| Production Code: 4R
First Transmitted
Crew
Plot Outline From The BBC
The Doctor and Leela immediately come under suspicion but are able to convince two undercover government agents - Poul and his robot associate D84, a Super Voc posing as a Dum - that they are innocent. The real culprit is one of the human crew, Dask, who is in truth the scientist Taren Capel. Raised by robots, Capel regards them as superior to humans and has been reprogramming those on board with orders to kill the other members of the crew. He is tricked by the Doctor into outlining his plans for conquest while a helium canister discharges itself into the room, and is consequently killed by one of the robots as it can no longer recognise his voice.
Try not to think about Dune in the scenes of the Sandminer prowling across the desert gathering up the minerals that apparently will make all of those aboard the ship very rich. And forget about Agatha Christie style stories of victims being bumped off one by one, and lets get Azimov and is robot laws WELL out of the way. Because this is not a rip off of classic stories, it is a science fiction classic in its own right. It tells a relatively simple story about prejudices and rational and irrational fears. Even before we have seen any murders at all we hear two of the sandminers telling ‘urban myths’ about a friend of a friend who knows somebody who had their arm twisted off by a robot that was supposed to be performing massage. And then we see, or hear, the first murder, and it is obvious that a robot did it. So then it becomes a question of WHY are the robots killing everyone. And it HAS to be more than just the ‘you can’t trust a robot’ of the urban myth. There must be more than just robots going nuts. There is a very interesting piece of psychology explained by The Doctor part way through the story. He explains to Leela that Humans are afraid of things that look Human but aren’t. The robots are Human shaped, but they have no expressions on their faces when they speak, no tone to their voices. They lack everything we associate with life and with humanity. And curiously, in that explanation The Doctor has pinpointed exactly why cybermen were always the big hit Doctor Who enemy that they are, and why these robots, with their identical faces are also quite memorable for the menace they engender. And yet, in the end, it turns out that the robots are not to blame after all. They are simply being USED by a Human, Capel, who comes under that catch-all banner of unhinged megalomaniacs who want to take over the world/empire/galaxy/ universe and give it back to the plants/fish/dinosaurs/robots/insert insane idea of choice. The Doctor must be quite tired of those sort of people by now. That isn’t to say that it is a tired idea. This megalomaniac who wants to replace the Human race with robots is a different story to Invasion of Dinosaurs or Seeds of Doom, for example. This is a new kind of lunacy. The solution to the problem in the end, is one of those amazingly simple ones that Doctor Who does very well. The Doctor realises that the robots that are systematically killing the crew of the Sandminer react to Capel’s voice. He sets off helium gas and Capel’s voice changes, the robots can’t recognise his voice and kill him. Simple, but plausible, and effective. Don’t knock a simple plan. The beautiful art deco design of the robots, incidentally, is one
of the triumphs of this episode. Robots generally tend to look the
same across the science fiction genre. But these ones stand out as
having a bit more effort put into their design.
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