Robot
Robot
This Story: Season 12, Story 1. Production Code 4A
Overall: Story 75, Episodes 382-385
Airdates: 28 Dec 1974 to 18 Jan 1975
Written by Terrance Dicks
Directed by Christopher Barry
Links
- There’s a scene played for comedy when The Doctor is choosing his new outfit. One of the options makes him look like the King from a deck of playing cards. This reminds me a lot of the character of “The King” from the Hartnell story “The Celestial Toymaker“. There is a picture of this below.
Links
[ Wikipedia | Tardis Data Core | SPS Historium | Amazon US DVD | Amazon UK DVD ]#DoctorWhoMarathon Ep 382 - Robot 1/4 (Serial 4A Story 75) - 28 Dec 1974. #DoctorWho 1/2
— jᎾᎬ sᎥᎬᎶᏞᎬᏒ (@JoeSiegler) August 28, 2022
Tom Baker takes the stage. My memory of his first one was "Tom was fun, rest was meh". The CSO effects still have the same issues as the later Pertwee era. Great ideas, not enough tech to pic.twitter.com/boPdPLIa1S
#DoctorWhoMarathon Ep 382 - Robot 1/4 (Serial 4A Story 75) - 28 Dec 1974. #DoctorWho 2/2
— jᎾᎬ sᎥᎬᎶᏞᎬᏒ (@JoeSiegler) August 28, 2022
properly realize them. Unstable Tom in the first episode here is very enjoyable. We also get Harry Sullivan, who was designed to be the young guy when 4 was going to be an older actor. pic.twitter.com/AAx9fX82Jd
#DoctorWhoMarathon Ep 383 - Robot 2/4 (Serial 4A Story 75) - 4 Jan 1975. #DoctorWho 1/2
— jᎾᎬ sᎥᎬᎶᏞᎬᏒ (@JoeSiegler) August 30, 2022
It's weird seeing this title sequence now as it's iconic to me - I wonder what people thought of it in 1975. SJS investigates the robot, which she's led to believe is benign, but she doesn't pic.twitter.com/GIACqTB8uR
#DoctorWhoMarathon Ep 383 - Robot 2/4 (Serial 4A Story 75) - 4 Jan 1975. #DoctorWho 2/2
— jᎾᎬ sᎥᎬᎶᏞᎬᏒ (@JoeSiegler) August 30, 2022
believe that, thinking the Robot is more than just a robot. UNIT investigates the theft of a weapon. Kettlewell looks like a character you'd see in Troughton's era. This ep has a nice pacing. pic.twitter.com/VaDbFgqaNT
#DoctorWhoMarathon Ep 384 - Robot 3/4 (Serial 4A Story 75) - 11 Jan 1975. #DoctorWho 1/2
— jᎾᎬ sᎥᎬᎶᏞᎬᏒ (@JoeSiegler) August 30, 2022
SJS goes off on her own to try and find info about the company manipulating the robot. Turns out Kettlewell is really in league with the bad guys, but you don't know that right away. We find pic.twitter.com/pzfOJ8bZIT
#DoctorWhoMarathon Ep 384 - Robot 3/4 (Serial 4A Story 75) - 11 Jan 1975. #DoctorWho 2/2
— jᎾᎬ sᎥᎬᎶᏞᎬᏒ (@JoeSiegler) August 30, 2022
that out when he betrays them at an SRS meeting that Sarah was infiltrating. The robot's conflict with its core programming seems to be overcome fairly easily, as that drama goes away. pic.twitter.com/rNfeKiMGnm
#DoctorWhoMarathon Ep 385 - Robot 4/4 (Serial 4A Story 75) - 18 Jan 1975. #DoctorWho 1/2
— jᎾᎬ sᎥᎬᎶᏞᎬᏒ (@JoeSiegler) September 1, 2022
This story ends the way I figured it would - the Robot's conflict over being ordered to do something it wasn't designed to do, kill its creator - Kettlewell. Before it's over, we get a funny pic.twitter.com/JLRJOWy41B
#DoctorWhoMarathon Ep 385 - Robot 4/4 (Serial 4A Story 75) - 18 Jan 1975. #DoctorWho 2/2
— jᎾᎬ sᎥᎬᎶᏞᎬᏒ (@JoeSiegler) September 1, 2022
King Kong moment with the Robot and SJS. I enjoyed this more than I remembered in the past. I was probably put off by the SFX of the time. Tom Baker was all kinds of great in this. pic.twitter.com/wZ7RyG4Kaf