#9 (13.13 - 13.16): The Android Invasion.

The Doctor is captured by the evil Kraals!

4 episodes. Approx. 96 minutes. Written by: Terry Nation. Directed by: Barry Letts. Produced by: Philip Hinchcliffe.


THE PLOT

The Doctor and Sarah Jane materialize near Devesham, a rural English village located not far from a Space Defence Station. They have only just arrived when they spot a UNIT soldier, who runs erratically over a cliff to his death. When the Doctor searches the man's body, he discovers that his money is all newly minted - which is very improbable.

Mysterious events continue to build up. Strange men in spacesuits fire on them without even a word exchanged. When they reach the village, they find it completely deserted - with the money in the local pub all newly minted, just as the soldier's was. When the people finally arrive, they are dropped off in trucks and shuffle into the pub where they sit or stand like zombies - until the clock strikes twelve, at which point they suddenly behave normally.

The Doctor goes to the Space Defence Station, in hopes of finding UNIT allies to fill him in on the situation. He finds familiar faces: Harry Sullivan, Warrant Officer Benton. But these friends turn on him violently. These are not the real Harry and Benton, but android duplicates - and by the time the Doctor reconnects with Sarah Jane, she has been replaced as well...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Though The Android Invasion isn't one of his better stories, Tom Baker is on excellent form. The scene at the end of Part Two, in which he confronts the android Sarah Jane, is a particular highlight. He has a calm, even casual tone as he reveals what he's figured out so far (which is a lot), but there's a dangerous undercurrent as he asks what has happened to the real Sarah. He switches between casual irreverence and deadly seriousness regularly throughout the story, sometimes within the same line delivery, and makes a fairly weak script very watchable in large part through sheer charisma.

Sarah Jane Smith: You know you're in a Terry Nation script when capable Sarah Jane Smith can't help herself from falling over nothing in each of the first two episodes - the second time, even spraining her ankle! To Nation, all companions are Susan Forman. That said, I love the easy screen rapport that had developed by this point between Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen. The opening bit, as they leave the TARDIS and walk into the woods, is wonderful as the Doctor's aside about "watch the bramble" is carried on to a full, natural-sounding conversation as they walk away. There are a lot of little bits like that between these two, who just "fit" beautifully together on camera.

Harry Sullivan/Warrant Officer Benton: This serial is the final series appearance of both characters. Not that there's much for either of them to do - We don't even see the real Harry and Benton until the final episode, and the effectiveness of having android doubles of them is undercut by Terror of the Zygons having done something similar just a few stories earlier. They remain welcome presences, though, even if one could have wished for stronger roles for them.


THOUGHTS

With its rural village and UNIT involvement, The Android Invasion feels very much like a leftover from the Pertwee era. One expects the Brigadier to pop up and start shooting at things and for the Doctor to hop into Bessie at any moment. It also is another Season 13 story whose plot involves doppelgangers of familiar faces, which can create a sense of deja vu so soon after Terror of the Zygons.

These factors probably have a lot to do with just how poorly-regarded this serial is. To be sure, this isn't one of the series' better stories. The Kraals are weak villains with a plan so convoluted as to practically be nonsensical.  An ending twist involving the weak-willed Crayford (Milton Johns)'s eyepatch is so ludicrous in its stupidity it about crosses the Event Horizon of idiocy. That's not even mentioning the presence of Colonel Faraday (Patrick Newell), a third-rate Brigadier knockoff who might as well be clad in a sandwich board reading, "Nicholas Courtney wasn't available, so you got me."

For all its faults, though, I find this a passably entertaining runaround. It moves along at a decent pace, and Barry Letts' direction is sturdy. The opening episode is by far the best of the story's four installments. The Village of the Damned trappings are genuinely spooky, and the script artfully piles one mystery on top of another: the strange spacesuited figures, the radiation, the mint condition money, the odd behavior of the locals. It's all effectively presented, and builds quite nicely... albeit, to a very weak cliffhanger.

The Android Invasion is an enjoyable time-filler, and it's given a tremendous boost by the performances of Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen. But its plot feels half-formed, and its most effective ingredient - evil doubles of our regulars - was already done earlier in the same season. All of which leaves this a passable runaround, but ill-placed and outclassed by most of the stories surrounding it.

Overall Rating: 5/10.

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#6 (13.1 - 13.4): Terror of the Zygons

4 episodes. Written by: Robert Banks Stewart. Directed by: Douglas Camfield.  Produced by: Philip Hinchcliffe.


THE PLOT

The Brigadier's call for help brings the Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry back to Earth. Specifically, to Scotland, where several oil rigs have been destroyed by an unknown force. Investigating the wreckage, the Doctor determines that the metal bears the unmistakeable impression of teeth - with a single tooth being roughly half the size of a man!

The attacks are the work of the Zygons, who crash landed on Earth centuries earlier. They have kept a low profile until now, content to await rescue. But now their home planet has been destroyed. With no home of their own to return to, the Zygon leader has decided to turn Earth into their new home world... with crushing the human race the first step in their plan of conquest.


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: In the face of yet another alien invasion in the UK, the Doctor seems not only unflappable, but positively... bored. I'm afraid this is the first Tom story (indeed, the first story I've thus far reviewed) in which the Doctor really doesn't work for me. There's no sense of personal threat, and the script doesn't provide enough wit or humor to compensate. Tom fills in some of the gaps by emphasizing his Doctor's eccentricities. But there really isn't much here for him to sink his teeth into, and by the end I got the sense that both Tom and the Doctor were a bit bored by the proceedings - which affected my own interest, as well.

Sarah Jane Smith: Sarah Jane actually has a better story here than the Doctor does. When the Brigadier briefs them on the situation, she instantly siezes on her area of specialty - interviewing the locals, finding out what they may know about strange occurrences. When Harry comes to her after a brief disappearance, she is of course overjoyed to see him. But she senses that he is behaving particularly strangely, leading her to stop him from getting away with a Zygon device the Doctor had discovered. Sure enough, this "Harry" proves to be a Zygon duplicate. Finally, her persistence in nosing around the Duke's estate allows her to find the entrance to the Zygon ship. Elisabeth Sladen throws herself in with typical enthusiasm, and seems to enjoy getting more to do than usual. Her rapport with Tom elevates several scenes in the first and final episodes, too, with Tom's performance noticeably elevated in the scenes he shares with Sladen.

Harry Sullivan: Gets the smallest slice of the action he has had since Robot, put out of action early on and kept to the periphery even after his recue. This may well have been a conscious decision: minimize Harry's involvement in his final regular story to emphasize the one-on-one bond between the Doctor and Sarah Jane. Harry still gets a few bright moments, particularly in Part Three when he saves the Doctor by plunging in and pushing down on random switches.  Ian Marter remains as likable as ever, and will definitely be missed in future stories.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: After appearing at least once per season since Season Five, this was the his swansong as a regular character. It would be several years before he would appear again, and then only as an occasional special guest star. It was probably time for the Brig and UNIT to be given a rest, as they had certainly fallen far from the crisp, military competence exhibited in Season Seven. Here, we see the Brig perplexed at such a basic and obvious investigative technique as filling a cavity with a plaster of paris to gain an impression or investigating the Duke's abandoned estate for clues (both things the Season Seven Brig would have probably ordered done as a matter of course).

Nicholas Courtney still retains a stiff dignity, and the character gets some better material later in the story, such as in a rather well-planned mortar attack on the loch which has the exact effect intended, in that it forces the Zygon ship to surface. It is also appropriate that, in his final regular story, he gets to meet and deal with an alien menace that is not resistant to bullets. Nevertheless, the character has grown a bit stale by this point, and the spark Courtney had playing opposite Pertwee just isn't there opposite Tom. It's regrettable, but I'd have to agree with Hinchcliffe's decision to discontinue the character.


THOUGHTS

While I know Terror of the Zygons is a fan favorite, I have to admit that it's not a favorite of mine. On this viewing, it really struck me how often the serial feels like just a collection of scenes, rather than a full story. One thing doesn't necessarily seem to lead to the next.  Scattered set pieces - Sarah and the false Harry, the Doctor and the Scarasen, the UNIT soldiers' hunt for the Zygon - often seem like they could have been inserted anywhere, in any order, along the loose skeleton that forms the plot.

Up until the final episode, which finally gets a bit of momentum going, everything is very laid back... too laid back, lacking any sense of urgency. We're told at the outset that many people have died, but it doesn't feel like anything important is happening. Episode One sets up the situation; Episode Four sees the Zygons put their plan into effect. The middle two episodes basically just fill screen time with rather mild set pieces. The Doctor never really seems concerned, and given the Zygons' rather thin plan could probably have been dealt with by humanity without the Doctor's help, albeit with a much higher body count, I can't say that I really blame him for his lack of interest. It all leads to Tom's least energetic performance yet.

Like a handful of other early Tom Baker stories, Terror of the Zygons feels in many ways a leftover Pertwee story. It has the Brigadier and UNIT investigating strange occurrences in a rural area, there's an energy conference whose specifics are vague but apparently important, the Doctor gets to climb on a soapbox about fossil fuels, and locals are portrayed as highly superstitious, simple folk, useful mainly for providing exaggerated "local color." Just to emphasize that we're in rural Scotland, the Scot in the opening scene is complaining that he can't get a decent haggis.  Meanwhile, the bagpipe-playing innkeeper talks of having "The Sight." There's even a bit of dodgy model work and a painfully fake-looking loch ness monster. Replace Elisabeth Sladen with Katy Manning, and this would fit quite snugly in the middle of Seasons Nine or Ten.

All of this might make it sound like I'm slating Terror of the Zygons, and I really don't mean to. It's one of the weaker stories I've reviewed thus far, with a particularly poor Episode Three. Even so, it is a perfectly reasonable entertainment. The Scarasen may be infamously poor, but the Zygons themselves are extremely well-realized, one of the best-realized aliens the show has given us at this point. The interior of the Zygon ship is effective, with suitably dim and tinted lighting making it feel just enough like an alien atmosphere to create a fairly eerie overall effect for the Zygon scenes.

Finally, there is the TARDIS team - a team which, as I've mentioned before, is one of my favorites. The opening shot of the trio, walking merrily together through the Scottish countryside, is charming. With the Doctor at maximum eccentricity in his "Scottish garb," and the Doctor's scarf looped lazily about Harry's shoulders, while Sarah walks comfortably and happily between them, they feel almost as much like a family enjoying a holiday as a set of traveling companions preparing to face another alien onslaught. There's a genuine sense of chemistry and affection among the three, the sort of thing that can't necessarily be planned or made to happen. When onscreeen together, they just... plain... work. This, more than anything, makes me regret that Harry was written out so soon. If I were to cite one Philip Hinchcliffe decision that I strongly disagree with, it would be that one - I could have happily watched this trio stay together for another full season, at least.


I go back and forth between a "6" and a "7," here. The story is entertaining. But the plot is haphazard, Tom seems a bit too detached, and the middle episodes are mainly filler that often doesn't even do a good job of pretending to advance the plot.  Apparently, this serial was one that underwent massive rewrites. In this particular case, it shows. On balance, it's probably better-made than Revenge of the Cybermen. Unfortunately, I found it to be not nearly as much fun.


Rating: 6/10.

Previous Story: Revenge of the Cybermen
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#5 (12.17 - 12.20): Revenge of the Cybermen

4 episodes. Written by: Gerry Davis, Robert Holmes (uncredited). Directed by: Michael E. Briant.  Produced by: Philip Hinchcliffe.


THE PLOT

The Time Ring returns the Doctor, Harry, and Sarah Jane to Station Nerva. But they arrive centuries early, in the time before the solar flares, when the station is being used as a beacon to aid in space travel. This particular beacon has been set up around Voga, an apparent asteroid drawn into Jupiter's orbit to become a new satellite for the giant planet, and a potential hazard to space navigation. But all is not well on the beacon. The station has been ravaged by plague, with only a handful of its original staff still alive.

The Doctor suspects that this is no simple space plague. When a metallic worm is caught injecting Sarah Jane with poison, his worst fears are confirmed. The worm is a Cybermat. The Cybermen are on their way, with a fiendish plot to destroy Voga before moving on to conquer the galaxy!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Tom's first truly manic performance (even Robot was fairly settled, with most of the overt goofiness confined to the first episode). I more than half-suspect Tom, now comfortable in the role, recognized this as a weak script and decided to have some fun playing against as many lines as possible. Since it's the first time he really runs with his more manic tendencies, it works.  There are some classic Tom bits here. Grinning after being manhandled by the Cybermen, letting loose with a stream of technobabble and then translating that he and Sarah Jane are "heading toward the biggest bang in history," or cheerfully wondering, "Who's the homicidal maniac?" after Kellman insistst that he, Sarah, and Harry should be killed at once.

Tom's best moment comes in Episode Two. Kellman has been all but exposed as a traitor, but he is still protesting his innocence and the station's captain is not yet quite 100% convinced. Until the Doctor hastens the questioning by using a reprogrammed Cybermat to threaten him.  He observes that after it strikes, Kellman will have about 10 seconds to give the needed information if he wants to live. It's a standard enough scene, really. Pertwee would have played this scene dead straight, utterly serious and imperious in facing down Kellman, and he would have been suitably compelling doing so. But Tom turns this scene just the right degree askew to make it something memorable, grinning manically as he threatens Kellman. Tom's already shown his abilities to summon furious intensity.  But here he goes in the opposite direction, grinning manically and almost reveling in the game of threatening Kellman. It's very effective, and just the tiniest bit disquieting how much he seems to be enjoying himself.

Sarah Jane Smith: She gets thrust into the role of "damsel-in-distress" fairly early on, when she's poisoned by the Cybermat. She then plays companion to Harry, who very much takes the lead on Voga.  Finally, she thrusts herself right back into peril by going back to the Beacon in Episode Four, in order to be rescued by the Doctor again. It is fun to see the rapport she and Tom have developed by this stage. Their interplay on the Beacon in Episode Four is positively buoyant, each seeming to feed off the other's energy.

Harry Sullivan: "Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!" Not an entirely fair summation of the character at any point, and far from a fair one here.  Harry does become the inexplicable butt of the Doctor's ire in this serial, however. As early as Episode One, he's earning glares from the Doctor for little real reason (the sliding door bit), at which point even Harry seems to start getting a touch fed up ("What have I done now?"). 

All of which distracts from what a strong story this is for Harry.  Not only does he help to save Sarah Jane by helping her to transmat from the Beacon to Voga, but he takes the lead on Voga. He notes the significance of the gold shackles, engineering an escape for himself and Sarah Jane. When the Cybermen arrive on Voga too early for Vorus' trap to succeed, Harry is the one who determines that there must be a way to delay the Cyber bombs from being planted. His only substantial misstep is sending Sarah Jane back to the Beacon, but that isn't so much idiocy as simply acting on incomplete information.

The Cybermen: This story marks the Cybermen's return after a five year absence. It was a return producer Philip Hinchcliffe seemed less than enthusiastic about, apparently having been lumbered with them by the outgoing production team. The Cyberman design here is a definite backward step from their Invasion design, but it is at least serviceable. What jars is how emotional these Cybermen are. The Cyberleader gloats in some scenes, and briefly gives the Doctor the upper hand at one point in Episode Three when he throws a temper tantrum, literally tossing the Doctor at one of the Cyber bombs. The Cyber plan to destroy Voga is needlessly complicated, with their backup plan - stuffing the beacon with explosives and aiming it at the planet - both simpler and far more likely to actually succeed! Worst is that this serial seems to fundamentally misunderstand the Cybermen, turning them into bipedal Daleks, rather than using that which made the Cybermen unique in the first place: the desire to convert others to be like them. All told, it's not hard to see why it was 8 years before the next Cyber story. It's just a shame that, when they did return later, the Revenge Cybermen seemed to be the template, rather than the more effective 1960's versions.


THOUGHTS

Revenge of the Cybermen is in many ways a quintessential Doctor Who story. It's rather cheap-looking, with uneven guest performances and plot-holes galore. It's incredible nonsense, a mishmash of barely-connected elements in service of a thin and derivative plot. By no reasonable critical standpoint could it be labeled "good."

It is also a heck of a lot of fun to watch.

For all of Revenge's many faults, it is never boring. The story just keeps piling on incidents and set pieces. You may be aware that Kellman's double-agent shenanigans don't actually seem to make much sense.  You certainly may notice that Vorus' grand plan (basically, to fire off a big rocket) seems less than brilliantly thought out, and depends for any lasting effectiveness on believing that there are only four Cybermen left in the galaxy. Certainly, it may occur to you that the serial cannot decide whether Voga is a small asteroid or a full planet. Or why, given the Cybermen's weakness for gold, the Vogans don't just set up wind machines to blow storms of gold dust at them to clog their chest units, instead of continuing to fire off bullets which do, um, nothing? That's not even mentioning that, just as Vorus seems to assume that the handful of Cybermen attacking Voga are all the Cybermen in the galaxy, the Cybermen seem equally certain that there is no gold in the galaxy other than what is on Voga. It's all ludicrous, sub-Buck Rogers nonsense...

...But it just keeps moving along, with so much that is either fun or at least endearingly idiotic that it's virtually impossible not to enjoy it. The scenes of the dead bodies splayed across the corridors of the Beacon are actually quite effective. The Doctor's investigation of Kellman, leading to an enjoyable set piece in which he avoids Kellman's electrified floor. Sarah Jane and Harry, dodging Vorus' troops on Voga. The Cybermen, landing on the Beacon. The Cybermen, attacking Voga in force (a force of two, but still). Cave ins and bombs and not one but two countdowns to Doomsday. And then, when it's all over, the Doctor still has to avoid a massive collision in what looks like a primitive version of a Disneyland ride.

Is Revenge of the Cybermen one of Doctor Who's great achievements? Of course not. But perhaps more than any other serial I've yet reviewed, it really captures one of the program's essential appeals as an entertainment. There are many, many Who serials from all eras of the show that are not actually terribly good as either science fiction or as drama, but that nevertheless are a great deal of fun just to watch. Revenge of the Cybermen is about as dumb as a 2-month old beagle. But it's fun. And there's honestly many an occasion when I'd prefer watching Revenge's amiable idiocy over the grittier drama of Genesis.



Rating: 7/10. On the border between a "6" and a "7," but the fun factor wins out here.

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#2 (12.5 - 12.8): The Ark in Space

Noah (Kenton Moore), captain of Space Station
Nerva, undergoes a terrible transformation...

...or Dr. Who in an Exciting Adventure with Bubble-Wrap!

4 episodes. Written by: Robert Holmes. Directed by: Rodney Bennett.  Produced by: Philip Hinchcliffe.


THE PLOT

The Doctor's attempt to prove the TARDIS's properties to Harry with a quick trip goes predictably awry. Instead of materializing on the moon, they find themselves in the far future, on a space station orbiting Earth. Space Station Nerva is an ark, carrying the cryogenically frozen survivors of a global catastrophe. The station's systems have been sabotaged, but the Doctor brings the power back on-line, awakening the command crew in the process.

It quickly becomes apparent that something has gotten into the station. The insect-like Wirrn have invaded the station while its crew has slept, laying their eggs inside one of the crew. Now, the larval Wirrn has taken control of the station commander, Noah (Kenneth Moore) - leaving the Doctor and his friends, along with the remaining station crew, in a race against time to prevent this last outpost of humanity from being consumed!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Robot introduced the new Doctor in a story that was otherwise indistinguishable from a Pertwee offering. By contrast, this outer space thriller allows Tom Baker and the incoming production team to establish their own tone and style. This story sets the new template that would largely exist through producer Philip Hinchcliffe's tenure, with the Fourth Doctor being not only quirkier than his immediate predecessor, but also more intellectual and more emotionally remote. Tom Baker is marvelous, with several terrific individual moments: trying to use his hat and scarf to deal with station defenses (and giving a perfect nonverbal reaction when both of the aforementioned get zapped); the iconic "homo sapiens" speech when he discovers the frozen bodies; berating Sarah to get her moving, only to grin with pride and affection after she completes her task.

Sarah Jane Smith: Writer/script editor Robert Holmes gives more focus to new companion Harry than to Sarah.  The first episode, in particular, puts all the focus on the Doctor and Harry, reducing Sarah Jane to "woman-in-peril" status and then literally putting her into storage. Even after she is thawed out in Episode Two, she is given less to do than in most of Season 11's entries, with her only memorable moment being an attack of claustrophobia in the air vents. Elisabeth Sladen still invests the character with likability and intelligence, but I hope that the remaining stories of the season don't sideline her to this extent.

Harry Sullivan: Harry's character is given a chance to emerge and stretch a bit, and he's immediately likable. There is something very humorous in his attempts to take everything in stride. In contrast with the character's intermittent reputation as a nincompoop, he never loses his head, nor does he behave recklessly. In fact, he makes a rather good team with the Doctor, keeping up with him just enough so that the Doctor can usefully bounce ideas off of him, without ever being at risk of being at the Doctor's own level. Ian Marter's rapport with his co-stars remains excellent, and I'd argue that the 4th Doc/Sarah Jane/Harry line-up is a strong contender for my favorite 1970s team.


THOUGHTS

Incoming producer Philip Hinchcliffe's first story is a sharp break with Barry Letts' era in both tone and presentation style. Reputation has it that Hinchcliffe was initially weak on production. There isn't much evidence of that here, save for the too-obvious bubble wrap of the Wirrn larval stage - which, admittedly, is seen a bit too clearly, a bit too often, particularly in Part Three.

Bubble wrap aside, I'd rate this as possibly the best-looking Doctor Who story since The Sea Devils. The station sets are superbly realized for their time. White, antiseptic corridors in a circular shape, to match the station models (and to make it easier to convincingly reuse one stretch of curving corridor for different parts of the station), running the circumference of a more dimly-lit central core. The station architecture is effectively established in the early episodes, and there is little to interfere with the illusion of being in a station orbiting Earth, as opposed to a BBC studio set. Even the Wirrn are passably realized, with smart directorial choices keeping their on-camera appearances to a minimum.

I like this story - but I don't love it the way much of fandom seems to. The first two episodes are excellent, building atmosphere and mystery. The second half just doesn't quite hit the same mark. I honestly think the third episode drags a bit, while the final installment is slightly rushed, with a sequence of the Doctor and Sarah besieged in the cryo chamber seeming like a beat that should have been held longer. Wendy Williams' Vira is a strong guest character, just hesitant enough at taking charge to feel human while still being a convincing leader, but the other guest characters are too thinly sketched to get invested in. This includes Noah; his few pre-infection scenes make him seem a little too much like a Pertwee-era pompous bureaucrat for his fate to particularly resonate.

It's still a good story, mind you. Robert Holmes does a fine job of maintaining tension, with the characters dealing with one threat after another. In Part One, the regulars are in jeopardy from the station's automated defense systems. Once the crew start being revived, they become suspicious of the Doctor, with Noah seeming almost eager to summarily execute him and his companions. In Part Three, the characters evade the larval Wirrn, while the Doctor probes for weaknesses. It is only in Part Four that the adult Wirrn emerge, effectively putting the characters under siege. It's a clever structure, well-designed to keep the audience engaged without giving the audience too much to keep track of.


OVERALL:

It's easy to see why this story is a fan favorite. The set design is superb, the alien design is above the series' average, and the script is adeptly structured. Tom Baker is particularly good here, and the 4th Doctor/Sarah Jane/Harry line-up is a strong contender for the best set of 1970s regulars.

All of this makes The Ark in Space a good story. But the third episode feels a bit overstretched, whiel the guest cast are mostly too bland to get invested in. I like the story... but on this viewing, as in previous ones, I find that my reaction just doesn't match the serial's reputation.


Rating: 7/10.

Alternate Version: The Ark (audio)

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#1 (12.1 - 12.4): Robot

The robot menaces the newly regenerated 4th Doctor and Sarah!

4 episodes. Written by: Terrance Dicks. Directed by: Christopher Barry.  Produced by: Barry Letts.


THE PLOT

The Doctor has just regenerated into his fourth persona, and it's his most eccentric yet. Gone is the brittle yet dignified dandy.  In his place is a large, curly-haired, grinning figure who seems to be more than a little childish, and possibly a little insane.

It's a bad time for the Doctor to be unstable. The components of a top-secret disintegrator gun have been stolen by an unknown force. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart initially insists that he needs the Doctor's help just to keep him safely around for observation - but as the crisis escalates to the point of a nuclear apocalypse, it becomes apparent that the Doctor truly is needed, possibly more than ever before.

But can this new Doctor be trusted to maintain focus on the task at hand?


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Cards on the table: Despite being the fan favorite, the Fourth Doctor has never been a particular favorite of mine. That said, most of my issues with him come later, and there's no denying that Tom Baker makes a strong first impression. He's energetic and zany, but he also takes care to keep the Doctor at a certain remove. The Sherlock Holmes-like aspects of the character have always been there, ever since the First Doctor talked a primitive tribe into seeing the significance of a caveman's knife, but they're extremely prominent here.  This is particularly true of scenes in which he appears to be distracted by irrelevancies while actually collecting important observations, such as a crushed dandelion at a crime scene.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: My first draft review of Robot was written after a run of Season Seven stories, and the jump from Inferno to this really showed the Brigadier's deterioration. In Season Seven, he was brisk, efficient, and intelligent - a man born to lead. That Brigadier wouldn't have needed the Doctor to point out that two components of the same weapon had been stolen, he would have noticed all on his own. Even viewing in strict chronological order, I'd rate this as one of the character's most ineffectual showings, and it's as well that the new production team quickly decided to rest both him and UNIT.

Sarah Jane Smith: A strong story for Sarah Jane. With Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks still in charge, her background as a journalist and an independent-minded woman is still a driving force. For the first episode, and for much of the second, she is actually more proactive than the Doctor and the Brigadier are. After she is subject to a "demonstration" of the robot's inability to override its directive to never harm humans, which causes it considerable distress, she shows compassion for it, setting up (overly obvious) King Kong parallels for the rest of the serial.

Harry Sullivan: Ian Marter, who previously played an unrelated guest role in Carnival of Monsters, makes his debut as new companion Harry, a naval physician assigned to UNIT who starts out as the Doctor's doctor. Marter brings a relaxed and likable presence to the role, and he has an easy rapport with both Baker and Sladen. There isn't actually much for him to do in this story, an early sign of why he was written out after only one year, but I wasn't sorry to see him step into the TARDIS at the story's end.


THOUGHTS

Robot marks the beginning of the end of the UNIT era, and it honestly was about time for the show to move on. By this point, UNIT had become a collection of comic book soldiers, an impression not helped by them being pitted against a league of mad scientists plotting to take over the world - with a giant robot and a Ray Gun, no less. I question how some could complain about Doctor Who cartoons such as The Infinite Quest and Dreamland. Decades before that, this was a cartoon that just happened to be in live action!

For all of that, I mostly like Robot. Some of that is nostalgia. It was not the first Who story I ever saw, but it was the one that made me a regular viewer back in the mid-1980s. From here, I watched every story during PBS' mid-1980's omnibus reruns of the series, going all the way through to Trial of a Time Lord (which, for a long time, I had thought to be the series' finale).

Even without nostalgia goggles, there is much to like. Terrance Dicks understands the importance of story construction and pace. Robot moves along briskly, effectively introducing the situation and the guest characters, establishing the threats, and bringing them all together for the final episode. The plot may feel a bit thin, but there are enough strands to give the Doctor and the Brigadier elements to investigate even as Sarah pursues leads on her own.

The UNIT set-up also ensures that Tom Baker's debut story felt familiar to contemporary viewers. This is a very different Doctor, but he's surrounded by familiar regulars while navigating what's essentially a mid-range Pertwee story. Given Pertwee's five-year tenure and his enduring popularity, this was a canny way to reassure the audience that this was still very much the same show, a bit of comfort food before the new production team took over to steer it in a very different direction.

For its first three episodes, I think it works quite well. Too bad that it falls apart in the final installment. Once the robot grows to giant size to make sure no one misses the King Kong allusions, all internal credibility vanishes. The next several minutes, showing the robot rampaging around toy cars, paper houses, and plastic soldiers is ludicrous and - worse - dull.

After five years of spearheading Who, Letts and Dicks had to know the giant robot was going to look awful. Worse, the script doesn't do anything interesting; in fact, once the robot grows in size, the script stops doing interesting things.


OVERALL:

I would rank Robot as the weakest "new Doctor" story of the first five (though it's still better than the debuts of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors). It's a thin story even during the enjoyable first thee parts, and its final episode is largely poor. Still, it is mostly enjoyable, and Tom Baker makes a good first impression in the role.

It's good that a new production team was coming in - because the series was about to get a major jolt of renewed creative energy...


Rating: 6/10.

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