383 Robot: Part Two

EPISODE: Robot: Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 383
STORY NUMBER: 075
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 04 January 1975
WRITER: Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 10.7 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who – Robot

"Why should some alien life form invade Earth just to steal a new weapon? If they were that advanced, they'd have weapons of their own. Ha. Rather a splendid paradox, eh, Brigadier? The only ones who could do it wouldn't need to!"

Sarah is found by Miss Winters & Jellicoe who claim they set the robot on her as joke. She is allowed to talk with the robot and assured it isn't dangerous, demonstrated when it refuses to destroy her when commandeered. Jellicoe is angry as the robot has only just been reset and he believes it may have killed her when commanded. Sarah tells the Doctor & Brigadier about the robot. The Robot is sent to kill cabinet minister Joseph Chambers and steals something from the safe. The Doctor visits Professor Kettlewell to talk to him about the robot. The Brigadier discovers many members of Thinktank were members of the Scientific Reform Society. The robot visits Kettlewell saying it has been given orders that conflict with it's programming. Sarah interviews Mr Short from the Scientific Reform Society that leave her unimpressed. The Brigadier & Doctor visit Thinktank but are unable to see the robot because Miss Winters claims it's been dismantled. Harry Sullivan infiltrates Thinktank posing as a Doctor from the Ministry of Health. Kettlewell calls the Doctor saying he has the robot and asks the Doctor to come to help him. As he puts the phone down Winters & Jellicoe arrive. Sarah and the newly promoted Warrant Officer Benton find the note the Doctor leaves. Entering Kettlewell's house the Doctor is attacked by the Robot who has been instructed to destroy him as an enemy of the human race....

This episode I can feel elements of the Third Doctor coming through in Tom's performance and not just because he gets to drive Bessie for the first time. The "I'll talk to anyone" when he answers the phone is a direct lift from The Green Death. Given that it's the most recent thing for Tom to model his performance on and that writer Terrance Dicks has spent the last 5 years tidying up other people's scripts for Pertwee this shouldn't come as a surprise.

However there's two Fourth Doctor staples seen in the fight with the robot at the end:

First he tries to trip it with his scarf then he blinds it with his hat. We'll see both of those tricks again!

There's some fab dialogue between the Doctor & Brigadier, as they discuss the thefts and try to untangle who could have done it, which is superb:

BRIGADIER: Well, Doctor, what are we dealing with? Invasion from outer space again?
DOCTOR: Why should some alien life form invade Earth just to steal a new weapon? If they were that advanced, they'd have weapons of their own. Ha. Rather a splendid paradox, eh, Brigadier? The only ones who could do it wouldn't need to.
BRIGADIER: Enemy agents?
DOCTOR: Well, they might steal the plans, but why steal the circuits and the generators? An enemy government would have those resources itself.
BRIGADIER: So where does that leave us?
DOCTOR: I think your enemies are home grown, Brigadier. People with access to technological information and a most unusual weapon. A weapon that walks and thinks. In a word, anthropomorphic.
BRIGADIER: Well, I suppose that narrows the field a bit. Do we know anything else about these people?
DOCTOR: Only that they're prepared to kill to protect themselves.

and then, interrupted by Sarah's arrival:

BRIGADIER: Where do I start looking for this precious conspiracy?
DOCTOR: Oh, it's surely not that difficult, Brigadier? Oh, thank you. There can't be many groups of people with the money and resources to design and build something like
SARAH: An enormous robot over seven feet tall!
DOCTOR: Yes, something like that. However did you guess?
SARAH: Guess? I've just seen it. I've been talking to it.

We get our first full look at the robot too and it looks fabulous! It's little wonder that Dennis Fisher included it in their toy range a few years later alongside a couple of other monsters from this season....

It's scenes with Sarah show off it's shear size well. Actress Elisabeth Sladen was 1m62cm (5'4") high so you can get some idea of how big it was!

Miss Winters' line to Sarah reminded me somewhat of the first Doctor's companion Vicki

HILDA: Really, Miss Smith, this is absurd. I think you must be the sort of girl that gives motor cars pet names.

She really did have this habit giving names to everything in sight!

Though I'm afraid that this exchange between Sarah and the Brigadier, called a Swinger by Sarah last episode, did make me chuckle for reasons I'm sure the writer didn't intend:

BRIGADIER: Where you off to?
SARAH: Home to bed. Busy day tomorrow. I'm still a working girl, you know.

Deary me.

Speaking of working you can tell that Jellico and winters are proper scientists: both are wearing white coats as the modify the robot!

More work: Someone's had a promotion!

SARAH: Oo, I like that. What is it?
BENTON: That's promotion, Miss, to WO1.
SARAH: WO what?
BENTON: Warrant Officer. You see, technically speaking, the Brig should have a Major and a Captain under him. The UNIT budget won't run to it so they settled on promoting me.
SARAH: Congratulations. About time, too.
BENTON: Thank you.

And well deserved it is too. Actually It's Benton's second promotion since we met him first in 1968's The Invasion. He was a Corporal there but had been made up to Sergeant by the time of his second appearance in Ambassadors of Death. Five years later he receives another promotion to Warrant Office Class 1, The highest ranked Non Comissioned Officer in the British Army. That's actually a jump of three grades passing over both Staff Sergeant, the rank held by Arnold in Web of Fear, and Warrant Officer Class 2.

Leading the guest cast for this story is Patricia Maynard playing Hilda Winters. Despite a long career the only other thing I've seen her in is her appearance in The Sweeney episode Abduction, the 13th & final episode of the show's first series, where she plays Miss Doreen Alexander. I'm unsure if that's where she met Dennis Waterman or not but she became his second wife (his third wife shows up in Doctor Who much later) and is the mother of actress Hannah Waterman (Eastenders and New Tricks).

Alec Linstead, Arnold Jellicoe, was Unit technical Sgt. Osgood in The Dæmons. There's a character called Osgood in Unit in the New series and it looks highly likely that she is the original Osgood's daughter! Linstead later returns as Arthur Stegnos in Revelation of the Daleks.

We've seen Michael Kilgarriff, inside the K1 Robot, before as the Cyber-Controller in The Tomb of the Cybermen and an Ogron in Frontier in Space. He'll make a return appearance as the Controller in Attack of the Cybermen. Meanwhile his creator, Professor Kettlewell, is played by Edward Burnham who was also has Cyberman connections appearing previously as Professor Watkins in The Invasion. Burnham is believed to be the second oldest surviving actor from then original series and celebrated his 98th Birthday last Monday!

Playing Short, the man who Sarah interviews at the Scientific Reform Society, is Timothy Craven who was a cell guard in Frontier in Space and Robinson in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. He'll be back as a Tesh in The Face of Evil Part Three.

Playing, uncredited, the politician Joseph Chambers is Walter Goodman who been in the series several times without getting a credit. He was an extra in Spearhead from Space Episode 1 , the RAF VIP Auton in Spearhead from Space: Episode 4, a Villager in The Dæmons Episode Three and will return as the Android Farmer in The Android Invasion Part One.

The filming of Robot was disrupted by a scene shifters' strike necessitating that the sets for the program be left up. Famously an episode of Blue Peter, featuring Peter Purves who played the First Doctor's companion Steven, was filmed in the Doctor Who lab set! The start of this episode is included on the Doctor Who: Robot DVD.

The last few minutes of this episode, roughly from 21:05 to 25:02, are covered quite extensively in the second edition of The Making of Doctor Who by Terrance Dicks & his old friend Malcolm Hulke. Hulke, with some assistance from Dicks, had written the first edition in 1972 for Piccolo Books in 1972 and featured some material on the making of The Sea Devils. With the Doctor who fictional licence now resting with Target and a new Doctor in place it was felt that it was time for an update. The scenes, featuring Sarah & Benton and The Doctor & the robot are shown progressing from writer's storyline through writer's story breakdown, rehearsal script and finally to an excerpt from Dicks' own Target novelisation of the story.

This is the first episode of Doctor Who broadcast in 1975 which bring me on to one of the main reasons I decided to look at these episode again. Due to a scheduling change for the series more episodes of Doctor Who are shown during this year than in any other year since the 1960. The series started just after Christmas as it had done for every year since the start of Jon Pertwee's reign in 1970. As was the custom for the first story of the season Robot was recorded at the end of the series 11th production block right after (and sometimes during) the production of Pertwee's final story Planet of Spiders but broadcast as the opening story of the 12th season. The 12th production block opened with the all location Sontaran Experiment before returning to studio for The Ark in Space, Revenge of the Cybermen and Genesis of the Daleks in that order before recording Terror of the Zygons. However the BBC decided that they would like Doctor Who to, in future, start from it's more traditional 60s start time of early Autumn so the 12th season was cut short at 20 episodes which made it the shortest season so far: the standard length the last few years had been, and would continue to be, 26 episodes. Terror of the Zygons was held back to start the 13th season and the 13th production block started with Pyramids of Mars then Planet of Evil and Android Invasion. These ended up being shown in a different order, with Android Invasion finishing before Christmas and a two week break for the festive scheduling.

Season	Recording	Story	Episode	Date
12	11	Robot	1	28/12/1974
12	11	Robot	2	04/01/1975
12	11	Robot	3	11/01/1975
12	11	Robot	4	18/01/1975
12	12	The Ark in Space	1	25/01/1975
12	12	The Ark in Space	2	01/02/1975
12	12	The Ark in Space	3	08/02/1975
12	12	The Ark in Space	4	15/02/1975
12	12	The Sontaran Experiment	1	22/02/1975
12	12	The Sontaran Experiment	2	01/03/1975
12	12	Genesis of the Daleks	1	08/03/1975
12	12	Genesis of the Daleks	2	15/03/1975
12	12	Genesis of the Daleks	3	22/03/1975
12	12	Genesis of the Daleks	4	29/03/1975
12	12	Genesis of the Daleks	5	05/04/1975
12	12	Genesis of the Daleks	6	12/04/1975
12	12	Revenge of the Cybermen	1	19/04/1975
12	12	Revenge of the Cybermen	2	26/04/1975
12	12	Revenge of the Cybermen	3	03/05/1975
12	12	Revenge of the Cybermen	4	10/05/1975
13	12	Terror of the Zygons	1	30/08/1975
13	12	Terror of the Zygons	2	06/09/1975
13	12	Terror of the Zygons	3	13/09/1975
13	12	Terror of the Zygons	4	20/09/1975
13	13	Planet of Evil	1	27/09/1975
13	13	Planet of Evil	2	04/10/1975
13	13	Planet of Evil	3	11/10/1975
13	13	Planet of Evil	4	18/10/1975
13	13	Pyramids of Mars	1	25/10/1975
13	13	Pyramids of Mars	2	01/11/1975
13	13	Pyramids of Mars	3	08/11/1975
13	13	Pyramids of Mars	4	15/11/1975
13	13	The Android Invasion	1	22/11/1975
13	13	The Android Invasion	2	29/11/1975
13	13	The Android Invasion	3	06/12/1975
13	13	The Android Invasion	4	13/12/1975

So all in all 35 new episodes of Doctor Who were shown in 1975, many of them considered to be amongst the series very best!

382 Robot: Part One

EPISODE: Robot: Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 382
STORY NUMBER: 075
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 28 December 1974
WRITER: Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 10.8 million viewers

"You may be a doctor, but I'm The Doctor. The definite article, you might say!"

The Brigadier summons UNIT's Surgeon, Naval Lt Harry Sullivan to care for the delirious newly regenerated Doctor. At the Ministry of Defence Top Secret Weapons Research Centre SOMETHING cuts it's way in and steals the plans for the new disintegrator gun. Sarah begs a visitors pass for Think Tank, a research establishment, from the Brigadier. The recovering Doctor attempts to leave, finding the Tardis key in his boot and locking Doctor Sullivan in a lab cupboard where he's found by Sarah & the Brigadier who persuade him to stay and help find the missing weapon plans. A Ministry of Defence parts store is raided by the thing that stole the plans. The Doctor tries a number of outlandish outfits before settling on a long coat, scarf and hat. The Doctor finds evidence that local flora had been crushed by something weighing a quarter of a ton and the missing components could be used to help build the disintegrator gun. Sarah arrives at Thinktank meeting Hilda Winters & Arnold Jellicoe. The Doctor works out what else is needed to build the gun and has the factory making it guarded. However the thing tunnels in under the factory killing the guard and stealing the components. Sarah goes to see Professor Kettlewell, a former Thinktank member, who now researches alternative energy, to attempt to find out if they are continuing his work in robotics. Unit find the exit tunnel from the factory and discover giant foot prints leaving it. Sarah sneaks back into Thinktank, under the excuse she's left something behind and encounters a huge robot in Kettlewell's former lab.

You can almost sum this episode up in two words: Tom Baker. My goodness what a find for the series. Eccentric in mannerism & appearance, and gifted with such a wonderful voice he settles into the part immediately. Pertwee spent most of his first episode unconscious and both he & Troughton were doubted as being the real thing. Tom Baker is the Doctor from the word go and his performance is all but fully formed from the start.

Born in Liverpool on 20 January 1934 Tom Baker had left school at 15 to become a Catholic Monk, but left the monastery after six years. He did his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps until 1957 at which point he became an actor. He married in 1961 to Anna Wheatcroft, having two sons Daniel and Piers before the relationship broke up and they were divorced in 1966. Mainly appearing on stage he broke into film & television in 1968. He memorably played the Monk Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra in 1971 before appearing in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad as the villain Koura. However by early 1974 he was a little down on his luck, having had two major film roles fall through and was working as a builders mate on a building site on Ebury Street in London. In desperation he sent a number of letters to various people he knew one of which was Bill Slater, who had directed him in The Millionairess, BBC Play of the Month for September 1972.....

Meanwhile Producer Barry Letts was hunting for Jon Pertwee's replacement as Doctor Who. (deep breath) Ron Moody, David Warner (who doesn't only do sci fi you know), Michael Bentine, Jim Dale, Fulton MacKay and Graham Crowden had all been considered for or offered the role. Barry's Boss Bill Slater, reminded by the letter he had received, suggested Tom Baker. Barry Letts met Baker and the next day he and then script editor Terrance Dicks caught a showing of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad which convinced them he was the right man for the job. Baker was summoned to the BBC Bar and offered the role. Baker's casting was announced on the 15th February 1974, after which he returned to the building site and bought his now former work mates a round of drinks. On Thursday 2nd April he was in the BBC Studios recording the regeneration scene at the end of Planet of the Spiders.

DOCTOR: Oh. As for the physiognomy. Well, nothing's perfect. Have to take the rough with the smooth. Mind you, I think the nose is a definite improvement. As for the ears, well, I'm not too sure. Tell me quite frankly, what do you say to the ears?

There's some decent stuff elsewhere in the episode "Mind you, the nose a definite improvement" is a little joke towards the departed lead actor: Jon Pertwee was always very concious of his nose. The Doctor trying on a variety of different clothes becomes a staple of most future regenerations as the Doctor tries various outfits, frequently old costumes, trying to establish his look.

The Fourth Doctor's look was designed by future Oscar winner James Acheson. As is well documented he visited a lady named Begonia Pope with some wool and asked her to knit a scarf. She used all the wool resulting in the hugely long scarf that would become one of the fourth Doctor's enduring trademarks and one that's still associated with the program even now THIRTY years after it's final appearance.

In order to give the audience an element of the familiar the first story of the new season includes not only companion Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen, but also UNIT in the form of Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and John Levene as Sergeant Benton, both series regulars during the Pertwee era.

Brigadier, then Colonel, Lethbridge Stewart first appeared in episode three of the Web of Fear, shown on 17th February 1968. Now on 28th December 1974, nearly seven years later, for five of which he's been regularly appearing in the show, we finally hear his full name for the first time: Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart. OK yes it had appeared in print before now in the first edition of Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks' The Making of Doctor Who but this is the first time we hear it on screen.

We get a rare appearance by a visible John Scott Martin, unencumbered by monster costume, as the security guard at the MOD parts store. You can also catch him as a villager in the Daemons and Hughes the miner in the Green Death. But most of the rest of the time he's Daleks and similar. There's also an appearance for regular extra Pat Gorman as the security guard at ThinkTank.

Departed script editor Terrance Dicks follows in the footsteps of his predecessors David Whitaker, Dennis Spooner, Gerry Davis and Derrick Sherwin by writing the first story after he leaves the role, replaced by regular writer for the series Robert Holmes who will later follow the tradition by leaving after Image of the Fendahl and then writing The Sunmakers. In the script Dicks' slips in a reference to a subject close to soon to be departed Producer Barry Letts' heart: alternative energy:

KETTLEWELL: I'm afraid I can't help you, Miss Smith. I don't know why you came to me.
SARAH: Well, I'm not too sure myself, to be honest. I just felt something in the air at Think Tank.
KETTLEWELL: Yes, I severed all connection with that establishment some time ago, when I became completely disillusioned at the direction all our research was taking. The road to ruination. I'm now devoting my life to alternative energy technologies.
SARAH: Solar cells, heat from windmills, that sort of thing?

Over the years that Letts and Dicks were in charge of the show it wore it's environmental credentials on it's sleeve no more so than during The Green Death at the end of the 1973 season.

Along with the old we get some more new: Robot introduces us to new companion Navel Doctor Lt Harry Sullivan, played by Ian Marter. As you'll have seen from the list of potential Doctors in several of them weren't young men and the idea was a new male companion would do the action sequences. As it was a younger actor was cast as the Doctor (Tom was forty when he took the part up, the youngest actor so far to play him) but the male companion idea was retained, but its given the angle that the Doctor considers him a bit of a fool. His entrance here is a prime example:

DOCTOR: I tell you, Brigadier, there's nothing to worry about. The brontosaurus is large and placid.
(Doctor Harry Sullivan enters the room)
HARRY: This the patient, sir?
DOCTOR: And stupid.

Ian Marter had previously been a candidate for playing Mike Yates but due to an existing theatre commitment was unable to accept the role. Barry Letts remembered him and cast him as Lt John Andrews in Carnival of Monsters and then again here. Ian Marter holds the sad distinction of being the first actor who has played a Doctor Who companion to die, on 28th October 1986 his forty second birthday.

Then there's the robot itself, who the story is named after. Hinted at earlier in the episode with just a shot of it's hands and a few shots from it's point of view to go on alongside the ominous statement from the Doctor

DOCTOR: Something that brushes chains and electric fences like cobwebs. Something intelligent, that takes only what it needs and leaves the rest. Something that kills a man as casually as it crushes a dandelion.

Like all really good Doctor Who monsters we don't find out what it looks like until the closing moments as it looms over a terrified Sarah.

There's two main reasons I wanted to look at Tom Baker's early episodes again now. The first is that it is the 40th anniversary of their first broadcast and that probably serves to be commemorated. In the minds of most people of my generation Tom Baker still is THE Doctor who, hence the most appropriate quote above! For some the greatest moment of the 50th anniversary celebrations was Tom's superb unpublicised cameo in the anniversary special. The moment you heard his voice the years just rolled back. So happy anniversary Tom!

40 Years of Tom Baker as Doctor Who

Forty years ago Tom Baker made his debut as Doctor Who on 28th December 1974 when Robot episode 1 aired. I think we'd better do something to commemorate that .....