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WHO441: What happens when a machine decides humanity’s future is best left to pure logic? Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin examine The War Machines. Set in contemporary 1966 London, this First Doctor adventure delivers a surprisingly grounded and unsettling warning about artificial intelligence long before the term became common. At the center is WOTAN, a computer that believes it can guide human progress better than humans themselves. Its methods—hypnosis, emotional detachment, and disposable people—raise chilling questions that feel even sharper today. Dom and Jimmy discuss how silence, stark visuals, and real-world locations make this story unusually tense, and why its atmosphere still works decades later. They also tackle the elephant in the room: Dodo’s sudden and unsatisfying exit. Was she treated unfairly? Why has history underestimated her as a companion? From there, the conversation turns to the introduction of Ben and Polly, whose accidental arrival in the TARDIS sets up one of the show’s classic companion dynamics. Along the way, they explore the Doctor’s moral ambiguity, early hints of UNIT-style storytelling, and how The War Machines foreshadows later Doctor Who threats like the Cybermen. As the podcast nears a hiatus after completing its classic-era journey, this episode serves as both a thoughtful analysis and a fitting milestone.

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