OK well thought it was about time for another post on here and this one will be on another Doctor Who story and it will cover Tom Baker's first story of his tenure as the fourth doctor, Robot. So let's grab the hat, big long wooly scarf and give this one a look.....
So starting with the usual bit about the plot the story begins with the Doctor (Baker) having just regenerated falls into unconsciousness in front of his companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney). The Doctor is taken to the medical bay where he soon comes round and tries to sneak back into the TARDIS but is stopped by the medical officer, Lt Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) but the Doctor ties him up and puts him in a cupboard. But as the Doctor is about to leave in the TARDIS, the Brigadier and Sarah both convince him to stay to help them find the culprit behind the theft of plans for a new powerful disintegrator gun. The Brigadier then takes the Doctor to the Ministry of Defence advanced research centre where the plans were stolen where the Doctor notices a crushed flowers and strange rectangular footprint. The Brigadier then sets a permieter around the centre to prevent any attack, but the culprit outwits them by burrowing up from underground as it collects the final part needed for the weapon.
Sarah meanwhile investigates a "think tank" group run by its director, Hilda Winters (Patricia Maynard) and her assistant Arnold Jellicoe (Alec Lindstedt). Sarah finds out that they are developing a prototype robot K1 (Michael Kilgariff) which has been built to perform hazardous tasks in place of humans. Sarah discovers also that the robot was in fact designed by Professor Kettlewell (Edward Burnham) who was a former member of the think tank who has now turned towards methods of alternative energy. Kettlewell insists that he had dismantled the robot and that neither Winters or Jellicoe have the ability to reprogramme the robot correctly but if they have tried to it could have resulted in the robot suffering an existential crisis. Despite the potential dangers of the robot, Sarah starts to feel sorry it as she realises that Winters appears to be using it for her own ends and she programs the robot to kill a cabinet minister, Joseph Chambers. The robot kills Chambers and then steals some papers which turn out to be launch codes for nuclear weapons of the major nations to only be used in times of grave emergency.
The Doctor then soon discovers that Winters and Jellicoe are members of the Scientific Reform Society, who are a society dedicated towards putting scientists in charge of the world believing they can make better decisions for humanity. The Doctor attends the meeting only to discover that Kettlewell, who is also present, is in fact the mastermind behind it all and he rebuilt the K1 robot along with Winters and Jellicoe and steal the codes to force humanity to change its ways. And it is from here (yep the usual round off) the Doctor must try and find a way to stop Winters and Kettlewell from carrying out their plan which could lead to the end of the world.....
As a debut story for the Baker era, Robot is a very entertaining one and it sees the fourth doctor start with a nice bright and breezy story, which proved to be the final story to be produced by Barry Letts who said he intended to oversee the casting of the new doctor and also the first story before handing over his mantle to Philip Hinchcliffe. The story itself also proved to be one of the last UNIT stories before they were eventually phased out by Hinchcliffe with Terror of the Zygons and the Android Invasion proving to be the last stories connected with UNIT in the Baker era. Terrance Dicks who wrote the story had already given over his former script editor duties to Robert Holmes and he provides a pretty decent script as well. And story wise even though its nothing too original its still quite an entertaining one and the inclusion of the robot as a Frankenstein-esque monster proves to be quite an effective centre piece for the story and the robot itself turns out to be quite sympathetic as it is reprogrammed by its masters and it feels an emotional conflict as a result.
Moving onto the performances things are pretty good here and Tom Baker turns in a fine debut performance as the fourth doctor. Baker at this stage naturally was yet to find his feet in the role but he does already show the doctor's eccentric ebullience and provides plenty of fun moments too. And as a few examples there is the scene where the Doctor shortly after his regeneration, finds the TARDIS key in his boot and says "Of course. Obvious place!" before being stopped by Harry Sullivan. And Harry says to the Doctor that he's "not fit" and the Doctor takes offence and angrily says "Not fit?! Not fit?! Of course I'm fit! All systems go!" and he karate chops a brick in half on the table and sprints on the spot to prove his point. Another fun moment comes when the Doctor tries out various outfits before settling on his usual one. And one such example is when the Doctor dresses up in a viking outfit and asks the Brig what he thinks and the Brigadier says "UNIT is supposed to be a security organisation" and the Doctor sheepishly asks "You think I might attract attention?" and the Brigadier says "It's just possible!". Another good scene comes when the Doctor examines the crime scene of the centre where the Robot broke in and the Doctor looks at a crushed flower and says "And according to my estimation of the resistance to pressure of vegetable fibre, it was stepped on by something that weighed a quarter of a ton!". Also there is the scene where the Doctor enters the Scientific reform society meeting and trips up the guard at the front door with his scarf and makes his way on stage and does a trick with some cards before being captured by Winters and Jellicoe. And last of all there is the last scene in the story where the Doctor refuses to do any official commitments for the Brigadier in his unpaid job as a scientific advisor for UNIT and he says to Sarah "The Brigadier wants me to address the Cabinet, have lunch at Downing Street, dinner at the Palace, and write seventeen reports in triplicate. Well, I won't do it. I won't, I won't, I won't!" and he thumps his hand on the brick and instead this time hurts thumb. And Sarah says he is being childish and the Doctor says "Well of course I am. There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes!".
Elisabeth Sladen also does a fine job again as Sarah Jane Smith who in this story takes a shine to the robot and ends up feeling sorry for it as the story goes on. Liz has some now moments in the story as well with the robot as Sarah shows her concern for the creature after Winters attempts to show that the robot cannot harm humans by ordering it to destroy Sarah and the robot refuses and becomes distraught before it is switched off. And Sarah says to Winters "That was a cruel thing to do" and as Winters says its not human and has no feelings, Sarah say to her "Oh, it's got a brain, hasn't it? It walks and talks like us. How can you be sure it doesn't have feelings too?!". And then there is the scene where Sarah talks to the Brigadier about Harry and Sarah thinks "He seems a bit old fashioned" and the Brig says "Well I'm a bit old fashioned myself" Sarah smiles and says to him "Oh, nonsense, Brigadier. You're a swinger!".
Nicholas Courtney is also really good once more as Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart who along with the Doctor investigates the think tank and their nefarious activities. Nick has some good moments as well in the story such as the scene after the Brigs men try and shoot the Robot and their bullets have no effect, the Brigadier wearily says "You know, just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets!". And later there is the scene where the Brigadier spots the disintegrator gun which he points at the robot and he says to Sgt Benton (John Levene) "I think just for once we won't need the Doctor!" and he shoots the gun at the robot but becasue of its melocular structure the disintegrator ray causes the robot to grow into a giant size! And Nick has one of the story's best lines at the very end where he walks into the Doctor's lab and notices the TARDIS has gone (as he has just taken off) and the Brig says "Oh Doctor, her majesty is expecting us about....." and he looks around and says "Oh well, I'll just tell them you'll be running a little late!".
Ian Marter also does well in his debut as Harry Sullivan, the old fashioned army doctor who is assigned to look after the Doctor only to be eventually tied up by him and little does he know would end up travelling with the Doctor for the rest of the season! Ian has some good moments as well in the story such as the scene where Sarah and the Brigadier find Harry tied up in the cupboard and Harry says to them both "He tied me up and hung me up in here like an old pair of boots!". And then there is the last scene where Harry enters the UNIT lab and sees that the Doctor and Sarah are about to leave in the TARDIS and he asks where they are going and the Doctor says they are going for a trip in the police box. And Harry says to the Doctor "On, come along now, Doctor. We're both reasonable men. Now we both know that police boxes don't go careering all over the place!". And the Doctor asks Harry to step inside the police box to reassure him its no an illusion and when Harry steps in we hear him gasp and say "Oh, I say!!".
As for the other cast members Patricia Maynard does not too bad with her role as the officious and amorally amibitious "Think tank" director, Hilda Winters who plans to be take over the world by holding it to ransom using the nuclear codes to launch a nuclear strike if their demands are not met. Edward Burnham is also good in his role as the seemingly harmless Professor Kettlewell who built the robot and in the end turns out to be working with Winters. John Levene also nicely reprises his role as Benton, who in this story is promoted to Regimental Sergeant Major and looks rather pleased with himself when he tells Sarah about it and he says to her "You see, technically speaking, the Brig should have a Major and a Captain under him. The UNIT budget won't run to it so they settled on promoting me".
And last of all Michael Kilgarriff provides a nice performance as the K1 Robot and Kilgarriff himself does both the voice and plays the physical part of the robot and his robot costume is actually fairly impressive (if a bit clunky!). Kilgarriff also does a nice job at showing the robot's emotional conflict when it is asked to carry out evil deeds and he delivers one of the story's most memorable lines when the robot unintentionally shoots Kettlewell and it cries out "Aghhh! I have killed the one who created me!!". And the robot also takes a shine to Sarah and when it is fortified in the research bunker with Sarah the robot says to her "I can bring about the destruction of humanity! But do not fear, Sarah. You alone will be saved".
Finally moving onto the director Christopher Barry who does a good job with the story and he keeps the tone of it nice and light and paces the story out well and as a four parter its just the right length and ticks along nicely without ever feeling overlong. As for the music score Dudley Simpson provides another light, pleasant and jaunty score for the story which saw Simpson move even closer toward pure orchestral arrangements with the odd bit of keyboard thrown in here and there.
So as for the obligatory flaws and niggles section..... yes Robot has the odd flaw or two. To start off the story itself is pretty silly and unoriginal with yet another megalomaniac in Winters wanting to take over the world its nothing the show hasn't done before now and it has been done better in previous stories as well. Which brings me to the character of Winters herself who comes across more like a stern school teacher rather than anything else and she isn't really a character that makes you feel intimidated or has effectiveness to make the viewer believe she is a dominating megalomaniacal figure head. Another point of the show which it has to be said is pretty daft is the use of CSO (colour separation overlay) which was a visual effect constantly overused during the Barry Letts era of the show, where a false background is superimposed (quite badly) and is well noted in the scenes where the robot grows in size and picks up Sarah as it just looks silly. And worst of all is the stupid inclusion of the tank scene in which a tank is wheeled in by the Brig to try and destroy the robot but the robot instead destroys it easily with the disintegrator gun, and the tank used in the scene itself is a toy one! And at this point in the story it really is quite laughable and obviously the BBC's budget couldn't stretch to using a full tank (well that and the fact that they couldn't disintegrate one either no doubt!). But despite all that Robot is still pretty good fun.
And that's it for my look at Robot which is a very enjoyable introduction to the Tom Baker era of the show and if you are a fan and haven't seen it give it a watch and you might like it.
So with that I shall bid yee goodnight.
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