Robot marked a great change for Doctor Who: it was the first story to feature Tom Baker as The Doctor. For many people, Baker is the definitive Doctor, and this tale also showcases two other iconic characters: the lovely investigative reporter Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and the bombastic United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney).Unfortunately, Terrance Dicks' earnest eco-friendly/King Kong homaging script about a sentient robot and science fascists trying to take over the world becomes rather lost among awful effects (why, for instance, was the robot designed with spindly wrists that can't support its giant pincers?) and moments of ill-considered comedy (such as the Doctor's dance routine in front of the members of the scientific gathering).
Special effects in these early years of Who were rarely the programme's strong point, so it's a shame that what is actually quite a sound script is saddled with real bargain basement effects: the green-screening when the robot grows to gigantic proportions at the finale have haunted me since I was a child with their awfulness and when the UNIT tank rolls up to do battle it's so obviously an Action Man sized model that you can't help but laugh out loud.
But that said, Robot still has many good points and memorable characters: Patricia Maynard is disturbingly sexual as the evil Think Tank dominatrix Hilda Winters, while Edward Burnham's Professor Kettlewell is the archetypal mad scientist with wilder hair than Albert Einstein and Emmett Brown (so he must be smart!); and UNIT respond to the escalating crisis in their finest, incompetent, Dad's Army way.
Exorcise the comedy and upgrade the effects and Robot would stand confidently along with the new Who as a sterling example of what this show can do with its core performers and an intelligent writer. As it is, it is mainly memorable as "the one where Tom Baker took over from Jon Pertwee".
- My autographed (by Elisabeth Sladen) DVD of Robot came from The 10th Planet.
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