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.
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.
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.
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`.
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