The Robots Of Death: Ranking - 111

                   The Robots Of Death

(Season 14, Dr 4 with Leela, 29/1/1977-19/2/1977, producer: Phillip Hinchcliffe, script editor: Robert Holmes, writer: Chris Boucher, director: Michael E Briant) 

Rank: 111

  'The robot butler did it. Well, sort of. Well, not exactly. Well, ish'. 

 

 Another Doctor Whodunnit next and arguably the best of the handful of murder mysteries the series has done, not least because what we’re tracking down isn’t just the murderer but the android they used to kill with. Though, like many a Hinchcliffe era story, this one borrows heavily from other sources (Frank Herbert’s’Dune’ and Isaac Asimov – not just the more famous ‘I, Robot’ stories but the ‘Black Widowers’ series, which is a bunch of scifi murder mysteries just like this one) the way Chris Boucher’s story weaves these two plot strands together and throws some Agatha Christie-isms in there too makes this one of the more memorable cases of DW recycling. This is a story that’s always shifting gears and a story that’s as deep as you want it to be and all things to all people: it can be just another DW action in space if that’s what you fancy, with lots of crazy space sets and costumes (oh the costumes!) to look at if that’s what you like best; it’s a pretty decent crime story for other fans who get more caught up in whose going round bumping off Sandminer workers than they do, say people getting killed off by potted plant Vervoids or giant wasps; if you’re big into the Doctor and Leela then this is a story all about them trying to prove their innocence when they naturally fall under suspicion, arriving just as people are dying (great timing there Tardis!); there are lots of scenes exploring this new world and mankind’s far future with its quirky characters and class system;while on another level this is a deep allegorical story that asks that age-old DW question of what throwing robots into a human world would do to them – and to us. At times the Humans are much more like the robots than the Vox and the Dumbs, robots with different degrees of intelligence, scheming and distant towards their companions. On the other hand the robots themselves have their own society that feels as real to us as anything the Humans have. While some of the other Hinchcliffe stories are all about the horror and having fun with the source material and twisting it to fit a DW concept, this one feels ‘real’ – of all the 1970s writers Boucher had one of the best eyes for human observation and these people feel plausibly like us despite the differences of the age and times. You really do care when these characters die, or are hurt, or how they feel when the Doctor points out the lies they’ve been living their whole lives. Boucher’s trump card as a writer is not just making other worlds come to life, which a lot of DW writers do well, but in making three-dimensional characters you understand even when you don’t agree with them – he does it by making the baddies sympathetic here and its surely a big reason why Dalek creator Terry Nation ‘poached’ him for ‘Blake’s 7’ the following year, when we end up totally on the side of bandits murderers and thieves for four series. Often the future in DW can look ridiculous and some of these costumes do look a little on the silly side (mind you, if thick eyebrows and orange tans can come back into fashion again whose to say crescent moon hats won’t be all the rage in a few millennia?) but by throwing a few ‘old’ designs in there too (notably the art deco designs coming back into fashion again) this one seems more plausibly futuristic-real than maybe any other in DW, realising how every age borrows from the past rather than ramming headfirst into the future; it’s certainly more memorable than yet another stainless steel spaceship that looks like a hospital. If there’s a downside, well, its the whodunnit angle. With such a small cast and so many of them getting bumped off there’s only a small number of people the killer can be – and two less than the characters realise given that we know it can’t be the Doctor or Leela. After (spoilers) Poul is revealed to be the future equivalent of an undercover cop (suffering from robophobia – here named ‘Grimwade’s Syndrome’ as a Tom Baker in-joke after production assistant and future DW director Peter Grimwade complained that every story he worked on seemed to involve robots somewhere) the suspect is even more obvious. Bigger spoilers: It’s Taren Capel, a scientist who believes robots are superior to humans. Which you should have guessed because he’s practically the only one left, And the person in charge of all the robots. And because he’s seen full screen in episode three in a truly ridiculous reveal (hardly a three-pipe problem for budding Sherlocks that). A few tweaks and the whodunnit aspect could have worked nicely – certainly the motivations of the people involved ring true, even the ones you can rule out - but you can’t help but feel that Boucher just isn’t interested in that aspect – he wants to explore this world and the dynamics of a world where everyone thinks robots can’t hurt humans, but mistakes, complacency and paranoia can do funny things to their programmers. Most interesting of all is what this does to the robots themselves – D84 has a true existentialist crisis and its surely no coincidence Douglas Adams is writing his first draft of ‘Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To the Galaxy’ when this story goes out (and will be DW script editor himself not long after); he’s the serious version of ‘Marvin’ and what happens to robots who understand how futile their role in life is and how few rights they have. What with AI opening up many of the same questions, ‘Robots’ feels if anything more timely now than when it went out. This is Leela’s second story and as her creator Boucher gets her character spot on and her mixture of action and intuition, working off instinct and body language in a world where robots don’t have any and humans are covering up all sorts of secrets, makes for a worthy contrast against the robots and the soppy humans who’ve become used to robots doing everything for them. Her dialogue is littered with maxims from her homeworld and she’s even more of a pupil to the Doctor’s teacher than ever – albeit a reluctant one (her reaction to the scene where the Doctor tries to describe the dimensions of the Tardis and how it works – ‘that’s silly’ – is priceless and always turning up in clips compilations). Tom Baker isn’t quite right this story though: he’s in one of his cross-patchy moods and is, unusually for him, lowkey and all but wiped off the screen by the other actors (maybe its because his is actually the most ‘normal’ costume on screen for once?!) In fact its the acting all round doesn’t quite match the script, though David Collings (that’s Silver in ‘Sapphire and Steel’ to you – and indeed me) is excellent as ever and the robots are all first-class (err, whatever their class) the other humans are a hammy lot this week, often on the verge of hysterics, tears or fits. Although even that somehow works: this is the first (of many as it turns out) DW stories set in the future where, far from being traditional action heroes or clinical scientists getting on with their work calmly, they’re just like ‘us’ at home but in space, the constant sea of robotic faces making humans ever more emotional and less robotic. Its the sign of a writer whose done a lot of thinking about his world before he ever put pen to paper – I just wish they’d done a bit less of it, that’s all. For the most part though ‘Robots’ has it all – arguably the best robots in DW in design and character complexity, one of the better modern day sets, a plot that’s simple but is a useful launchpad to asking difficult questions and some cracking dialogue. So much so that even some of the people in my life that hate DW quite like this one and don’t ‘throw hands’ in horror every time I watch it. – even the ones who ‘throw hands’ at me for watching it don’t blow the fuses they normally do. Which might explain why its the one non-anniversary/Dalek story that was picked for early release for both the video and DVD markets, a useful entry point to the series even if no other story quite goes where this one does.

+ The robot designs are gorgeous. Forget your bog-standard supermarket brand own faceless drones seen in other stories, the art deco masks and the gold hues make these seem like the deluxe models. Combined with Gregory De Polney’s acting skills you’ll care for this robot more than any other in scifiland. After K9 and Marvin the Paranoid Android anyway. Allegedly one of the reasons it all looks so good is that producer Phillip Hinchcliffe was told during the making of this story that owing to the pressure from Mary Whitehouse he was going to be taken off the series and replaced by Graham Williams, so decided not to worry about money anymore and make his last stories look amazing, letting his departments splash out knowing that they couldn’t fire him twice. Though unconfirmed, certainly this story and ‘Talons Of Weng Chiang’ look a lot more impressive than most other 4^th Dr stories – and its notable just how cheap the following season looks by comparison.

- ‘Robots Of Death’ is, for the most part a serious story – the tension builds up across three and a half episodes precisely because it feels as if this story and the outcome is important. And then we get that ending where (spoilers) the villain is defeated by flooding the room with helium gas so Taren Capel can’t give orders to robots and talks in a squeaky voice. Then in the joke at the end Leela starts talking in a squeaky voice too and everyone laughs, like we’re in one of those bad sitcoms from the 1980s with tag excruciatingly smug tag scenes rather than a high class scifi drama.