The Robots of Death

 A triumph that still hums with energy! Looking back at one of classic Doctor Who’s best ever stories. 

Earlier this year I saw the World of Wonder exhibition and amongst the many exhibits from the series’ past and present were some robot masks from this 1977 classic. Even now, mounted on stands devoid of the rest of the costume, they look impressive. So it is for the story they come from. Its one of those tales that they could remake today without the need for much alteration, Sure the Sandminer -which in real life was quite a modest sized model – could look better, you could have more robots, a larger crew. Yet the essence of the story works just as well forty-five years later.

There is something stately and unhurried about ‘The Robots of Death' that makes it a joy to watch every time. On paper the story is hardly original, purloining much of its content from the likes of either Murder on the Orient Express or Isaac Asimov's Robot stories, while the use of mostly brightly lit sets and a robotic enemy realised by people in costumes and masks could have been a disaster. Yet the story towers over these potential problems with ease to create a timeless 90 minutes that is amongst the very finest Doctor Who ever made. It also remains one of the series’ most quotable stories yet crucially this above average dialogue never obstructs the flow of the story, often aiding it along.

Back in the day, fans would attribute nearly everything to the named author but decades of interviews have confirmed just how collaborative the writing of Doctor Who was in the Seventies. Chris Boucher’s modesty when showered with praise over these episodes is more understandable now we know much of it was the result of a three way collab between himself, Philp Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes. Rather like trying to guess which bits of a song Lennon or McCartney penned it is tempting to ascribe certain lines to either Holmes or Boucher but there is certainly a lot of both of them to be heard in a story where almost every line of dialogue is a hit. You may say, rightly, that the speech is a little stagey but the speeches are zingers! 

Take the interrogation scene in episode two where a moody Doctor is uninterested in Uvanov’s line of questioning to the point of flippancy. “What are you doing here?” the commander asks to which the deadpan reply is “Just standing here talking to you.” When Uvanov says “I suppose it’s just a coincidence that as soon as you two arrive, three of our people were killed?” the Doctor agrees it is, “I thought it was rhetorical question!”  Moments later our hero delivers an intelligent insult- this time at belligerent Borg in the form of “You’re the classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain.” Well, the guy did knock his jelly babies on the floor!  Sometimes- and this could be Holmes we imagine- the lines are darker such as when Poul is asked whether Chubb’s body was like this when he found it. “A little fresher” comes the reply. Even when the lines are not especially acerbic they can be playful such as D84’s “Please do not throw hands at me” when Toos chucks the detached metal hand of the robot who had recently tried to kill her.

D84, the undercover detective robot working for the mining company is my favourite character in a production packed with lively examples. I remember thinking at the time that he would have made a great addition to the Tardis crew. Of course looking back it would have been a difficult job for the actor inside- Gregory De Polnay - to have maintained the same serene movement story after story plus when it came to hurried escapes he’d always be a long way behind. Mind you there is a line that suggests these robots can move “quicker than a human” so maybe it could have worked…. Still, it is a tribute to the actor that through vocalisation alone he can create such a memorable character. 

There is also that marvellous scene where he realises he has underestimated Taren Capel’s presence on board. “There is only the crew- and you” he says to which the Doctor suggests Capel could be one of the crew. “I had overlooked the possibility of substitution” says D84 with a downbeat tone and goes off to stand in a corner and sort of sulks for a moment. There’s also the interchange between the Doctor and D84 when the latter insists “I heard a cry” despite the Doctor’s increasingly frustrated reply “That was me”. In an interview on the website Kaldor City.com – well worth a look for stuff related to this story- Gregory de Polnay remembers a “wonderful line D84 had about plucking crystals from a snowflake” and he focussed on the more poetic tones that would bring character to such words. Interestingly he does say there was talk of resurrecting D84 which of course being a robot could be rebuilt.  If RTD is looking for spin offs now, how about a detective and a robot sidekick?

Russell Hunter plays the single minded Uvanov with a flourish, making the most of sly asides like telling the crew they'll get more money now there's fewer of them without losing his authority. There is an attempt to fool us into thinking Uvanov could be the culprit but it's good to see the character get his own back near the end. David Baillie makes a great villain, and with an in-built reason why he talks differently as Taren Kapel cheekily inserted. The robot face paint adds a bizarre touch and maybe was the inspiration for singer Peter Gabriel who had a very similar design for his 1982 tour.

The dialogue is not just witty or dark, it’s also a great example of how to use exposition  without labouring a scene. When the crew are arguing or engaging in the protocol of mining there are plenty of references to sketch a picture of what sort of society they’re from and what this job entails. There are off the cuff refences to the mineral they really need –“lucanol” – and slang like “suck  the pay stream out of this one.” References to the Founding Families, to Uvanov’s first mission and even to ore raiders- “there’s no such thing!” declares Borg- all add a texture that improves the viewing experience especially when you’ve seen it so many times. The story even includes the best explanation ever for the dimensional wonder of the Tardis.

One of the well known behind the scenes things about this story is how much Tom Baker disliked the script but it really doesn’t show; in fact, before I knew this I imagined he really enjoyed it. All the scripts of this era are probably the richest any Doctor of the original series had and here he gets some great lines to play with. The dynamic between the Doctor and Leela is nowhere near as relaxed as that with Sarah had been but it suits the increasingly mature content of the series. Leela has an interesting role in the story, used to draw out some of the nuances of this society by mixing with the crew. She also possesses a sixth sense noting how Poul “moves like a hunter” and knowing something terrible is about to happen moments before the Sandminer hits trouble. Meanwhile the Doctor simmers with just occasional flashes of a lighter mood.

I really enjoy the precision and economy of this script, not just in the lively expositional dialogue but also the practical resolutions. There is no magic button solution and the sonic screwdriver remains largely unused. The great aspect of the old four parters is how much material they got through. The sinking mine for example might have been drawn out in a different story – and is probably a worthwhile idea for one- but here is over and done within a few minutes at the start of the following episode. They even try to offer different types of cliff-hangers- the Doctor being smothered by grain or Toos’ panic at the sinking are moments of tension yet there is little doubt as to how they will be resolved. Someone will empty the hopper; the miner won’t sink and for part three’s Uvanov will obviously use a Laserson Probe on the errant Voc throttling the Doctor. Even so Brient directs and edits them with enough verve so that they still work.

Sci-Fi influence abounds- Poul is named after Poul Anderson, Uvanov's inspired by Asimov. The Sandminer and the process are clearly influenced by Dune’s similar process. As was Boucher’s intention the story also nudges on class differences with a very clear rivalry between the crew who seem to be from different classes. In an interview Boucher said he imagined the set up as a class satire “working from my own working class background and all its attendant grudges.” This is downplayed later on but more daring perhaps is the presentation of a form of mental illness in Poul’s Robophobia. 

Despite the sci-fi context this is something quite unusual in the series of the time. Plenty of people in Doctor Who were terrified by their experiences in different stories- who can forget Ransome’s jittery state after his encounter with the Autons? Yet this is different and it is the sight of blood on a metal hand that triggers Poul’s long suppressed fear of robots. He’s already told Leela, “I prefer people to robots, that’s all” but what unfolds is something far more serious. David Collings, an actor whose Who cv is quite eclectic gives it all in that scene where he is hiding under a counter, it’s a shame his character is dispatched fairly randomly later on.

The music plays a vital part too. Dudley Simpson largely sidelines his usual melodramatic fanfares for something more creeping and more in tune with the way the robots walk sleekly around the Sandminer. A constant low throbbing note accompanies much of the music adding to the air of tension. Yet we are in brightly lit studios throughout. Normally- and especially later in the Eighties- this sucked a lot of the drama out of a production but here it doesn’t matter. The sound mix of the episodes is such that the incidental music often bubbles to the surface while dialogue is still playing creating a menacing undertow. Its also one of the earliest stories to experiment with characters talking over each other to add realism. Its the sort of thing frowned on by some but here makes sense. Why would everyone else go quiet for example in the middle of chasing a storm.

I’ve seen occasional comments suggesting the robots are unconvincing but I wouldn't agree. The look of the robots was unusual in an era which tended to go for a more functional metallic look of which C3PO is probably the best known example. Even now those neo-Georgian masks are so well designed and made that the modern series paid homage to them with the Host in `Voyage of the Damned`. Though Boucher’s intention had been for the robots to have more mechanical speech, it was director Michael E Briant who came up with the silky more human tones which work so effectively and also underpins Poul’s storyline because it makes them sound decidedly human or as he calls them “walking dead.”  

There’s a practical consideration too in having three different types of robots – the D (or dumb) class who don’t speak and carry out menial tasks, the Vocs who interact with humans and the Super Voc who is able to reason. The story happily bows to accepted laws of robotics, created by Isaac Asimov and used in most fictional scenarios thus the idea that robots can harm humans is deemed impossible due to their programming. Though as the Doctor points out programming can be altered. Perhaps the only niggle are their shoes and only because the direction makes such a point of showing them something he later accepted as his wrong call.

The robots’ elegant design makes sense too when you think of the otherwise inhospitable working environment the Sandminer operates in. To have something more aesthetically pleasing seems natural and even explains the large number of cushions about the place. Why wouldn’t they want to be comfortable? Even their clothes suggests both comfort but also extravagance. Why else would Toos wear that bizarre headpiece thing? These accoutrements and furnishings are at odds with many sci-fi productions which to this day insist on sterile sleek environments which look great but as living quarters seem less than comfortable. My favourite bit of design is the large art deco window behind which Uvanov and Toos hide. Much better than the archetypal ventilation shaft! If you’ve seen the DVD extras you’ll know just how much thought went into all this to the point where the Sandminer’s mode of traction was based on real machinery used in a quarry.

Several of the scenes in this story wouldn't have been allowed a few years later; during the late 1980s the BBC forbade any strangulation in the show (which is why for example Kane touches his victims on the cheeks in 'Dragonfire'). Whether this sort of regulation would have weakened the impact of this story is debateable as it's the sheer blank terror of the killing robots that is the visual strength. The story is a great example of how the Doctor- and indeed the viewer- is one step ahead by astute observation rather than having sent messages to himself from the future or something similar. Simple moments that keep the story turning - asides, looks, seemingly flyaway comments (the Doctor's comment after Dask stops the Miner from sinking that he probably knew exactly where to look) and a nice series of more abstract conversations where one or other character seems to be thinking aloud and, of course, some lighter bits too ("modifying brains isn't something you do standing about in corridors", "I suppose you're going to be one of those boring megalomaniacs who gloat?"). Finally, the fact that Kapel is undone by a hidden Leela in the cupboard armed with nothing more than a canister of helium sums up just how inventive a production the standard story has turned into.  

 

Some modern viewers of course can’t get over the fact that for a murder mystery there isn’t a lot of mystery. While even the story title gives away the premise there is still a creeping horror about the proceedings and though the point of view shots of the robots are not strictly necessary (the device is usually for when a production doesn’t want to reveal its antagonists) it all adds to the tension. Sure, we know it’s Dask by part 2 when his stripy pantaloons give it away in a shot where we only see the feet of the “controller”. If you hadn’t worked it out by part 3 there’s the Top of the Pops style video effect on the screen as he converts SV7 which draws attention to the fact its Dask as its clearly David Baillie.

With viewing figures hovering around the twelve to thirteen million mark it was a part of one of the show’s most successful periods and its popularity has endured especially as it hasn’t dated as much as Seventies stories set in what was then the present day. When the DWAS held its annual season poll in 1977, `Robots of Death` came second, beaten by `Talons of Weng Chiang``. What a season to have to vote in though! Over the years the axis has shifted with `Talons` being called out- slightly unfairly- for its use of a white actor to play a Chinese role in what must be one of the last incidences of such a practice in UK tv drama. Also `Robots` was first story to be released on DVD. A 2014 DWM poll to rate stories right across the show’s first fifty years, including the modern series, placed `Robots of Death` eleventh out of 241 stories.

How many times can you watch something before it fails to engage in the way it originally did? In terms of `Robots of Death` I have yet to find out!

The 1977 Yearbook review

This is what the DWAS thought of the story back in its 1977 Yearbook. Written by Gordon Blows.

 

The writer

Born in 1943 in London, Chris Boucher worked for Calor Gas but after getting married and having a son he first wrote professionally in the mid Sixties to add to his income starting with jokes for series like Braden’s Week, The Saturday Crowd, Dave Allen at Large and That’s Life. Even when he started penning more serious material the humour was never too far below the surface. His first attempt at a Doctor Who script called  `The Silent Scream` was rejected by the production office. However Philip Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes recognised a writer with similar sensibilities to their own and from this came The Face of Evil` partly inspired by a Harry Harrison novel.  The story had Leela as a one off character but with the departure of Lis Sladen, Hinchcliffe realised she would make an interesting companion. Nobody ever wrote Leela with quite the same range as her creator did, Boucher enabling a real on screen chemistry with Tom Baker even if the latter initially disliked the character. The idea that the Doctor would slowly educate and enlighten her about the Universe – inspired by Eliza Doolittle- would get lost later without Boucher to curate it.

After this came `Robots of Death`. The range of audio adventures set in this story's world is a testament to the richness of the original story After that there seemed no doubt Boucher would return the following season and he delivered Image of the Fendahl` one of the last of the series’ so called `gothic` stories, again featuring an exemplary cast and atmospheric production values. It was while planning to pen a fourth Doctor Who story that Boucher became involved in Blake’s Seven for whom he was the script editor for it’s four year run. Its possible that had this not happened he might have ended up script editing Doctor Who which would have been interesting.

Later he would script edit the second series of Shoestring, a position he also filled on Juliet Bravo and then the Jersey based detective show Bergerac. In 1987 he created Star cops an attempt to offer more highbrow sci-fi without monsters and melodrama. However, just as Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks had discovered with Moonbase 3 in the 70s, audiences did not warm to the concept and it ended after one season. According to later interviews, the production was marked by creative tensions with the producer  This marked the end of Boucher’s television career and he would later concentrate on novels adapting both Doctor Who and Star Cops to the page as well as working with Big Finish on sequels to the `The Robots of Death`.