Doctor Who review: The Robots of Death is a simple but brilliant story
By James Aggas
The Robots of Death is a classic example of how you don’t need a complex plot to create one of Doctor Who’s greatest ever stories.
Chris Boucher’s first Doctor Who story, The Face of Evil, was certainly a strong one. It had plenty of great ideas, excellent dialogue, and one or two memorable cliffhangers. But his second story, The Robots of Death, was not only even stronger. It’s the very definition of a classic, regularly featuring in many top twenty or even top ten greatest story lists.
On the surface, The Robots of Death seems to be very basic, certainly in terms of plot. On a sandminer working on a distant world, the human crewmembers are being picked off, one by one. While they believe that the Doctor and Leela are responsible for the murders, the Doctor knows that it’s the robots who are to blame. But what’s causing them to go against their programming?
With a summary like that, The Robots of Death has a pretty basic Doctor Who story. It’s the kind of story that we’ve seen many times before and since. A clear example that comes to mind is Thirteenth Doctor episode Kerblam!, which had more than a few nods to Robots. So what is it about this story that still makes it hold up, even today?
Distinctive characters
For one thing, the fact that Chris Boucher clearly uses such a basic template as the “murder mystery” – one heavily influenced by the novels of Agatha Christie, in this case – actually works well in the story’s favor. He makes sure to play to the genre’s strengths as much as possible. There are many distinctive characters, clear suspects and red herrings.
Two characters that particularly stand out are Uvanov and Poul. The former seems to be focused on collecting profit with little care for his human passengers. But could he be pushed to murder? Poul meanwhile initially seems keen to just do his job – but what secrets is he hiding?
Both characters have been written well and have a lot of depth, and that’s both down to the strength of Chris Boucher’s writing and the performances of both Russell Hunter as Uvanov and David Collings as Poul. In fact, there’s a pretty fantastic cast in general in this story. As well as Hunter and Collings, both David Bailie and Pamela Salem are also great as Dask and Toos.
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Excellent production
What also works well in this story’s favor is the quality of its production. In the past, great Doctor Who stories have often been let down by poor effects or direction. Thankfully, The Robots of Death suffers from neither. While entirely set in one location, the sandminer is brought to life convincingly. It features a strong sense of style and feels like a real place, which is exactly what you need from a story like this.
Michael E. Briant’s direction of this story is extremely strong. There’s a strong sense of claustrophobia in The Robots of Death, much of which comes down to the way that Briant shoots this story. The first death scene is particularly terrifying, and a great example of horror and suspense in Doctor Who.
We also need to talk about how excellent the design is for the titular robots. In the context of the story, they’re meant to appear human and friendly, but of course, come across as creepy the whole time. It’s an excellent design, and one more key reason why this story works as well as it does.
It’s funny to think that, despite numerous appearances in the expanded universe, (including Corpse Marker, a sequel novel written by Chris Boucher himself,) this is the Voc Robots only on-screen appearance in Doctor Who. They’re an extremely iconic design, and it’s a shame that they haven’t been seen on TV since. It’s a testament to the sheer quality of The Robots of Death – on virtually every level – that they’re still fondly remembered by fans today over four decades later. An absolutely classic serial that still holds up.
Next. Classic cliffhangers: Identity crisis in The Face of Evil. dark
Have you seen The Robots of Death? Are you a fan of the story? Do you think it’s one of Doctor Who‘s best stories? Let us know in the comments below.