August 11: The Robots of Death Parts One & Two

Standard and special edition DVDs

It's one of those rare times during the 20th century run of Doctor Who where we get back-to-back stories by the same author, as Chris Boucher returns to write his second story.  In some ways it's different from The Face of Evil -- these two episodes feel significantly less like literary SF than The Face of Evil did -- but in other ways it's similar.  There's a sense of world-building here just as there was in the last story, which helps things along no end.

But the design!  My goodness, what an astonishingly good marriage of costume and set, as everyone involved appears to have gone for an art deco feel.  That means that the sets look nicely opulent while the costumes (albeit somewhat ostentatious) have an interesting look about them, with shapes and lines on the human crewmembers' tunics and headdresses that evoke a bygone sense of decadence.  This carries over to the robot costumes, with beautiful identical faces and wavy hair that adds to the sense of elegance.  And so, in this futuristic-yet-1930s environment, what better story than a murder mystery?

People occasionally comment on how the title rather gives the game away, but that's missing the point.  The question from the audience's point-of-view isn't whether it's the robots who are killing people but rather who's controlling the robots.  It's clear from the first murder that the robots are responsible, even if the crew doesn't know that.  The only other lingering possibility is that the robots are operating of their own accord, but that doesn't quite fit the murder mystery vibe, and the script is intent on focusing on one of the humans aboard the Sandminer as being ultimately responsible.

I mentioned earlier that there's not as much of an SF feeling from this story, but that doesn't mean it's gone altogether.  The Sandminer itself is an SF concept, as it appears to roam across a barren landscape sucking up minerals in its scoops as it passes through sandstorms, and the whole concept of a society dependent on robots is an SF one.  The difference is simply that they're not the focus of events.  The whodunnit aspect is instead, and it's a solid, entertaining decision -- with the added bonus that the Doctor and Leela are thrown into events in part two as red herrings for the crew.  There's also some great dialogue here: "You know, you're a classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain," the Doctor remarks to Borg after Borg repeatedly dismisses everything the Doctor says.  The Doctor also has some interesting comments about robot-human relations:

DOCTOR: Yes.  You know, people never really lose that feeling of unease with robots.  The more of them there are, the greater the unease and of course the greater the dependence.  It's a vicious circle.  People can neither live with them nor exist without them.
LEELA: So what happens if the strangler is a robot?
DOCTOR: Oh, I should think it's the end of this civilisation.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Robots of Death)

And the second part also has some good complications from the mystery standpoint, as Zilda gets on the intercom and declares that Captain Uvanov is a "filthy murderer" after searching his quarters, only to be killed herself while she's accusing Uvanov.  And someone has sabotaged the "motive units" of the Sandminer, meaning that everyone is going to die in an explosion unless something can be done to prevent it...