7. Robots Of Death
General Plot: The TARDIS lands on board a massive sandminer vehicle, combing an alien world for precious minerals. A small crew of humans maintain the miner, aided by humanoid robots separated into three classes: Dums, Vocs and a controlling Super Voc. When the crew start being murdered one by one, the suspicion falls on the Doctor and Leela. They gain the confidence of two undercover robots and there is plenty of finger pointing until the Doctor realises that the killer may not be human. It may be a robot.
What Makes It Great: A true murder mystery, but with killer robots can you get more Doctor Who than that? The Doctor and Leela arrive at the time crew members are starting to end up murdered. As usual, the blame falls upon the Doctor. Leela is fantastic throughout, as she doesn't help in diverting the suspicion as is her violent nature and instead of proving their innocence, makes them seem more like the culprits. The relationship between the Doctor and Leela is truly fascinating. Leela's characteristics remain unique the Doctor, a man that detests violence, travelling with an alien savage whose first instinct is to attack. The nurturing and educating of Leela is a really unique
he tries to replace her violent instincts with reasoned arguments, and superstition with fact. There is a really sweet scene towards the start of the story when they are in the TARDIS where the Doctor tries to explain to her that there is no such thing as magic only science. It was reminiscent of Jon Pertwee's Doctor and Miss Hawthorne in The Daemons. The notion of the robots is frighteningly relevant. It proposes a question of how much do we rely on technology? That question is all the more relevant today. Robots replacing humans, with the crew spending much time sat around, whilst the robots did all the work. With there being such a reliance on the robots, all it takes is for a malfunction or for them to fall under a sinister influence and the humans have no safeguard, which of course is what happened. It sends a very scary message both then and now. They are similar to the Ood in many respects, as servants that eventually turn against their masters and follow a greater power. The robots followed a great scientist known as Taren Capel, who had been brought up by robots and deemed them superior, so programmed the robots to follow his instructions to kill the crew members.
Memorable Quote:The Doctor: Would you like a Jelly Baby?
Guard: Shut up!
The Doctor: Well a simple "No, thank you" would have been sufficient...