Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Praxeus
6. Why Did The Doctor Think Of The Autons?
The rumour-mill was filled with talk of the Sea Devils returning, and for a while this looked on. The reveal of the faces behind the masked figures who had imprisoned Adam was teased more than once, with the Doctor knowing early on that they were not human. There was one shot of them walking in a manner not dissimilar from the Silurians’ aquatic cousins (last seen in Warriors of the Deep). It was a red herring, possibly even put out by the production team, which aided the surprise twist that they were Suki’s crew.
No returning foes from the past then, but we did have a lovely nod to the Autons when the Doctor speculated on the link between the plastic-filled birds and the deaths. She talks herself out of it because biological warfare is not a known M.O of the Autons. But plastics is very much their thing. The reanimated henchmen of the Nestene Consciousness, Autons were made of plastic. From shop mannequins (Spearhead from Space/Rose) to Troll dolls, telephone cords and faux leather chairs (Terror of the Autons) they follow the instructions of the hive mind, ruthlessly killing anything in their path.
Praxeus is a non-sentient pathogen, there is no controlling hive mind behind it like the Nestene. The birds are not auton slaves, they are victims of a disease which has weaponised the plastics inside them. But, last seen in The Big Bang (2010), a return to our screens for the original plastic peril would be very welcome.