Robot Part One

The one where the Doctor dresses as David Bowie...

It might have been three days after Christmas, but the biggest gift to children in 1974 was seeing the debut of the new Doctor Who in the tersely titled Robot. It only struck me on this occasion that it seems odd that we first see the new Doctor's outfit (on screen) in the opening titles, rather than in the show itself. With the Third Doctor you just saw a white collar, but with Robot you get full-on scarf round the shoulders of a maroon jacket.

It's been said before, but Tom Baker is the Doctor from the very moment he sits up and starts talking about placid dinosaurs and spinning rodents. If ever there was somebody born to play Doctor Who, this man is he. But taking a step back from the tricksy over-familiarity we all have with him in the part, I wouldn't be surprised if it took a little longer for younger viewers to warm to the new Who at the time. He's utterly bonkers, unpredictable, and at times even a little abrasive, and nothing at all like the dependable uncle figure of his predecessor.

The Doctor is placed under the care of medical officer Lieutenant Harry Sullivan, who is a surgeon with the Royal Navy. I'm not altogether clear on why Harry is present at UNIT at all if he is serving with the Navy, and as the episode goes on I'm even less clear on why Harry sticks around and goes on military missions with UNIT and the Doctor. He's simply not needed (UNIT have never had a medical doctor on site with them before), and seems out of place, surplus to requirements.

The scene between Tom Baker and Ian Marter sets up this new Doctor as a bit of a madman, powered by an edgy mania that sees him swing from boggle-eyed eccentricity to abrasive tetchiness in an instant. He's a man you might not feel safe or confident with in the same room, a man who commands a room just by being in it. The antics this Doctor gets up to post-regeneration might be brief, but they're among the oddest so far - breaking bricks in half with his hand, running on the spot, forcing Harry into skipping with him (and then locking him up in a cupboard!).

This Doctor is also very keen on leaving as soon as he can, and it's not until his mind comes back into focus that he remembers who the Brigadier and Sarah are, and decides to stay and help investigate the theft of plans for a secret weapon. At the end of the day, it is a good old mystery which grabs the Doctor's interest. Some things never change.

The scene where the Doctor chooses a new outfit is very silly, and paves the way for similar, even sillier scenes for future Doctors. However, the Fourth Doctor's alternative outfits are probably the wackiest of all, including an Alice in Wonderland style playing card, a Viking and a pierrot (pre-empting David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes by five years!). I love the bit where the Brigadier says "You've changed", and the Doctor retorts: "Oh no, not again!"

I'm glad he doesn't keep these initial outfits though (imagine trying to take the Doctor seriously while he's dressed as a clown... ahem...!). The outfit he settles on is sadly not given enough attention by director Christopher Barry's camera, and the "gag" of the ridiculously long scarf is wasted and down-played when it should really have been made a point of. There's an impression of a long scarf, but it's not really clear until the location scenes. And nobody passes comment on it at all, which seems even less likely. The "reveal" of the Fourth Doctor's costume is bungled.

The outfit seen here isn't as refined as it would become, it's a little shabby and makeshift still, and not as "designed" as later in the tenure. It reminds me of the famous Ambassadeurs lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec from 1892, of cabaret singer Aristide Bruant, and costume designer James Acheson has acknowledged the image as an unconscious influence on him while working on the new Doctor's outfit (the long scarf has its own origin story!).

The story itself is underway as quickly as three minutes in, writer Terrance Dicks wasting no time in setting up a "guest scenario" for the new Doctor to get his teeth into. I find it a little hard to swallow that Sarah Jane independently decides to visit the Think Tank organisation before it becomes clear that there is a direct link between Miss Winters' scientific research group and the disintegrator gun, the plans for which have just been stolen by a terrible something.

Ah, Miss Winters. I must say I find Dicks' scripting of Sarah's introduction to Winters very disappointing, and essentially out of character. After helping to invent Sarah Jane Smith as an outspoken independent feminist in Season 11, to have her make the sweeping assumption that Think Tank's director is male seems like a betrayal of the character. The way Elisabeth Sladen plays the meeting doesn't help either, as she completely blanks the female Miss Winters to shake the hand of the male Jellicoe. She doesn't even give Patricia Maynard a cursory smile or look, which is terribly rude if nothing else! And is it really feasible that Sarah wouldn't know the name of the director of Think Tank, and that it was Hilda?

It's nice to see Sarah Jane's journalistic curiosity back though, and the scene where she forces her way through a door marked 'Positively No Admittance' ("Ooh, what's in here?") is lovely. This is the Sarah Jane we'd marvel at on Children's BBC decades later.

Meanwhile, the Doctor joins UNIT (and Dr Sullivan) on location at Emmett's Electrical in Essex, a factory which manufactures focusing generators, the vital last ingredient needed by the mysterious thieves to construct their disintegrator gun. UNIT has the place locked down, surrounded by armed men and observed from the sky by helicopters. What they haven't reckoned on is the thief entering the factory stores from beneath ground, like a giant mole.

All of the robot's point-of-view shots are done well, filmed through corrugated glass, breaking up the image ahead. We get glimpses of snapping pincers powerful enough to bend metal, withstand electrical charges and rip telephones off walls. The robot seems relentless, but it's such a disappointment when we finally get to see more of it at the end of the episode as it advances on Sarah. We don't see quite enough. We get the impression it's big because Sarah looks up and a shadow is cast over her, but all we really see is its silvery head, we don't get a clear idea of what it looks like or how fearsome it is, which I think is another misstep by Barry. The episode 1 cliffhanger should reveal this beast in all its monstrous glory.

Investigating the mystery, Dicks writes the new Doctor as a madcap Sherlock Holmes, analysing pulverised dandelions and making astute deductions about the weight of the culprit. He wears a monocular magnifier, and comes to conclusions based upon the evidence presented to him. Dicks has the Doctor thinking laterally, outside the box, drawing parallels with Conan Doyle's timeless creation in lieu of Baker's impending force of character (I seem to remember a similar approach for the Second Doctor before Troughton could make his own mark). I love how Baker finds unconventional ways of being in a scene. He manages to make the mundane interesting, just by lying down in the back of a jeep as he talks to the Brigadier, rather than standing up. Tom Baker's Doctor is vital and compelling at all times. You can't take your eyes of this strange, mesmerising presence.

A perfect Dr Who!

First broadcast: December 28th, 1974

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Tom Baker is instantly his Doctor, and although a little abrasive and "anti-Pertwee" in his presence, makes a solid first impression which lasts, and is even built upon. It's rare for a new actor in the role to inhabit the part so completely so swiftly (I'd say Matt Smith is the only other actor to achieve this).
The Bad: The directorial choices in revealing the Doctor's new costume, and the robot at the end, are flawed.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 00

NEXT TIME: Part Two...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part Two; Part Three; Part Four

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/06/robot.html

Robot is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Robot-Tom-Baker/dp/B000NVI2C4