Doctor Who – Robot – Review

One great era ends, another begins.

Synopsis

In front of the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith, the dying Third Doctor regenerates into the Fourth. He is unstable and taken into the medical care of UNIT’s medical officer, Lt. Harry Sullivan. Mea by anwhile, something unseen and powerful steals the plans for a disintegrator gun. Later, some of the components needed to build the device are also stolen.

The Brigadier arranges for Sarah to visit Think Tank, a top security government brain trust working on frontiers of science research. While there, her journalistic instincts are aroused by the empty laboratory of Professor Kettlewell. She returns, unannounced and is attacked by a giant robot.

The attack is just a “joke” to frighten her, played by Miss Winters, director of Think Tank. Miss Winters demonstrates to Sarah that the robot couldn’t hurt anyone by ordering it to kill Sarah. The robot cannot because it conflicts with his Prime Directive – to never hurt humanity.

The Doctor is still being wild and unpredictable, but the investigation leads him to describe the perpetrator to be something just like Kettlewell’s robot. When Sarah returns with her report about the Miss Winters the robot, the suspicion falls on Think Tank.

Miss Winters and her assistant, Jellicoe, are reprograming the robot, overriding his prime directive. They are forcing him to kill and, after his latest assignment, goes instead to find his father, Prof. Kettlewell. Kettlewell calls the Doctor, warning the robot might have a mental breakdown, but when the Doctor arrives, Kettlewell has been trussed up in a cabinet and the robot attacks the Doctor. Only Sarah’s intervention, and the timley arrival of Warrant Officer Benton saves the Doctor.

The robot’s next task is to steal the control codes for all the world superpower’s nuclear missiles. Winters runs the SRS, a fascist organization aiming for a scientific elite to rule the world. Sarah tried to infiltrate one of their meetings, but Kettlewell is revealed to be a traitor and the robot captures Sarah.

UNIT arrives, but are unable to prevent their escape with Sarah as a hostage.

The bad guys retreat to a top security underground bunker and try to blackmail the world. Meanwhile, UNIT makes slow progress towards getting into the bunker. When it looks like UNT might get in, they send the robot to defend them while they launch the missiles.

Kettlewell has a change of heart. He really wasn’t a fascist, he just wanted to make the world a better place, so he stops the countdown and helps Sara and Harry (who was captured while trying to get information out of Think Tank) to escape. The robot, suffering great mental anguish accidentally kills Kettlewell, sending him completely into madness.

Miss Winters restarts the countdown, but the Doctor stops it and the SRS people are cleared up. The robot takes Sarah hostage and decides to carry out Kettlewell’s plan of destroying all life on the planet.

The Doctor uses Kettlewell’s notes to try to develop a metal virus which can destroy the seemingly-indestructable robot. The Brigadier has another plan and uses the disintegrator gun on the robot. Unexpectedly, the robot grows to a 30 foot giant, picks up Sarah and goes on a rampage.

The Doctor arrives with the metal virus, which destroys the robot and the day is saved.

Sarah is depressed about the death of the robot and to cheer her up the Doctor offers to take her on a trip in the TARDIS. Just as they are leaving, Harry arrives and the Doctor tricks him into the TARDIS and they all leave.

Analysis

This episode was certainly a throwback to a simpler time. Terrance Dicks does a journeyman job on the story, which introduced many of the Fourth Doctor’s eccentricities. The episode is also really more of a Pertwee era story, with UNIT acting as a credible, if largely impotent, military force. The story also carries on the strong Pertwee-era theme of distrust of scientists, which probably did long term damage to the psyche of many a British child in the 70’s.

Baker’s Doctor is off to a solid start. Unlike many other regeneration stories where the Doctor is completely screwed up, in this story, even though Baker is erratic, it doesn’t come off as forced and seems more like real manifestations of his personality.

Sarah’s character slips in quite nicely with this new Doctor although she and the Doctor spend less time together than the Doctor and the Brigadier, who has a bit more difficulty dealing with the new Doctor.

The new companion, Harry Sullivan, who had been developed before the new Doctor had been cast, was brought in to do the physical work should the new Doctor be an old man. The character proved to be superfluous and was written out after one season.

DVD Extras

There are not a lot of extras on this DVD. The major features are a commentary track and the now-ubiquitous “making of” feature. In this case the feature concentrates a lot on the casting and transition to the Fourth Doctor.

There are several other period pieces, such as a Blue Peter episode shot on the Robot sets.

As an interesting note, on the Blue Peter they make fun of Americans because they found a record album that contains horoscopes for dogs from an American store. I assume they’re not laughing now, since Britain has certainly “caught up” to the US for pseudoscientific crap like Astrology. Perhaps that’s the direct result of all these 1970’s Doctor Who episodes using scientists as the bad guys. You reap what you sow. Perhaps Richard Dawkins should be looking here to find his Enemies of Reason.

Doctor Who
Robot
Story #75
Written by Terrance Dicks
Starring Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney and Ian Marter.

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