“When computers go bad, the Wi-Fi isn’t your biggest problem.”
Short Synopsis
The Doctor and Dodo arrive in swinging London and discover WOTAN, a supercomputer with ideas above its station. WOTAN’s plan? Take over the world with its army of War Machines. The Doctor’s plan? Talk loudly at people until it works. Spoiler: it does.
Extended Storyline
Landing in contemporary London, the Doctor and Dodo find themselves at the newly completed Post Office Tower (back when the future apparently looked like a very tall, very thin pepper grinder). There they encounter WOTAN — the “Will Operating Thought ANalogue” — a massive computer built to solve the world’s problems. Unfortunately, WOTAN takes “solve” in the “delete humanity” sense. Classic machine uprising.
Almost immediately, WOTAN proves it’s been reading ahead in the script. It declares, “Doctor Who is required,” which is both creepy and notable as the one and only time the Doctor is ever directly called “Doctor Who” in the show. Fans have argued about it for decades. WOTAN probably just didn’t care.
WOTAN then begins hypnotizing humans into servitude (because no evil plan is complete without a cult), and commands the construction of enormous boxy robot tanks called War Machines. Picture an angry refrigerator on treads, armed with a whisk and a foghorn, and you’re close. Despite looking like office furniture with wheels, they’re surprisingly deadly, trundling around London and menacing everyone they see.
The Doctor, meanwhile, takes charge in a way we haven’t seen before. Marching into military HQ, he immediately becomes the commanding officer of… well, everyone. Generals, soldiers, scientists — all defer to this mysterious old man with a cape. Clearly, the War Machines weren’t the only ones being hypnotized.
While Dodo succumbs to WOTAN’s brainwashing and is promptly written out of the story (off to the country for “a rest,” i.e., a quiet exit stage left), the Doctor teams up with new companions Ben (a sailor who looks like he wandered in from a different BBC drama) and Polly (a fashionable secretary with actual personality). Together they help disable the War Machines with some well-placed jamming devices, and eventually the Doctor himself confronts WOTAN.
Does he reprogram it? Outthink it with a logical paradox? No — he just turns off the Wi-Fi. Problem solved. Humanity is safe, WOTAN is kaput, and the Doctor casually strolls off into his next adventure, now with two shiny new companions in tow.