Day 194 — July 13th 2021
Robot Parts One and Two
Robot — Part One
I suspect that Robot isn’t an especially classic episode — there’s no danger of it dropping into my Top Ten highest rated stories, but equally it’s never going to rock up right at the bottom of the list either. It’s a bit workmanlike and does what it needs to do introducing the new Doctor Who in a familiar setting.
And yet this first episode stands out far more than it otherwise might all down to one factor — and that’s Tom Baker. He’s almost universally considered the ‘best’ of the Old Testament Doctor Whos both within fandom and among the general public who remember his run on the show. Heck, even people who didn’t watch Doctor Who would broadly recognise him where the might be less certain of the likes of Sylvester McCoy. I’ve always been tempted to push back against that conventional thinking and highlight other incarnations as preferable, but I’ll tell you what; he’s on fire in this episode.
Watching these 25 minutes play out you get a real sense that Baker is putting in the graft. He knows he’s a man who’s just landed an incredibly lucrative part for an actor who’d previously been working on a building site to make ends meet between jobs. He knows how lucky he’s been and he’s doing everything he can to make sure he’s taking the opportunity. I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated before just how hard you can see him working here — he’s giving more than anyone else on screen.
But the beauty of it is that you never feel as though it’s all been rehearsed and worked at to the bone. Every action he takes feels natural and instinctive. If anything the location work — filmed before the studio stuff — shows him a bit more laid back, and possibly closer to the way he’ll play the part going forward. But it’s in the studio material that he really shines. The wide-mouthed expression of delight when he sees the TARDIS for the first time is wonderful; the enthusiasm infectious. And then there’s his first proper scene with Sarah Jane, which I love so much;
Doctor Who: ‘Hello. Come to see me off, have you? Well, I hate goodbyes. I’ll just slip away quietly.’
Sarah: ‘No, no, Doctor. You can’t go.’
Doctor Who: ‘Can’t? Can’t? There’s no such word as can’t… …Why not?’
Sarah: ‘Well, because you’re not. Well, because the Brigadier needs you.’
The range of expressions he goes through is brilliant, and he reminds me so much of Patrick Troughton, although you also get the sense that he’s definitely not studied the earlier performance as a template. Watching this episode immediately after Planet of the Daleks, where Pertwee was certainly not at the top of his game, only makes the performance stand out so much more. This in an incarnation I think I could take to immediately, and a Doctor Who with more energy than I’ve been used to — even if Pertwee was ‘quite spry’ at times.
I think it’s also telling that this is the post-regeneration episode which becomes the template for several later ones. Where Pertwee was confined to a bed for almost all his first episode, here we really get to see the new Doctor Who in action; charging about, being full of beans and messing around with different costumes. I always used to find the succession of silly fancy dress outfits a bit ridiculous, but watching this time around I’m realising that it’s just Doctor Who having a bit of fun at the Brigadier’s expense, and I’m loving it.
If I’ve one complaint to make, it’s that we’re robbed of seeing Baker and Sladen interact more. Their brief scene together (quoted above) is so magical, but afterwards they go off to follow their own strands of story. I know we’ll get plenty of time to admire them together over the next two and a half seasons, but I want more of it right now!
There’s plenty else I could talk about for this one, but I think it’s only fair that I leave it as just appreciation for our new Doctor Who. After all, anyone working that hard absolutely deserves the spotlight. An 8/10.
Robot — Part Two
I went in to this one with pretty low expectations, my memories being that Robot was sort of a bit of a nothing story, but there’s bits in this episode which are brilliant, and have totally blind-sided me. The key bit I’m thinking of is the confrontation between Sarah Jane and Miss Winters;
Sarah: ‘It just struck me that it could be a very powerful weapon if it got into the wrong hands. It could be misused.’
Miss Winters: ‘Like this, you mean? This girl is an intruder and a spy. She must not leave here alive. Destroy her.’
K1 Robot: ‘I cannot obey. This order conflicts with my prime directive.’
Miss Winters: ‘You must obey. You are programmed to obey.’
K1 Robot: ‘I must obey. I cannot obey. I, I…’
Miss Winters: ‘Terminate.’
Sarah: ‘Another of your little jokes?’
Miss Winters: ‘A practical demonstration. You must admit it was a
convincing one.’
I know they brought Miss Winters back as a foe for Sarah in her solo Big Finish series, and when you watch this sequence it’s not hard to see why. The tension in that scene is absolutely electric, and I think my eyes were about as wide as they could be because I was so not expecting it. Elisabeth Saden is wonderful as ever, but Patricia Maynard’s turn as Miss Winters is properly scary in this moment — I can’t think why she’s not more highly regarded as a Doctor Who villain. Maybe it’s the hair?
Of course it helps that the K1 Robot is such a beautiful design for a monster. The costume still survives and was restored about a decade ago for display at the Doctor Who Experience, and I’m pleased to say that it’s just as gorgeous up close as it looks on screen. If there’s one area which doesn’t work with the design it’s the wrists — they’re far too flimsy to carry any weight! It’s a shame because the rest of the creature looks genuinely powerful, and I’d believe totally that it could break into all these top secret places.
I don’t think we ever did a postcard design featuring the Robot, but I pitched one as part of a ‘monsters exploring Cardiff’ range which ultimately never happened. It would have been a low-angled shot of the Robot looming over the Millennium Centre. I think we even took the photographs of the costume for the idea, but never went any further. One day I’ll have to dig them out and put the design together, because I think it would have been a lot of fun.
It’s not just a gorgeous design that helps the Robot look so good on screen — Christopher Barry is back on directing duties for the first time since The Mutants, and I’d forgotten just how lovely some of his shots could be. There’s some seriously stunning frames in this episode, looking up at the Robot, where you really get the sense of just how imposing it looks. It helps, of course, that when you cut to the reverse high-angle shot, Elisabeth Sladen looks tiny in the creature’s shadow!
There’s a great sequence of Miss Winters and Jellicoe working on the Robot in the darkened laboratory, too, which has something of a stage play against it; illuminated by a single spotlight overhead. When the creature’s circuits have been replaced and the ref light in its head lights up it looks so brilliant — far more impressive than the kind of shots we usually get in Doctor Who.
If there’s one area in which I think they design has gone a bit awry, it’s the look of Professor Kettlewell. Edward Burnham is putting in a decent performance, but with the Einstein-esque wacky hair, he comes across as a bit more ‘kids TV’ than anything else in the production, and I’m not sure that works for me. That said, he proves a great foil for Baker’s new Doctor Who — the sequence in which our Time Lord earns the man’s trust before flipping the tables on him and forcing him to open up is brilliant.
I was expecting the score for this episode to take a dive right down towards average, but I’m sticking with an 8/10 if only for the scene of the Robot being forced to attack Sarah. I don’t think I’ll be forgetting it in a hurry this time around.
