Robot - Episode 1

Today is a moment that I have been looking forward to since I started this marathon. I am now in the Tom Baker era of the show and this is where we I am going to experience every different type of story that the show can provide. The show that I watch now is very different to the one that I watched on January 24 because for a starter there was a complete freshness to the show. It was filmed on colour, it had a new producer, a new doctor and also just felt like someone had injected with a whole load of vitamins. This time the only thing that has really changed is that there is a new leading man and the script editor has changed from Terrance Dicks to Robert Holmes. This is Barry Letts’ last story as producer with Philip Hinchcliffe waiting in the wings. So after the drama of ‘Planet of the Spiders’, it seems that the show has decided to take a gentler pace with former script editor Terrance Dicks writing this serial.

The initial post-regeneration scene is typical of what Baker’s Doctor would be like. There is a load of ramblings first but after a few minutes the Doctor seems to have got to grips which his new look and getting down to business. I don’t know why but I was quite pleased when the Doctor recognised the Brigadier and Sarah Jane. There is the now customary scene about the Doctor’s new garb.

Tom Baker gives a good performance in this episode and whilst it might take a while to get use to how he performs, I think that its good he goes for something that is completely different to Jon Pertwee. Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney do a good job in helping the viewer feel like this is Doctor Who whilst Baker gets a handle on the role. Sarah is back to her journalistic day job though her clothing is somewhat different to what she wore back in ‘The Time Warior’. This is the first appearance of Harry Sullivan played by the late great Ian Marter. Sarah Jane mentions that Harry is a bit old fashioned and whilst that may be true it is quite a good thing because Marter gives a rather charming performance.

The threat of the story is one of those things that looked great on paper but sadly doesn’t work so well on TV. At first we see the just the POV shot and then we just see its ‘hands’, it isn’t until the end of the episode that we see the top half of it and I don’t know whether its my 21^st century attitude but I just don’t think that it’s a very good robot. I’m sorry to say that but it might be good at breaking into things and killing Dalek operators but apart from that it doesn’t carry quite the weight that it should.

Most (if not all) of the location is filmed at BBC Wood Norton which was where some of ‘Spearhead From Space’ was recorded and there is one particular scene where Sarah is climbing over a wall which was used in ‘Spearhead from Space’ and everytime I see it I cant help but think of that story.

I like the initial scene between Miss Winters and Sarah Jane because Sarah thinks the Jellicoe is the director and Miss Winters says she wouldn’t have expected chauvinism from Sarah. This is particularly interesting because you could hardly call Sarah chauvinistic. I think that Patricia Maynard is very good as Miss Winters and comes across as someone with less that honourable intentions and the fact that the villain is a woman is something that is a rare thing in Doctor Who and its done rather well. Alec Linstead as her deputy Jellicoe does well in supporting the character. Kettelwell has the maddest hair ever seen on television and the way that he’s introduced is rather fun because he is someone who works at the Think tank and left to pursue other interests and so the first time that we get to meet him he comes across as some nice if cranky old man. I think that Edward Burnham gives a good performance in this episode.

The cliffhanger is quite a good one but that is just because I am comparing it to the rather odd ones that I have seen at the end of ‘Planet of the Spiders’. I think that considering it spends the first 10 or so minutes with Tom Baker, the episode does get quite a lot done and yet it doesn’t feel like it is being rushed or that we are missing out on anything. I think that the Tom Baker era of the show has kicked off in a good if somewhat subdued manner and I think that this was the best story to introduce the viewers to a new Doctor with.