12x1. Robot
Writer: Terrance Dicks
Director: Christopher Barry
Script Editor: Robert Holmes
Producer: Barry Letts
Synopsis: The newly
regenerated Doctor, after overcoming some initial disorientation,
becomes involved in a UNIT investigation of the theft of designs and
equipment needed to make a dangerous disintegrator gun. The culprits
are a ruthless group of scientists associated with Think Tank and the
Scientific Reform Society (SRS), who have constructed an advanced robot
to assist in their plan to take control of the world via nuclear
blackmail.
Review: If "Spearhead from
Space" was practically a second pilot for Doctor Who, "Robot" takes the
opposite approach, introducing a new Doctor and a new companion in the
familiar context of an Earth-bound UNIT narrative about megalomaniacs
trying to take over the world. As such, it would prove to be atypical
for the Tom Baker era, but it's still a decent story and an engaging
first look at the incarnation who would come to be the series'
best-known Doctor.
Though he had his comedic moments, Jon Pertwee's Doctor was by and
large a very serious and straightforward individual; as I commented in
my "Planet of the Spiders" review, he was probably the most
conventional hero of the first three Doctors. Baker's incarnation,
however, is clearly headed in exactly the opposite direction,
establishing himself as an unpredictable eccentric who always finds
room for whimsical humor and sometimes even uses it as a weapon. Some
of his strangest antics occur in the context of his post-regenerative
confusion, such as when he catches Harry Sullivan off guard with a game
of jump-rope and promptly ties him up in an attempt to escape into the
TARDIS. Still, the off-kilter behavior continues throughout, ranging
from lying on a table with his hat covering his face during a
conversation to the endless pocket-search that enables him to catch the
SRS bouncer off-guard. It helps that the script gives him some good
one-liners; clearly Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes quickly picked up
on their new lead actor's peculiar talents, because it's difficult to
imagine them writing exchanges like "What's wrong with [the word]
'unsinkable?'" "'Nothing,' as the iceberg said to the Titanic" for
Hartnell or Troughton or Pertwee. The mischievous side we see at the
beginning is clearly not just a product of disorientation: the big grin
that crosses his face in the first episode when he first sees the
TARDIS reminds me of nothing so much as a child who's just found his
favorite toy, and this is echoed at the end when Sarah tells him he's
being childish and he responds by asking why be grown-up if you can't
be childish once in a while.
The new Doctor is clearly at the top of the agenda in this serial, but
the supporting cast have some good moments too. Sarah gets a chance to
shine in Episode 1 when she senses that something suspicious is
happening at Think Tank and finds the Robot after bluffing her way in,
demonstrating the cleverness and determination that has made her an
appealing companion. Harry Sullivan, the newest addition to the cast,
is correctly characterized as "old-fashioned" by Sarah and perfectly
fits the mold of the loveable but somewhat bumbling protagonist, as his
attempt to infiltrate Think Tank eventually fails and prompts a
derisive snort of "James Bond!" from Sarah. This isn't a major serial
for the Brigadier, but it's at least clear now that he's recovered from
his lapse into buffoonery in the middle of the Pertwee era, coming
across as smart and resourceful even if he's occasionally on the
receiving end of a zinger from the Doctor. (In addition to the joke
about "unsinkable," another memorable exchange, and another indication
of the new Doctor's slightly subversive personality, is when the
Brigadier comments that only Britain could be trusted with the
disintegrator gun blueprints, causing the Doctor to remark, "Well,
naturally, I mean, the rest were all foreigners.") He also has a more
overt moment of fear than we've ever seen from him before, when he
bellows at Winters to stop the nuclear launch and seems genuinely and
understandably panicked as the Doctor tries to hack the system. Benton
doesn't have a whole lot to do in this one, though we do learn that
he's been given a promotion to Warrant Officer because budget
restraints have precluded the assignment of a new Captain to serve
under the Brigadier. It makes sense for Benton given that he's been a
reliable officer for several years, but I'm not sure what to make of
the notion that UNIT is underfunded -- wouldn't those with proper
security clearance be aware that the organization has saved the world
on numerous occasions?
The human villains in "Robot" are sufficiently intimidating, if not
especially complex. Hilda Winters has a chilling scene in which she
delivers a diatribe about how SRS will soon assume their rightful place
as the planets' rulers, her indiscriminate anger revealing what I can
only describe as a disturbing hatred of humanity itself. While there
doesn't seem to be much to her character beyond that, you certainly
have no trouble believing that this woman is dangerous and that she's
not kidding around when she starts threatening nuclear holocaust.
Professor Kettlewell has apparently thrown in his lot with SRS because
he's tired of seeing the planet polluted (and also assumes erroneously
that Winters will relent and call off the nuclear launches if their
demands are not met), but the others seem motivated only by power.
Kettlewell's motivation recalls the Golden Age scheme of "Invasion of
the Dinosaurs," and his involvement in this scheme shows how misguided
idealists and self-serving thugs can end up forming an unholy alliance.
Still, while the observations about elitist hypocrisy in seeking to
deny others their basic human rights "for their own good" (as one SRS
representative tells Sarah) are valid, they're also fairly obvious, and
I don't think this bunch quite rank among the best human villains of
the UNIT era.
The Robot, on the other hand, makes for a good tragic villain.
Initially programmed not to harm humans, its programming has been
tampered with by the Think Tank scientists, to the point that it seems
to suffer an ethical crisis over its actions and seeks an explanation
from its creator Kettlewell. Like Winters and the other Think Tank/SRS
types, the Robot eventually develops a deep loathing for humanity and
is prepared to kill everyone, and yet it does earn some sympathy. After
all, most of its actions are due to its program being rewritten, and
only after its betrayal by Kettlewell and the other Think Tank types
(who demonstrate for the Robot a stark example of humanity at its
worst) and its accidental killing of Kettlewell does it finally go
berserk and prepare to wipe out the human race and replace it with
machines incapable of lying. Though we can feel justified in expecting
Winters and the rest of her cadre to have known better, there's a sense
that the Robot is quite literally just not wired to handle
disappointment and betrayal, and thus its very human-like emotions
drive it to the point of being ready to commit genocide while still
promising to spare Sarah, the only person to demonstrate genuine
concern for its well-being. As the Doctor comments at the end, the
Robot was in fact very human in its capacity for both great good and
great evil. (Incidentally, though it was justifiable to destroy the
Robot under the circumstances, the Doctor's complete lack of hesitation
at the end hint that there may also be a slightly darker shade to this
eccentric new incarnation. I don't doubt that even Pertwee's Doctor
would have eventually resorted to lethal force, but he would have
almost certainly been more regretful about it, whereas the final scene
in "Robot" instead finds Sarah feeling sad and the comparatively aloof
Doctor having to explain himself.)
If there's anything that brings "Robot" down a notch (aside from the
somewhat routine plot), it's a quality that I am forced to categorize
as simple sloppiness for lack of a better term. Though the story as a
whole holds together, there are a lot of little odd moments where I
couldn't help but wonder if another rewrite or two might have helped.
For one thing, there are just too many scenes of the Robot lumbering
around being Big, Scary, and Unstoppable. Once or twice is fine, but
after a while it becomes a drag on the story's pace, especially when
the UNIT personnel end up doing something dumb in response. The
Brigadier's one slight moment of buffoonery comes when he shoots the
Robot with the disintegrator gun and the energy actually enlarges it --
not that it's a bad idea, but why doesn't he turn the gun off once it's
clear that it's backfiring (pun intended)? Some of his men don't come
across as the brightest bulbs around either -- at one point they fire
at an escaping vehicle but neglect to aim at the tires, and later, when
their bullets have proven ineffective against the Robot and the
Brigadier has ordered them to fall back, one of them inexplicably keeps
shooting and, not surprisingly, gets killed. And while I'm all for
establishing the new Doctor's comedic persona, it's taking things a
little too far when he bursts into the SRS meeting and has the whole
audience cracking up almost immediately. This seems awfully forced
given that (a) he's been on stage for all of about 3 seconds, and (b)
he's an enemy trying to disrupt their plans. Again, none of these bits
exactly ruin the story, but many of them also defy basic logic and
leave me scratching my head as to why they weren't somehow fixed before
production was completed.
Though "Robot" may be flawed, it's a solid entry that does what it
needs to do. The new Doctor is established and proves to be quite an
entertaining character, and the context of a UNIT story actually holds
a certain logic (there's no reason for a completely new setup a la
"Spearhead" with every new regeneration). By the time it's over, we're
more than ready to follow the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry on their first
outer-space adventure.
Rating: *** (out of four)
Back to the main Doctor
Who Reviews page.