Sunday 17 April 2011

Spin Off City - Auton

Whereas "Shakedown" had the benefit of location footage to enhance the viewing, "Auton" can be summed up as an hour spent running around a warehouse, trying to avoid some animated strawberry jam.  And that's probably being generous.

I''m not saying "Auton" is bad, somewhere in there it probably has some good ideas.  It's just that they're buried deep under lots of deep and meaningful talking.  A nestene energy unit is re-animated in a warehouse, some UNIT people turn up (including the "mysterious" Lockwood, no Mr, just Lockwood), one of the warehouse staff gets possessed and transformed into a humming Auton.  Other autons show up and smash their way through very obviously empty cardboard boxes and Lockwood acts all mysterious and knowing. Doctor's device from "Spearhead" gets used.  The End.

The props and auton creatures are very lovingly re-created.  Lockwood is played well though the mystery bit is overdone.  Yet somehow the whole thing falls very flat.  There's not much in the way of atmosphere, the crates are too obviously empty and it's just rather linear.  No twists, very little that's unexpected and all of the shots in the warehouse are lacking in menace or decent direction.  It's almost as though they had the idea of bringing the Autons back and were determined to make it as dull as possible. A shame as it could have been so much more, even without a budget.

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