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Doctor Who: Season 14, Episode 20The Robots of Death: Part Four (19 Feb. 1977)With secrecy no longer necessary for the robot revolution, Controller Taren Capel shuts down all friendly robots and gives the remaining humans an ultimatum, or else their deaths will be ... See full summary » Director:Michael E. BriantWriter:Chris Boucher (by) |
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Cast
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Gregory de Polnay | ... | |
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Miles Fothergill | ... | |
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John Bleasdale | ... | |
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Mark Cooper | ... | |
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Peter Langtry | ... | |
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Jeremy Ranchev | ... | |
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Richard Seager | ... | |
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Plot Summary
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Storyline
With secrecy no longer necessary for the robot revolution, Controller Taren Capel shuts down all friendly robots and gives the remaining humans an ultimatum, or else their deaths will be slow and painful. With no conventional weaponry aboard their commercial vessel, the humans do what they can to resist while giving the Doctor time to work out a permanent solution. Written by statmanjeff
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Country:
UKLanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
19 February 1977 (UK) See more »Company Credits
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Sound Mix:
MonoColor:
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1.33 : 1
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Doctor Who: It's an unreasoning dread of robots. You see, most living creatures use non-verbal signals. Body movement, eye contact, facial expression, that sort of thing.
Leela: Body language.
Doctor Who: Exactly. While these robots are humanoid, presumably for aesthetic reasons, they give no signals. It's like being surrounded by walking, talking dead men.
Leela: That's what Poul said.
Doctor Who: Yes. Undermine certain type of personality, causes identity crisis, paranoia, sometimes even personality disintegration...
See more »
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Trivia
This episode was watched by 12.6 million viewers on its original transmission. See more »Quotes
Leela: Doctor, what is robophobia?Doctor Who: It's an unreasoning dread of robots. You see, most living creatures use non-verbal signals. Body movement, eye contact, facial expression, that sort of thing.
Leela: Body language.
Doctor Who: Exactly. While these robots are humanoid, presumably for aesthetic reasons, they give no signals. It's like being surrounded by walking, talking dead men.
Leela: That's what Poul said.
Doctor Who: Yes. Undermine certain type of personality, causes identity crisis, paranoia, sometimes even personality disintegration...
See more »
Doctor Who: The Robots of Death: Part Four starts as most of the remaining robots aboard the Storm Mine 4 are reprogrammed to kill the last surviving humans including the Doctor (Tom Baker) & Leela (Louise Jameson) before their human controller intends to spread the robot revolution across the Universe & make the robots themselves the masters rather than the slaves. That is unless the Doctor can stop them of course...
Episode 20 from season 14 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during February 1977 & it's easy to see why The Robots of Death is regarded so highly amongst fans. First the negative points, like a lot of Doctor Who which was made cheaply & quickly there are a few plot holes like the sabotage subplot which made no sense & here in Part Four if the Doctor knew Dask was the villain why did he not tell Commander Uvanov & Toos so they knew if Dask tried to trick them (which he does) that he was the villain & not to believe him. I just don't understand why the Doctor wouldn't tell them this information which might have cost Uvanov & Toos their lives if they had fallen for Dask's lies. Now the positives of which there are many, it's a great story that mixes the traditional whodunit with all the fun of the very best Doctor Who serials, it's pacey, it has some clever scripting & mystery elements although in the end it does all boil down to yet another mad man wanting to take over the Universe type scenario & it has a couple of terrific cliffhanger endings. The character's & dialogue have been good, I mean I even felt sorry for the V84 robot at the end when he sacrificed himself & the ending is particularly good. Often the Doctor makes some sort of machinery or gadget which does something to save the day but ultimately doesn't mean a thing in practical reality but here he uses helium to alter the villain's voice so the voice activated robots won't respond to him anymore which I thought was a clever & ingenious way for the Doctor to win using his intelligence to save the Universe, again, in a way everyone can relate to & understand.
The production values have been very good on The Robots of Death & despite one or two bits of poor direction (identifying the killer too early, people just standing there like statues as the robots attack) this looks the business throughout. The phobia of robots is referred to here in Part Four as Grimwade's Syndrome which was changed by Tom Baker from Grimwol's Syndrome in reference to production assistant Peter Grimwade who had complained the previous Doctor Who stories he had worked on all involved robots. There has been some great moments here & those mild mannered voiced robots coming menacingly towards the camera with red eyes is an effective image.
The Robots of Death: Part Four is a terrific end to a terrific story that even though it's another mad man trying to conquer the Universe plot it's a great one. I will give The Robots of Death an excellent eight stars out of ten across it's four episodes & just when you think Doctor Who can't get much better just look at the story that followed it...