As mentioned in our look at the episode The Planet of Decision, the original history of the robots as envisioned by Terry Nation differed greatly from that given to them by the time they reached the screen. In The Chase, they are simply mindless robot drones, carrying out pre-programmed functions which include preparing a living environment for colonists from Earth, collecting specimens of flora and fauna, and protecting their work from aggressors.
They have a language, but it is a machine code which uses only a handful of English words, accompanied by numbers. Without the key to that code, Steven Taylor and the TARDIS crew are unable to communicate with them.
Terry Nation's original idea was that they were built by a humanoid race hundreds of years ago and developed some sort of sentience. They rebelled against their master and destroyed them, creating their own robotic society as self-governing artificial lifeforms. It's this version of the Mechonoids which arrived in the Dalek comic strip in TV Century 21 in March 1966.
On screen, there is some evidence of that earlier history - perhaps elements of that earlier draft which have survived. We hear a Dalek claim to have identified the Mechonoids - referring to them as "Mechons" - and they know that this is the planet Mechanus. It is odd, also, that the planet should be named thus, when it is due to be colonised by human beings.
In the comic strip, the Mechonoids are called "Mechanoids" by the Daleks, who have records of them - including images - but don't seem to have actually encountered them. These robots have different colour schemes (the props were all metallic blue in The Chase), and the Emperor claims they have positronic brains (as someone will later say of the Daleks themselves).
The comic strip Mechonoids also speak English fairly fluently, and are powerful enough to have their own empire.
They see the Daleks as a threat, and so determine to stop them encroaching on their space.
To this end they send a spacecraft, hidden within a space cloud, to spy on them as they build a new space station. They also employ a suspicion-ray, which causes one Dalek on the station to turn against its own kind. The Daleks discover their presence and destroy the craft - only for the Mechonoids to retaliate and destroy a Dalek saucer.
Later, an alien race of blue-skinned humanoids - Zerovians - fear a Dalek-Mechonoid war. This coincides with a rogue planet travelling through space, which has been deflected onto a collision course with Skaro. The Zerovians don't want their presence noticed by either side, so send an android - 2K - on a mission to avert the war. The Daleks decide to divert the planet to save Skaro - and to send it off in the direction of Mechanus to destroy the Mechonoids. 2K has to visit both the home of the Daleks and the home of the Mechonoids to save both - making it look to each race that it was their supposed enemy which acted to save them. Thus, tensions are lessened for now.
The comic strip was discontinued a few weeks after this story, but no doubt the Mechonoids would have returned as a recurring threat had it continued.
The Mechonoids were also marketed as a small, cheap, plastic toy. They were manufactured by a company called Cherilea (the name deriving from its founders' names - Cherrington and Leaver).
They were already producing a range of Dalek figures, notable for being multi-coloured. Their gimmick was that children could swap components around to create new colour combinations. These were called "Swappits". The Mechonoid figures (once again called "Mechanoids") followed the same pattern, coming in a variety of colours.
When it became clear that the Mechonoids were just one-hit wonders, and wouldn't be coming back to the TV series, Cherilea decided to rebrand them as "space pods", divorced from any Doctor Who connection:
According to the BBC novel War of the Daleks, the Movellans were built as servants by the Mechonoids. Another novel has Morbius transport some into the Death Zone on Gallifrey. (And people wonder why I don't cover the books on this blog...).
The robots also featured on audio, such as in Big Finish's Juggernauts:
This saw Davros give the Mechonoids organic components and renamed as "Juggernauts". These ones had also been abandoned due to a cancelled Earth colonisation.
More recently, the BBC attempted a multi-platform Doctor Who adventure with the overall title of "Time Lord Victorious". Part of this was a crudely animated series of short on-line episodes called Daleks!. There were five instalments, running to 13-15 minutes per episode.
The Mechonoids featured in this, now ruled - bizarrely, for a robot race - by a Queen (voiced by Anjli Mohindra of The Sarah Jane Adventures). The Daleks and Mechonoids were forced to co-operate against an extra-dimensional entity which threatened them both, though the Daleks quickly exploited then abandoned their allies.
Presumably the self-same reasons for the Mechonoids failing to make a return still apply - their bulkiness and limited narrative value - so we shouldn't hold our breath waiting to see them back in the series, unless in a cameo role. At least one fan-built prop exists that could be used (though it's painted silver rather than metallic blue).
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