The Robots of Death is a clever science fiction take on the murder mystery genre, although I found it lacking in several aspects.
WRITTEN BY
Chris Boucher, who for once puts priority on the plotting rather than character interactions.
PLOT
The Fourth Doctor and his companion Leela arrive on one of Kaldor's sandminers, whose aristocratic crew are digging up valuable minerals to enrich themselves. One by one, the crew begin to die. Is it greed, or have the servile robots surrounding them finally achieved sentience? It's up to the Doctor and Leela to find out.
ANALYSIS
To explain why I'm reviewing a Doctor Who serial here, I'll give a small history lesson. In 1999, Chris Boucher was approached with writing a novel for the BBC's "Past Doctor Adventures" range (the contemporary Doctor having been the Eighth, who had his own range of novels). Boucher had written three classic serials for the Fourth Doctor, and was thus an obvious candidate for this.
His novel Corpse Marker was a sequel to this very serial, expanding on concepts like Kaldor, the Company, robophobia and more. But Boucher also chose to include another one of his creations in Corpse Marker - psychostrategist Carnell from the Blake's 7 episode Weapon - resulting in a crossover that had been in the minds of fans and production staff alike since both shows had been on the air together. Gareth Thomas and Tom Baker (the latter of whom played the Fourth Doctor) had been close friends, and had suggested the idea of either one cameoing in the other show. Terry Nation, having created the ultrapopular Daleks for Doctor Who, was also keen on featuring them in Blake's 7. Both ideas were shot down.
But now, it was made as official as can be that the two sibling shows were in fact set in the same universe. The idea was taken much further in Kaldor City, an audio spinoff of the Kaldor stories made for Magic Bullet Productions (their previous efforts include the dreary Logic of Empire and the rather entertaining Mark of Kane) who cast Paul Darrow in the lead role of "Kaston Iago", posited to be Avon himself under a pseudonym, hiding out after the events on Gauda Prime. So I think it makes perfect sense to go back to Boucher's Doctor Who stories, at least those that are relevant to Kaldor City, and give my own thoughts on the development of this mysterious side of the Blake's 7 mythos.
Which finally brings us to The Robots of Death. I have to commend Boucher on how skilfully he handles the mystery, interweaving futuristic elements like the robots with a variety of genuine human motivations. Everyone onboard has an equal chance of being the killer, apart from perhaps Toos, which in of itself makes a good red herring. Although we don't learn much about the actual way of life on Kaldor, I appreciate the little throwaway references to important families, the perpetual presence of robots and just the overall atmosphere of decadence on the sandminer.
Speaking of decadence though, I gotta admit that the costume design (MINUS the robots) grated on me. I'm not against opulence for its own sake, but can't it at least be stylish opulence? This bunch just look ridiculous with their tiaras, oversized collars and most of all, that face paint. What's with the face paint?? The easiest way for me to be turned off by a story is by giving the characters some ugly, incoherent outfits. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the subconscious reason why I never wanted to go back to this story after seeing it as a kid.
I also found the ending somewhat unsatisfying. Doctor Who has a history of abrupt endings. In fact, I believe the Eleventh Doctor era actually made it a character attribute for the Doctor not to like endings, instead preferring to leave quietly and come back whenever it suited him. But I've always thought that was a load of rubbish. I like the ones where the Doctor and the guest characters have a nice cocktail at the end, and the Doctor teases his companion with hints of what will become of alien planet #378 years later. Given the effort put into sketching a background for the characters, I feel that Robots deserved at least an extra scene to show the effect that robophobia will have on the society of Kaldor, given that everyone knows that robots can kill now. Or alternatively the lack of it. We could have also seen that greed overcomes fear and Uvanov will ultimately just force them all back to work. Or something. Anything.
CHARACTERS
In case you don't know my opinion on Tom Baker, I'll provide a quick summary - I enjoy his eccentricity and the actor's enthusiasm for the part (which is not entirely dissimilar to Paul Darrow's love for Avon), but he's not one of my favourite Doctors as he is one of the least grounded. Some people call his acting 'alien'. I'm not one of them. I see it as just him being daft for the sake of levity. I get more of an alien vibe from Troughton, McCoy, Eccleston. The colder Doctors, basically. Tom does, however, massively improve in the show's eighteenth season, where he masterfully conveys a worldweary and tired version of the character. Probably because he was worldweary and tired himself at the time. So although he's not my favourite, he still gave my favourite performance as the Doctor. If that makes any sense.
I've always liked Leela, but I don't think I ever appreciated Louise Jameson's acting until rewatching Robots for this review. She reminded me a lot of early Cally, being full of fierceness and loyalty and pragmatic wisdom whilst also finding herself vulnerable in an uncertain environment, and dependent on the Doctor as a kind of father figure. Cally lost those aspects of herself fairly quickly and became a different kind of person as Blake's 7 carried on, but Leela managed to retain them. I found myself thinking that she was the more successful version of the same kind of character.
Now let's talk about the guest characters, the crew. Although there's something memorable about all of them, I will admit that they're not the most likable bunch. That in of itself is part of the story, of course, but it does mean that it's somewhat difficult to care about whether or not they live.
Russell Hunter as Uvanov is the standout. He is similar to Avon in that he's at first glance cold, cantankerous and avaricious, but upon closer inspection shows himself to have a sense of decency. However, Uvanov is somewhat more bumbling and insecure, which adds some comic relief. Of all the characters, Uvanov is the one whose story I'm excited to see continue.
Pamela Salem is an island of sanity amidst a crew of disturbed crooks. I found the faint romantic chemistry between her and Hunter rather amusing. They made a good team. Of course, the overwhelming romantic chemistry between Salem and Jameson completely mowed over it. I could imagine Leela schooling the physically inexperienced Toos in warfare whilst the latter might educate Leela in political acumen. Those Gallifrey audios with Romana probably did something similar, I don't know, I haven't listened to them. But that's what I got from this.
Casting David Collings as Poul was not a good choice. He's a strong, solid actor whom one can count on to deliver a dependable performance (as seen when he played Deva in Blake and Mawdryn in Doctor Who's later serial Mawdryn Undead). But I've never thought of him as a particularly varied performer, and that's where my praise for Collings ends. Because either the script failed him or Collings himself did, or maybe even both. Poul's breakdown is sudden, poorly written (it's mostly revealed via exposition and not explained particularly well) and played by Collings in a way that doesn't even reflect what's on the page.
Leela describes Poul as walking like a "hunter". The gentlemanly, warm David Collings is about the furthest thing one can imagine from a lithe, powerful man like that. And the scenes where he's totally lost it beg to be played with a ferocity and patheticness that he simply cannot muster. Ironically, I feel like Brian Croucher could have delivered all of this in spades. Why couldn't he have been Poul?
Speaking of Croucher though, he at least delivers on his uniquely petulant type of ham. I thoroughly enjoyed his proto-Travis performance. There's nothing more "Brian Croucher-y" than the scene where he throws jelly babies everywhere. It's classic stuff.
Of course, I have to comment on Gregory de Polnay's iconic voice acting. Being able to sound detached and evil is simple enough. Sounding detached and good - even childlike - is a feat. I found myself appreciating D84's understated charm more and more as the story went on. He was probably the best part of the whole thing, if I'm honest.
Unfortunately, the main antagonist is perhaps the weakest thing about The Robots of Death. David Bailie's acting is solid enough, but the writing for Capel is frankly terrible. He believes that robots are the dominant form of life, and the only backstory we get for this is that "he grew up amongst them". Much like Poul, it's just not enough to adequately explain his behaviour. Nor does David Bailie really do anything significant with the part, although he has much more screentime than Collings. Taren Capel just goes around in his daft robot makeup and bellows about revolution. He is not a great villain. I would have honestly preferred it if they aped Alien and just had the Company itself be responsible, or perhaps revealed that a larger robot revolution was taking place on the planet, leaving things open for a sequel. I can buy Capel as an agent responsible for the robots' activation on the miner, but as the mastermind? He's just too dull.
NOTES
- The concept of the sandminer and the massive storms are taken from 1965's science fiction novel "Dune".
- What's the actual point of the corpse markers? Can't you tell an activated robot from a deactivated one?
- I feel like I haven't praised the robot design enough. Amidst the questionable fashion choices of this serial, those guys really do look fantastic. Just the right kind of eerie, whilst also being artistically pleasing.
- The Doctor just happening to have a snorkel in his back pocket for the cliffhanger is a bit lazy.
- The first victim is named Kerril. Boucher would reuse the name three years later for Vila's romantic interest in City at the Edge of the World.
- I must say, the crew shows a remarkable level of trust in the Doctor and Leela despite practically all signs pointing at them being the killers. I know Poul suspects the robots (at least I think he does, given his comments about 'pitying' Leela not being the killer), but you'd think the others would at least ask a basic "who the f**k are you and why are you onboard?" Even D84 just goes along with them, although by all logic, he should suspect the Doctor himself of being Taren Capel.
- Insert obligatory joke about the Doctor not understanding bumblebee physiology.
- Is Zilda supposed to be aware that Uvanov watched her brother die? She seems to discover it later on in his quarters, but the two already have a massive rivalry going on when the story kicks off.
- I love how proud the Doctor is of Leela for fixing Toos's arm. I hope that in the future, Dr Who will feature more "apprentice companions" like Jamie, Leela and Ace.
- Why does Dask bother to corrupt the image of his face in the transmission he's sending to the robots, and why does he do such a half-assed job at it?
- The POV of the damaged robots appears to be the same effect used for Vila's "I'm in Hell and it's full of Avons" gag from Dawn of the Gods.
- Why do we need Leela "sensing" that SV7 is corrupted rather than reasoning out that all the robots are not to be trusted at this point?
- The final confronation between the Doctor and Capel is a shambles. Capel somehow fails to recognise his voice change, and he neglects killing the Doctor when he's clearly the only one standing in the way of his plans.
LEELA: (points to the first box) "That one."
DOCTOR: (places the first box on the console, then goes over to Leela and holds the other in front of the first) "Now which one is larger?"
LEELA: (still pointing at the first) "That one."
DOCTOR: "But it looks smaller."
LEELA: "Well, that's because it's further away."
DOCTOR: "Exactly. If you could keep that exactly that distance away and have it here, the large one would fit inside the small one."
LEELA: "That's silly."
DOCTOR: "That's transdimensional engineering, a key Time Lord discovery."
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