Robot

“But Doctor you can’t just go!”
”Can’t? Can’t?! There’s no such word as can’t! Why not?”
”Well… well because you’re not fi… because um, the Brigadier needs you, don’t you?”
”What? Oh yes of course! Depending on you.”
”What for?”
”Well um, there’s been this robbery hasn’t there Brigadier? Um, some kind of top secret weapon”
”Ah yes, very serious business”
”I mean you are still UNIT scientific advisor, remember? I mean you can’t go rushing off and leaving them in the lurch!”
”Can’t I? Goodbye!” – Sarah Jane, The Doctor and Lethbridge Stewart.

After Barry Lets and Katy Manning fucked off, Jon Pertwee decided it was time to up and go too. In steps Tom Baker, and as we discovered, he wasn’t going to budge any time soon. This episode has all the hallmarks of a good introduction, using a classic sci-fi premise, and plenty of humour. Baker wastes no time in establishing himself as the new bloke on the block, his first lines in the show make it clear the fourth Doctor is going to be a very different man whilst also paying homage to his predecessor by repeating lines he spoke to the Brigadier some episodes back.

The Brigadier of course was associated with the second Doctor and so was aware at least the Doctor can change his body from time to time. The fact that Sarah-Jane, a relatively new companion at this point doesn’t even blink at the idea of regeneration, a quick description is enough and any chance of drama here is thrown in the bin.

The Doctor’s regeneration has knocked him sideways a bit and as K’anpo warned us the Doctor isn’t completely stable, sneaking out of sickbays and tying up doctors makes for a nice bit of comic relief, but whilst the Doctor is still regenerating and evil walking trash can is lifting top secret material from filing cabinets. My real quarrel with it though isn’t the shaky design or the clichéd story line, it’s this: why the fuck did the phone explode?!

After a giggle worthy scene of wardrobe searching the game is a foot, and the Doc is keen to impress. Upon investigation at the scene of the crime he ignores the fence that the Brig is so fascinated by and instead opts for a pulverised dandelion, asserting it was crushed by something weighing a quarter of a ton. In addition to that the Doctor is able to piece together the stolen components are key in constructing a disintegrator, which surprises the Brig no end. This scene shows the badly missed potential of the robot, in giving it away so blatantly, both in the over suggestive title and the fact we’ve already seen the damn thing, a big piece of mystery is ruined, so much more drama could have been achieved in saving up the Robot, but oh no. It’s almost as if they didn’t think before they wrote the script.

Meanwhile Sarah is being a good little snoop, I mean journalist, and having a look round Think Tank, a seemingly innocent scientific construction group that totally aren’t related to the robberies of all this top secret information. I think I’d have preferred if they weren’t in anyway related, just to be original. Mainly Sarah spends her time seriously sticking her foot in it by mentioning the new disintegrator gun and barging into rooms, being really rather rude in the process. Her later return to the factory is almost cringe worthy in it’s blatant attempts to get Sarah caught, however her discovery of the robot does make an interesting bit of television as it’s very apparent something more is happening at Think Tank.

The Doctor meanwhile is having better luck with the Robot, managing to shift UNIT to the location of the third vital piece of technology. UNIT spends it’s time being pretty bloody useless at stopping a ‘very large rat’ from burrowing in and taking what it wants, which means whoever’s behind all this is now armed and dangerous.

Sarah is meanwhile working on her leads and heads to Professor Kettlewell who was once associated with Think Tank before he went against conventional science. The meeting that takes place is tense and shows Kettlewell has something to hide through his paranoid aversion of Sarah’s questions, before quite abruptly and rather rudely telling her to leave him alone. Curiosity kills the cat, or very nearly as Think Tank’s ‘demonstration’ scares the shit out of Sarah, rather satisfyingly I found, and after that she goes in for seconds! The whole opener to Episode 2 is terribly clichéd with Sarah making enquiries about whether it feels emotions. Sarah is put into her place as the director makes plain her position as a guest. The serial does at least put into practice the theorised prime directive of intelligent artificial life. The deal struck between the director and Sarah adds to the suspicion of the viewer about Think Tank.

The Doctor’s investigation deepens the mystery before offering timely clarification of who or what could be behind the thefts. Aliens couldn’t of course, nor could an opposing government, making for the interesting paradox that the only people who could do it wouldn’t want to. However, combined with Sarah’s information the finger soon points towards Think Tank. A pretty dragged out conclusion. Meanwhile the already obvious is confirmed, Think Tank are using the Robot for petty theft and murder.

The relationship between the Robot and Kettlewell is quite sweet really. Kettlewell comments early on that ordering the robot to be dismantled was like “putting my own son to death”. Later we see how Sarah’s assertion of the Robot’s feelings weren’t so farfetched as the Robot comes home crying to daddy and is really quite distressed, however Sarah is informed by Kettlewell of the Robot’s return and lures her in.

The SRS soon come onto the picture and are a clear allegory to the USSR. Their clear fascist ideology is almost funny if it wasn’t so offensive. To cut a long story short Think Tank are essentially the heart of the SRS and effect an attempt to take over the world with the use of nuclear arms. Cold War anyone? The fascist thinking of the story isn’t the only contemporary bit rammed in, as environmentalism is also placed mainly through Kettlewell’s new thinking research, solar and wind power amongst it.

The Robot’s eventual rampage is also keen with allusions, but the main one is rather clearly King Kong, and this is from someone who’s never watched it. The allusion itself is really quite funny in how apparent it is, and whether accidental or on purpose, it’s a miracle the BBC got away with that one. The scene is also home to one of the most pathetic effects in the history of the show, that of the infamous toy tank, it’s comedy gold. The ‘death’ of the robot is in its own way a bit sad, as it’s the demise of a confused and manipulated character, rather than one that’s straightforward evil, for this at least, the story is quite original. Oh! I never mentioned Harry did I? Yeah, there’s a reason for that…