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TARDIS Guide

Overview

First aired

Saturday, January 29, 1977

Production Code

4R

Written by

Chris Boucher

Directed by

Michael E. Briant

Runtime

100 minutes

Time Travel

Future

Tropes (Potential Spoilers!)

AI gone wrong, First TARDIS trip, Mining, Murder Mystery, Robots

Inventory (Potential Spoilers!)

Jelly Babies, Sonic Screwdriver

Location (Potential Spoilers!)

Kaldor, Storm Mine Four

Synopsis

The Fourth Doctor and Leela land aboard a sandminer, whose crew believe them to be responsible for a murder. As the crew continue to be picked off, the Doctor begins to suspect that the sandminer's robots may be responsible for the murders...

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4 Episodes

Part One

First aired

Saturday, January 29, 1977

Runtime

25 minutes

Written by

Chris Boucher

Directed by

Michael E. Briant

UK Viewers

12.8 million

Appreciation Index

62

Synopsis

An unnamed world, an unknown time. A vast mining vessel trawls a sea of mineral sand for valuable ores, the tiny human crew served by an army of humanoid robots. But as the Doctor and Leela arrive, one of the crew is found murdered... and if they didn't do it, who did?


Part Two

First aired

Saturday, February 5, 1977

Runtime

25 minutes

Written by

Chris Boucher

Directed by

Michael E. Briant

UK Viewers

12.4 million

Synopsis

The Doctor and Leela are suspected of murder. But the real foe is using robots to cut down the crew – and even sabotage the sand miner itself!


Part Three

First aired

Saturday, February 12, 1977

Runtime

25 minutes

Written by

Chris Boucher

Directed by

Michael E. Briant

UK Viewers

13.1 million

Synopsis

One of the crew is the insane Taren Capel, who is using robots to carry out the murders. The Doctor discovers that there are also others who aren't what they appear to be either.


Part Four

First aired

Saturday, February 19, 1977

Runtime

25 minutes

Written by

Chris Boucher

Directed by

Michael E. Briant

UK Viewers

12.6 million

Appreciation Index

57

Synopsis

The Doctor and the surviving humans fight for their lives against Taren Capel and his growing army of deadly robots.



Characters

How to watch The Robots of Death:

Reviews

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6 reviews

I always think maybe on this next watch I'll enjoy this one more like the majority of the fanbase do. But, it never happens. It's enjoyable, the cast are good, the Robots are good and look good, but the story just doesn't excite me. Out of the six stories of season 14 I rank it 5th. 3 stars is still good, it's just I find the rest of the season better.


Scottybguud

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This review contains spoilers!

Wow! I am in love with this story, it's so thrilling and full of brilliant moments.

The Doctor and Leela are already having fun together! Of course, there's the iconic interaction at the start of the story where he explains dimensional engineering, and she just replies "That's silly." She's already proving her worth as a companion, and I like it when an irregular companion uses idioms from wherever they're from - referring to robots as creepy mechanical men throughout. The Doctor was a bit generic in this story - Not that Tom did a bad job, there's just nothing that makes him stand out.

The robots were creepy. Like proper creepy. They have a fantastic design - They're obviously robots, but have a human element about them, which is the point of the villain's motive, because they're more than just slaves. I love the way they walk silently, too. Really ominous. Their voice sort of reminds me of Gus from Mummy on the Orient Express, being really monotone and chilling simultaneously - it just works - and they physically remind me of the Heavenly Hosts from Voyage of the Damned. In fact, the whole story does. The robots are amazing - love them so much.

Considering it's partly a murder mystery, I'm not going to say much about the true villain of the story, except their plot twist was quite obvious, but when it was actually executed, the way they changed was brilliant. Some more great design work!

The exterior shots were a bit lame, but the interior shots looked great, for a studio. They didn't feel cheap or small - in fact, something that worked really well for the robots is that they're in quite a large ship, and you don't know where the robots are and where they're trying to get you from. They did a great job in executing the ship designs..

Okay, now to talk about the true highlight of the story. I love D87 so much. He's just the star of the show. I'm captivated by everything he says, because the way he says it is so huggable. He's the Who version of Olaf from Frozen. I'm so disappointed that he didn't stay on for longer, but perhaps it means that his solo contribution to the show will forever remain perfect. The other side characters were okay, and I still felt shocked when they were murdered.

This is one of the high points of the show for me. Top marks all around. What a fantastic story.

 


Ryebean

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This review contains spoilers!

Godspeed, D84 my beloved. Genuinely fantastic episode - brilliant set design and costuming, pretty good pacing, great characterisation of Leela and a thoroughly enjoyable plot, too. Little aspects like the sandstorm mining, mentions of previous expeditions, the Robophobia and the general extensiveness of the set really make it feel like a lived in world. Possibly my only complaint is that some of the crew die off before we can know much about them, and the episode ends rather incredibly abruptly - like they knew they were running out of air time. Still, incredible episode!


HephaestusLeo

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The voc robots are just little guys we love them there precious no one could hurt my babies


Rock_Angel

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An Agatha Christie murder mystery and killer robots, a perfect combination. Great story with one of the best production designs from the classic series. The robots are superly creepy and the sets and exterior shots of the sandmine look great. The Doctor and Leela are great together too, Louise Jameson was a great addition to the cast


AndyUK

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Statistics

AVG. Rating494 members
4.06 / 5

Member Statistics

Watched

893

Favourited

121

Reviewed

6

Saved

5

Skipped

1

Quotes

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DOCTOR: To the rational mind, nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained.

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Transcript Needs checking

Part One

(On a dull and dusty planet, rocks tumble down steep jagged cliffs, disturbed by the action of a giant Sandmining machine travelling along through the area. At the highest point of the machine, we look through a large window into - )

[Control deck]

(There are many humanoid robots walking around, all identical except for their designation plates in the middle of their Chinese style padded tunics.)

V32: Turbulence centre, vector seven. Scan commencing now.


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