When the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith arrived in the woods near the village of Devesham, location for the UK's Space Defence Centre, they encountered a group of men dressed in white overalls - their features hidden under helmets with darkened visors. The men opened fire on the Doctor and Sarah, but closer inspection would have revealed that their guns were actually built into their hands. The group hunted them through the woods and they found their way to the village itself. This appeared to be deserted, until a lorry turned up with a number of villagers sitting on the back. It was driven by the white-suited men.
Sarah got a closer look at one of them, when he had his visor raised, and was shocked to find that he was not a human being at all. Beneath the helmet were electronic components. The men were really androids - basic drone servants to the alien Kraals. The entire village and its surroundings were an elaborate mock-up on the Kraal home planet of Oseidon, a training ground for an imminent invasion of Earth. The Doctor was later arrested by the Mechanics and locked up by them.
Played by: Keith Ashley, Roy Pearce, Clinton Morris and Derek Hunt. Appearances: The Android Invasion (1975).
- The extras playing the Mechanics were not credited on screen.
- Ashley had a more prominent role later in the story, as the android man in the landing pod who tries to seize Sarah. He was a regular monster performer (including a Dalek in Genesis, a Zygon and both versions of the Krynoid) and background artist throughout the 1970's. His first appearance was as one of the Elder citizens in The Savages, and his final role was as one of the Brotherhood of Demnos in The Masque of Mandragora. One of the programme's unsung heroes, he died in 2007.
- In dialogue, these androids are called "robot mechanics" at one point, and "service mechanics" at another.
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