An Hour of Who a Day: 08/12/14

August 12: The Robots of Death Parts Three & Four

It's never made clear why the Sandminer is sabotaged; surely if the Sandminer explodes it takes the murderer with it? But as the whole situation is resolved four minutes into the start of part three, it looks more like an excuse to provide a cliffhanger rather than a legitimate plan on Dask's part.

Oh, and sorry to give the game away so soon, but to be fair, director Michael Briant does the same thing fairly early on in part three -- he apparently had far too much faith in that video effect obscuring Dask's features. This might honestly not be such a problem if it weren't for the fact that the script carries on as if the identity of the killer is still a mystery, with moments like the reprogrammed SV7 instructing his subordinate robots to kill Toos, the Doctor, and Leela, while he "will kill the others", showing two other corpse markers for the three remaining possible suspects (Uvanov, Dask, and Poul). Except we know Dask is the culprit, so it doesn't exactly have the same air about it as it wants to.

But this slip-up is made up for by the Doctor's interactions with D84, a robot which isn't what it seems to be, as it's actually working undercover for the unnamed Company that the Sandminer belongs to. D84 is a wonderful character, acting as a great foil for Tom Baker's Doctor ("I heard a cry," D84 tells the Doctor after startling him. "That was me," the Doctor says, misinterpreting what D84 is saying) as he bounces bits of the plot off D84, involving him in the investigation. This is also where we first learn of Taren Capel, a brilliant scientist in the field of robotics who was apparently also raised by robots; he appears to have substituted himself for someone on board (so, Dask) and is behind the robot revolution that's happening.

There's also the matter of Poul's descent into madness as he can't cope with the idea that a robot killed someone -- "Grimwade's syndrome", the Doctor calls it, in a nod to production assistant Peter Grimwade. This is expanded upon a bit later on, as the Doctor explains robophobia to Leela: "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. ... While these robots are humanoid, presumably for aesthetic reasons, they give no signals. It's rather like being surrounded by walking, talking, dead men."

Obviously things come to a head in part four (since it's the last episode of the story and all), with the robots no longer needing to lurk in the shadows -- and neither does Dask, who's now wearing outrageous robot-inspired facial makeup. There are some great lines in this episode as well -- I've already mentioned the bit about robophobia, but there's also D84's calm declaration to Leela: "Please do not throw hands at me." And I realize I never mentioned the calm, smooth voices that all the robots have, which are particularly creepy when they're saying things like, "All humans are to die." It's only through some clever planning by the Doctor (involving using helium to change Dask's voice so that his voice print won't be recognized by the robots) that the robots are stopped -- even if D84 sacrifices itself in the process.

It's one of those rare stories where everything works. The design, the script, the acting -- other than a moment here or there (again, the infamous early reveal of Dask) The Robots of Death is firing on all cylinders. It's hard to find a more engaging story than this, and it's a tribute to everyone involved that the quality on this season is just getting better and better (no mean feat, given they already started at a reasonably high level). How will they top this?