The Robots of Death (TV story)

The Robots of Death was the fifth story in season fourteen of Doctor Who. It saw the Sandminer robots in their only televised appearance; they went on to appear several times in other media.

Synopsis
The Fourth Doctor and Leela land in the cargo hopper of a sandminer, whose crew are being murdered one by one. Suspicion falls on the two visitors, but they are freed by Poul. He reveals that he is an undercover policeman sent to locate a mad roboticist named Taren Capel, who he believes has infiltrated the sandminer. Unfortunately, Poul suffers a nervous breakdown upon learning that the murders are being committed by robots reprogrammed by Capel. It is revealed that Capel has assumed the guise of Dask, the ship's engineer. However, the Doctor tricks the robots into killing Dask by using helium to alter the madman's voice, so the robots don't recognise him...

Part One
On a distant planet, a huge sandminer vehicle, Storm Mine 4, is slowly scraping the surface of a vast, barren desert in search of precious minerals. The sandminer is manned by nine humans and numerous robots - black 'Dums' that cannot speak, pale green 'Vocs', and a silver 'Super-Voc' which controls all the 'Dums' and 'Vocs'. The robots conduct a routine scan of the area and locate a large sandstorm, which the humans decide to pursue, as the storm will bring heavier minerals to the surface. One of the humans, a meteorologist called Chub, goes to collect an instrument package to place into his weather balloon to study the storm. However, he is later found strangled.

At about this time, the TARDIS materialises in one of the scoops. After the Doctor and Leela emerge from the TARDIS, it is removed by a large mechanical arm as it is blocking the scoop. Later, the Doctor and Leela are brought out of the scoop by two robots and locked in a room. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to unlock the door, and goes in search of the TARDIS, while Leela finds Chub's body being taken away by some robots.

The human crew suspects the two time travellers of murdering Chub, and tensions increase when it is found that they have left the room in which they were locked. The Doctor and Leela are separated, with the Doctor finding a second dead man, Kerral, in a hopper which starts to fill with sand that buries them both.

Part Two
The Doctor survives by using a blowpipe poking up through the sand which he breathes through. Both he and Leela, who has found a third dead man, Cass, and a 'Dum' robot which can secretly speak, are recaptured. Commander Uvanov orders them to be locked up in the robot storage bay, on suspicion of killing all three humans.

One of the humans, Poul, believes the Doctor and Leela to be innocent, so he frees them and shows them where Chub was murdered. There, the Doctor convinces Poul that a robot may have killed the meteorologist. While this is happening, a female engineer named Zilda is murdered, and Poul - sent to the room to investigate Zilda's accusations of murder against Commander Uvanov over a tannoy system - finds the Commander over Zilda's body and has him confined to his quarters for murdering Zilda.

With Zilda dead, the sandminer's engines begin to run out of control, threatening the vehicle with destruction.

Part Three
It is found that Borg, the human responsible for controlling power to the motors, has been viciously strangled, and the controls have been sabotaged. The Doctor saves the miner by cutting off the power to the motors, while Dask repairs the damaged controls so that the miner can continue on its way.

The Doctor goes to see the 'Dum' robot that Leela claimed could speak, D84. The robot reveals that it and Poul are undercover agents for the mining company, who were placed on board the miner as a precaution to threats of a robot revolution by a scientist called Taren Capel, who was raised by robots. D84 itself is unique in the fact that it can function autonomously from Super Voc SV7's commands, and appears to possess a high level of logical reasoning. The Doctor and D84 search the miner for proof that Taren Capel is on board, and find a secret workshop where the robots' programming has been changed to enable them to kill humans. The Doctor arranges for all the remaining humans to go to the command deck. A robot enters the workshop with orders to kill him.

Part Four
Dask shuts down all of the robots whose programming has not been changed, leaving just the killer robots and D84 operational. Dask is later revealed to be the mad scientist Taren Capel, intent on "releasing [his] 'brothers' (the robots) from bondage to human dross" and "programming them with an ambition to rule the world". Taren Capel orders his modified robots to destroy the remaining humans and the Doctor and Leela. Leela shows the Doctor a damaged robot in the storage bay with its hand covered in blood - which the Doctor reasons is Borg's, guessing that Borg sabotaged the engine controls in a suicidal attempt to destroy the miner and all the killer robots on board. The Doctor dismantles the damaged robot and creates a final deactivator - a device that will destroy any still functioning robots at close range. The Doctor hides Leela in Taren's workshop with a canister of helium gas, telling her to release it when Taren comes in. The Doctor hopes that this will change Taren's voice, so his robots - unable to recognise him - won't obey his orders. Taren arrives and damages D84, but the robot is able to activate the Doctor's device to destroy a killer robot, knowingly sacrificing itself in the process. Leela releases the helium gas, causing Taren's voice to become high-pitched and squeaky, and Taren is killed by SV7 when it fails to identify his voice. The Doctor then destroys SV7 with a laser probe.

The robot threat over, and a rescue ship coming to collect the surviving humans, the Doctor and Leela return to the TARDIS and leave the sandminer.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Tom Baker
 * Leela - Louise Jameson
 * Uvanov - Russell Hunter
 * Toos - Pamela Salem
 * Dask / Taren Capel - David Bailie
 * Chub - Rob Edwards
 * Borg - Brian Croucher
 * Cass - Tariq Yunus
 * Poul - David Collings
 * Zilda - Tania Rogers
 * D84 - Gregory de Polnay
 * SV7 - Miles Fothergill
 * Robots - Mark Blackwell Baker, John Bleasdale, Mark Cooper, Peter Langtry, Jeremy Ranchev, Richard Seager

Crew

 * Producer - Philip Hinchcliffe
 * Script Editor - Robert Holmes
 * Writer - Chris Boucher
 * Directors - Michael E. Briant, Peter Grimwade
 * Designer - Kenneth Sharp
 * Costumes - Elizabeth Waller
 * Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
 * Assistant Floor Manager - David Tilley
 * Film Cameraman - Peter Chapman
 * Make-Up - Ann Briggs
 * Production Assistant - Peter Grimwade
 * Production Unit Manager - Chris D'Oyly-John
 * Special Sounds - Dick Mills
 * Studio Lighting - Duncan Brown
 * Studio Sound - Tony Millier
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - Richard Conway

Astronomical objects

 * The Doctor claims to have seen similar 'moving mines' on Korlano Beta.

Biology

 * The Doctor uses a respiratory bypass system to avoid inhaling helium.

Locations

 * Kaldor City is mentioned.

Minerals

 * The sandminers travel across the shifting deserts, extracting minerals such as zelanite, keefan and (most importantly) lucanore.

Psychology

 * Robophobia, an irrational fear of robots, is at one point referred to as 'Grimwade's Syndrome'.

Story notes

 * This story had the working titles The Storm-Mine Murders and Planet Of The Robots.
 * This is one of the few stories which explains, in relative simplicity, using a demonstration with two boxes, how the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental.
 * This story is the last one in which the wood-panelled TARDIS control room appears.
 * There have been several influences suggested for Robots of Death, including:
 * This story was obviously based on Isaac Asimov's robot mysteries, such as I, Robot. In particular, the human/robot police duo Elijah Bailey and R Daneel Olivaw from Caves of Steel and its sequels may be the inspiration for the Poul/D84 pair. Prominent mention is made of Asimov's First Law of Robotics: "A robot may not harm a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm."
 * Another inspiration for the story was Agatha Christie's novel, Ten Little Indians, in which several people on an island are murdered one by one.
 * The sandminer setting is based on Frank Herbert's Dune.


 * Robophobia, an irrational fear of robots, is at one point referred to as 'Grimwade's syndrome'. This was an in-joke reference to production assistant Peter Grimwade (later to become a director and writer on the series) who had bemoaned the fact that the stories on which he was assigned to work almost always involved robots. However, the description of robophobia given by the Doctor in fact coincides with a real-life phenomenon called the Uncanny Valley.
 * The precise setting of this story is disputed. Some expanded universe material places it on Io, one of the moons of Jupiter, despite the fact the story suggests the atmosphere outside the sandminer is breathable and the presence of a vast sandy desert is somewhat integral to the plot (neither of which would be the case on Io). One story places it on the planet Kaldor. The Kaldor City spin-offs do not name the planet where the city is located. (NA: Legacy, DWM: Crisis on Kaldor)
 * Decades later, the episodes The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit and Planet of the Ood would also feature subservient creatures (albeit living ones this time) turning on their masters after being manipulated; like the robots, the Oods' eyes would also glow red when under this influence.
 * The Heavenly Host in DW: Voyage of the Damned bear many similarities to the robots in this story. Not only do they look vaguely similar, they also have a habit of chanting, "Kill, kill, kill!", and one even has to remove its hand after getting it trapped in a door.
 * A sound clip from this serial is used in DW: The Almost People, When the Eleventh Doctor's ganger at one point blurts out, "Would you like a jelly baby?", in the voice of the Fourth Doctor.

Ratings

 * Part 1 - 12.8 million viewers
 * Part 2 - 12.4 million viewers
 * Part 3 - 13.1 million viewers
 * Part 4 - 12.6 million viewers

BBC rebroadcast
On 24 December and 31 December 1977, the BBC rebroadcast The Robots of Death as a holiday season special during an interval between its broadcasts of DW: The Sun Makers and DW: Underworld. The four episodes were edited together to form two approx. 50 minute episodes. This is the earliest known occasion in which Doctor Who was broadcast in this format, which would be attempted again with DW: Resurrection of the Daleks, then again for one season in 1985, and finally become the standard beginning in 2005.

Filming locations

 * Ealing Television Film Studios
 * BBC Television Centre, Studio 8

Production errors

 * The Doctor's scarf vanishes while he's detained in the crew's quarters.
 * When Leela bandages Toos' arm someone is visible on the edge of the set.
 * In spite of editing, Leela's knife throw is clearly travelling way off-target (on a downward trajectory) and could not possibly have hit its mark (the robot) as shown.

Continuity

 * The characters from this episode reappear in several of Chris Boucher's later novels, starting with PDA: Corpse Marker, and continuing in the Kaldor City spinoffs.
 * The Doctor offers Borg a jelly baby.
 * When the Eleventh Doctor has a ganger made of him, the ganger has difficulty adjusting to the Doctor's memories, at one point blurting out, "Would you like a jelly baby?", in the voice of the Fourth Doctor. (DW: The Almost People)

For the the Fourth Doctor and Leela

 * This story occurs after DW: The Face of Evil.
 * This story occurs before PDA: Drift.

For Poul, Uvanov and Toos

 * This story occurs before PDA: Corpse Marker.

For Taren Capel

 * This story occurs before MB: Taren Capel.

DVD releases
Released as Doctor Who: The Robots of Death, this was the first 'proper' title in the BBC DVD range of Doctor Who DVDs. It marked the debut of the 'roundel' template that didn't prove popular with fans (although it has remained to date as the DVD template) and is the only one in the range not to feature production subtitles. The continuities were meant to be an Easter Egg, but an error was made by the Authoring House and they were included as a regular menu item. This early DVD release lacks subtitles.

Released:
 * Region 2 13 November 2000
 * PAL - BBC DVD BBCDVD1012


 * Region 4 2 July 2001
 * Region 1 11 September 2001
 * NTSC - Warner Video E1120

Extra features:
 * In-Studio - Section of material without sound effects, music, or voice-dubbing.
 * Continuities by Howard Da Silva (Region 1 only)
 * Model Sequences
 * Studio Floor Plans
 * Photo Gallery
 * Commentary: Chris Boucher and Philip Hinchcliffe

Rear Credits:
 * Starring Tom Baker
 * By Chris Boucher
 * Produced by Philip Hinchcliffe
 * Directed by Michael E. Briant

Notes:
 * Editing for the DVD release was completed by he Doctor Who Restoration Team.

A special edition of The Robots of Death DVD was released on the Revisitations 3 boxset, on the 13th February 2012. Other stories in the boxset are The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Three Doctors. The special edition features these extras:


 * Commentary #1 (from original release): producer Philip Hinchcliffe and writer Chris Boucher
 * Commentary #2: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Pamela Salem (Toos) and director Michael E. Briant
 * The Sandmine Murders: making-of documentary
 * Robophobia: humorous look at the history of robots by Toby Hadoke
 * Studio Sound: an example of a studio scene before the robot voices were added
 * Model Shots
 * Studio Floor Plan
 * Continuity Announcements
 * Radio Times Listings
 * Info Subtitles
 * Photo Gallery
 * Coming Soon Trailer
 * Digitally Remastered Picture and sound quality

VHS releases
This story was released as Doctor Who: The Robots of Death.

Released:
 * First Release:
 * UK April 1986
 * PAL - BBC Video BBCV4108


 * Australia/NZ March 1988
 * US July 1987
 * NTSC - Warner Video E1120


 * Japan December 1986

Notes: This story was released in an edited movie-format.


 * Second Release:
 * UK February 1995
 * PAL - BBC Video BBCV5521

Notes: This story was released unedited.