when U.N.I.T. members become involved as well as the aforementioned Master’s circus tent TARDIS and the Master/Auton alliance from ‘Terror of the Autons’, you could be easily led to believe that this is an action-adventure story in the style of the Jon Pertwee era than the Peter Davison era. 😐
Thankfully, we end up on a castle-like ship from Gallifrey from ‘Parts Three to Six’ where things become more interesting as to what’s going on with the ongoing ‘Forty’ saga. But even U.N.I.T. members and the Ministry of Defence character Veronica Holmes have to come for the space ride. 😐
Speaking of the ongoing ‘Forty’ saga, we finally get to find out what’s been going on with the Fifth Doctor shifting between bodies in ‘Secrets of Telos’ and ‘God of War’. It turns out it wasn’t the Master nor the Autons that were responsible for the Fifth Doctor’s shifting in and out of his timeline.
It turns out the person responsible was…the Fifth Doctor himself! Huh? Yeah, I’ll try and explain as best as I can what’s going on here. Apparently, when the Fifth Doctor from Season 21 was captured by the Master and the Autons aboard the castle-like Gallifrey ship, he’d been placed into a machine.
A machine that controlled the ship by piloting it with a Time Lord mind. As I understand it, the Fifth Doctor reached out, unconsciously I think, and extracted a splinter of the Fifth Doctor from the end of ‘Four to Doomsday’ to be placed inside… an Auton duplicate of the Fifth Doctor on the castle ship.
Are you with me so far? After the early version of the Fifth Doctor slipped in time again to end up in the TARDIS console room, extracted from the TARDIS itself, he and Kamelion worked with the Season 21 Fifth Doctor at the story’s end to stabilise the early Fifth Doctor’s slippages in his timeline.
They also did it in order to defeat the Master and the Autons as well as the first Nestene Consciousness, I believe. It is mind-boggling and I’m not sure how well I’ve explained it in my review. I would need to relisten the story in order to get a proper understanding of what’s going on.
At the end of the story, the earlier Fifth Doctor can’t go back to his body at the end of ‘Four to Doomsday’, having learnt that Adric is going to die in ‘Earthshock’ and he can’t prevent that from happening. Instead, he has a chance to see his own future where he ends up in the TARDIS with Peri.
I like that Nicola Bryant as Peri has a cameo appearance in ‘The Auton Infinity’, as her scene takes place before the start of ‘The Caves of Androzani’. It was also nice to hear how the early Fifth Doctor interacted with Peri, with Peri having no idea what he was talking about before he very soon expires.
Incidentally, it’s interesting that ‘The Auton Infinity’ was made as a six-parter to form the second ‘Forty’ box set rather than have it be two stories – a four-parter and a two-parter like in the first ‘Forty’ box set. Six-part stories are often rare in the Fifth Doctor era compared to previous eras of the show.
There are of course six-part stories like ‘Cold Fusion’ featuring the Fifth and Seventh Doctor TARDIS teams and there’s arguably ‘The Game’ featuring the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa. I’ve also written a couple of six-parters in my own series of ‘Doctor Who’ stories with the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy.
They include ‘Dawn of the Dwaxi’ and ‘The Stockbridge Terror’. I suppose with a lot of ground to cover, it makes sense ‘The Auton Infinity’ had to be a six-part story. Mind you, I still prefer the first ‘Forty’ box set over the second one, as, like I said, there is more variety to enjoy in terms of stories. 🙂
Peter Davison in ‘The Auton Infinity’.
Peter Davison is excellent throughout this six-part adventure. I enjoyed how he played the two versions of the Fifth Doctor in this adventure and how he interacted with characters like Tegan, Turlough, the Brigadier, Kamelion and the Master. He plays the younger and older Fifth Doctors well.
You can tell the energy is there throughout his performances of both versions of the Fifth Doctor. There’s the young Fifth Doctor who’s inexperienced yet wants to be helpful, and there’s the older Fifth Doctor who knows what state his younger self is in, as they both work together to solve a crisis.
Incidentally, I enjoyed seeing Peter Davison in a behind-the-scenes photo, wearing his Fifth Doctor outfit, including the question-mark shirt and his cricket pullover whilst his hat is on a hatstand behind him whilst he recorded the story at home. He’s even wearing the Fifth Doctor trousers in the photo. 🙂
Janet Fielding in ‘The Auton Infinity’.
Janet Fielding is very good as Tegan in this adventure. It’s interesting how Tegan develops as a character throughout this story. The thing that stood out for me with Tegan is how she reflects on how the times she spent with the Doctor in the TARDIS, as they come across death in their travels. 😐
It sets things up nicely for what’s to happen in ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’ and it’s what prompts her to leave at the end of that story, rather than just have it be brought up out of nowhere, as was the case when it was transmitted on TV back in 1984. It’s interesting ‘The Auton Infinity’ explores that angle.
I liked it when Tegan interacted with the young Fifth Doctor in the Auton body and she recollected him slipping in time in ‘Secrets of Telos’. Her reaction to him not telling her he was slipping in time in ‘God of War’ was interesting. I also liked how Tegan continued to remain loyal to the Fifth Doctor here.
Mark Strickson is also very good as Turlough in this adventure. At this point, Turlough has become a seasoned traveller with the Doctor. He’s not trying to kill him and is a loyal friend, despite some of the cynicism he has. He contributes well when he, the Doctors and others try to work out a problem.
I enjoyed Turlough’s interaction with the Brigadier when they often shared scenes together. Turlough shares with him how he tried to kill the Doctor and how the Doctor forgave him for that as he didn’t do it in the end. He also shares that he’s an alien and that he wasn’t a human at Brendon School.
Turlough isn’t fully aware of the slippages in time that the younger Fifth Doctor is going through – it’s interesting how the young Fifth Doctor meets Turlough and doesn’t know him – but he’s willing to help out in the strange situation he and others are in, especially as he’s learnt a lot from the Doctor.
Jon Culshaw in ‘The Auton Infinity’.
I’m amazed that Jon Culshaw is playing three characters throughout this audio story. There’s the Brigadier, the Anthony Ainley/Tremas Master and Kamelion. When I hear him playing the Brigadier, I easily think of Nicholas Courtney as the character and don’t think of him as Jon Culshaw playing him.
I greatly enjoyed the scenes featuring the Brigadier and how he interacted with the Fifth Doctor (both of them), Tegan and Turlough. Even when the Brigadier was revealed to be not who he was at the end of ‘Part Two’, I found his scenes captivating to listen to, and there’s still a real Brig at the end. 🙂
I’ve heard Jon Culshaw voice the Brigadier in ‘The Legacy of Time’, ‘Terror of the Master’ and ‘Old Friends’. It was nice to hear how he continued to be a loyal friend of the Doctor’s and being the action man. His line about the Doctor being ‘too good’ at times was interesting and great to listen to.
Jon Culshaw’s performance as the Anthony Ainley/Tremas Master was enjoyable and interesting to listen to. I’ve only heard him as the Anthony Ainley/Tremas Master once in ‘Masterful’ and even then, he wasn’t the real Anthony Ainley/Tremas Master. He was actually Kamelion in that audio story.
I can’t say Jon Culshaw’s voice for Anthony Ainley’s Master is an exact recreation, but I could easily visualise Anthony Ainley’s Master in the story, even when he slipped from being the Brigadier to the Master at the end of ‘Part Two’. It was interesting to find the Master working with the Autons again.
You’d think the Master would have learned his lesson from working with the Autons at the end of ‘Terror of the Autons’. It’s also intriguing how he acquired the castle ship and that he attempted to plant a copy of the Season 21 Fifth Doctor’s mind into an Auton duplicate version of the Fifth Doctor.
That was before the early Fifth Doctor from the first two ‘Forty’ stories came along. And of course, Jon Culshaw plays Kamelion in the story. Sadly, Kamelion only appears in ‘Parts Five and Six’ of this adventure. It’s a shame, as I would have liked to think that Kamelion played a bigger role in the story.
Now, that’s not to say that Kamelion doesn’t play a significant role in the story. Oh no! He actually helps out when the two Fifth Doctors need to stabilise things involving their timelines. It’s also interesting how the younger Fifth Doctor interacts with Kamelion in a rather displaced TARDIS itself.
It’s also good that Kamelion isn’t being controlled by the Master this time, as he was in ‘The King’s Demons’ and later on in ‘Planet of Fire’. I was half-expecting Kamelion to be controlled by the Master at some point in the story, but the Master didn’t seem to consider Kamelion for his agenda.
The story’s guest stars also include Juliet Aubrey as Prodigal. I’ve seen Juliet Aubrey in the 1994 BBC TV adaptation of ‘Middlemarch’ and she’s known for being in the ITV ‘Primeval’ series. In ‘Doctor Who’, she’s also been in the audio stories ‘Voyage to Venus’ and ‘Buying Time’/’The Wrong Woman’.
Prodigal is an intriguing character. She starts off by being one of the villains who’s working with the Master and is in charge of her own group of Nestenes/Autons separated from the Nestene Consciousness. She’s quite cruel to Tegan and even has her and Turlough shot down in ‘Part Two’. 😐
But as the story progresses, it turns out Prodigal is a sympathetic character and you can sort-of understand her motivations for hating the Doctor and being found by the Master in the Death Zone during ‘The Five Doctors’, before she discovers the Master’s backstabbing and she helps the Doctor.
Lucy Fleming in ‘The Auton Infinity’.
There’s also Lucy Fleming as Veronica Holmes, the Minister of Defence in this adventure. Lucy Fleming is well-known for playing Jenny Richards in the original 1970s BBC TV series ‘Survivors’ and she continues to play her in the show’s Big Finish audios. She’s also married to actor Simon Williams.
She’s also the stepmother of actor Tam Williams and apparently was the niece of James Bond-007 author Ian Fleming. Interesting. 😀 Veronica Holmes is like one of those political officials from 1970s ‘Doctor Who’, such as Brownrose from ‘Terror of the Autons’ and Chinn from ‘The Claws of Axos’. 😐
She doesn’t like it when the Brigadier and soon the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are involved in what is supposed to be a U.N.I.T. military exercise. Veronica Holmes ends up getting caught up in the adventure when she finds herself on board the castle-like Gallifreyan ship during ‘Parts Five and Six’.
There’s also Oscar Pearce as Captain Ted Mears, who sadly gets killed in ‘Part Two’ of the story. There’s Fiona Hampton as Sergeant Janet Wharry, Homer Todiwala as Corporal Vikram Plamer, and there’s Glen McCready who plays Dobson as well as the voice of the Autons throughout this story. 🙂
The Autons were interesting to listen to in this adventure. Having seen him in stories like ‘Spearhead From Space’, ‘Terror of the Autons’ and ‘Rose’; ‘The Auton Infinity’ provides a different angle for the Autons, especially as plastic masks are used to be put on the faces of human beings to be controlled.
The voices for the Autons sound exactly like the ones spoken in ‘Terror of the Autons’. It was also interesting when the Master had a formula of anti-plastic to use on the Autons. Something the Doctor, no doubt, was inspired by. He, as the Ninth Doctor, used anti-plastic as a last resort in ‘Rose’.
‘The Auton Infinity’ has been an enjoyable instalment in the ‘Forty’ saga of ‘Doctor Who’ audios by Big Finish to celebrate 40 years of Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. I can’t say I’m entirely satisfied with it, since I wish this was more of a showdown featuring the Fifth Doctor and all his companions in it. 🙂
And that includes Nyssa and Adric. With that said, I’m glad I’ve heard ‘The Auton Infinity’, as it does wrap up the storyline of the earlier Fifth Doctor slipping in and out of his timeline decently well. It can be a challenging and mind-boggling story to listen to, but I did find it captivating and engaging. 🙂
At the end of Discs 1, 2 and 3 of the second ‘Forty’ box set, there are behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and crew, including Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, Jon Culshaw, Juliet Aubrey, Lucy Fleming, director Ken Bentley, etc. There don’t seem to be suites of incidental music at the end of these recent Big Finish box sets of ‘Doctor Who’ that started in 2022 anymore. Hmm. 😐
The ‘Forty’ saga of ‘Doctor Who’ has been an enjoyable and interesting way for Big Finish to celebrate 40 years of Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. I can’t say it’s an entirely satisfying celebration for me, but for the most part, I have enjoyed Big Finish’s efforts with how they celebrated.
I enjoyed the first ‘Forty’ box set more than I enjoyed the second one. I’m glad that Big Finish were able to celebrate Peter Davison’s era of ‘Doctor Who’ for 40 years in the same way I was able to celebrate the era on ‘Bradley’s Basement’ with a blog post and ‘The Coins of Deno’ in January 2022.
Whatever manner people celebrated the Fifth Doctor’s 40th anniversary in ‘Doctor Who’, it can’t be denied that Peter Davison’s Doctor touched many people’s hearts. I feel personally connected to the Fifth Doctor era and I’m pleased I’ve met the people who have played its characters at conventions.
They include Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding, Matthew Waterhouse, Mark Strickon and Nicola Bryant. I’m also very pleased that Big Finish are still able to keep on telling us brand-new stories of the Fifth Doctor era to provide entertainment as well as to give us inspiration for the era. 🙂
Every time I listen to a brand-new Fifth Doctor era/Nyssa-related story by Big Finish, I feel compelled to keep on writing brand-new stories for the characters I enjoy writing for my blog. I’m looking forward to how Big Finish continues to keep telling Fifth Doctor/Nyssa stories to give me inspiration.
There’s certainly a lot to look forward to when it comes to celebrating the Fifth Doctor era for the 60th anniversary of ‘Doctor Who’ in 2023. I’ve already written a Fifth Doctor era story for a Divergent Wordsmiths anthology and I’m currently enjoying working on my own 60th anniversary special.
Let’s hope Big Finish will have some exciting things for us to enjoy concerning the celebration of the Fifth Doctor era and everything else in ‘Doctor Who’ for the 60th anniversary in 2023. 🙂
‘The Auton Infinity’ rating – 8/10
‘Forty’ (audio series) rating – 8/10
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For the Fifth Doctor was
For Tegan was For Turlough was For Kamelion was
For the Brigadier was
For Peri was
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For Tegan is
For Turlough is
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