Doctor Who 14x17

Directed by Michael E. Briant

Russell Hunter as Uvanov • Pamela Salem as Toos • David Bailie as Dask • David Collings as Poul • Brian Croucher as Borg

An unnamed world, an unknown time. A vast mining vessel trawls a sea of mineral sand for valuable ores, the tiny human crew served by an army of humanoid robots. But as the Doctor and Leela arrive, one of the crew is found murdered... and if they didn't do it, who did?

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1. "A macabre mystery for the Doctor: Death strikes in a robot-based society." (Radio Times)

2. This episode was first shown on 29 January 1977.

3. It was seen by 12.8 million viewers.

4. From the author's first commission to the last studio session, 'The Robots of Death' took less than 24 weeks to write and record.

5. That wasn't an especially tight turnaround by mid-1970s standards, but it was a big change for scriptwriter Chris Boucher.

6. His (and the) previous Doctor Who serial, 'The Face of Evil', had a leisurely gestation from August 1975 to October 1976.

7. This serial's scripts, written at a faster rate, were not highly esteemed by the director and designer assigned to realise them,

8. so they decided to hide the perceived deficiencies by giving the production especially striking visuals.

9. One particular script problem only became apparent after the serial entered production:

10. The material was unevenly distributed across the four episodes, and Part 2 turned out to be especially short on the stopwatch.

11. Some restructuring resulted, with Part 1 scenes (including the cliffhanger) Moved down to bulk up Part 2.

12. In consequence, script editor Robert Holmes wrote in this sequence at a late stage to bring this episode back up to length.

13. The dialogue reflects Holmes's distinctively macabre sense of humour.

14. The music is an arrangement by Dudley Simpson

15. of Tchaikovsky's setting of Goethe's poem, 'None but the Weary Heart' (1869; Opus 6, no. 6).

16. Chris Boucher devised the character of Chub as a source of friction:

17. Unlike everyone else on board, he's not part of the Sandminer crew, but an academic hitching a ride.

18. They all have a single objective, and they work as a team to achieve it,

19. whereas Chub is a meteorologist sent by the government to study the desert storms.

20. Chub is played by Oxford-educated actor Rob Edwards, who was then in a bread-and-butter television phase of his career,

21. with guest roles in Gangsters (1976) And Secret Army (1977), before graduating to Prince John of Lancaster

22. in the BBC's Shakespeare series (Henry IVand Henry V, 1979).

23. He later played the leading role of an honourable revolutionary in the English civil war serial By the Sword Divided (1983-5).

24. In the theatre, he worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company,

25. notably as the title role in Pericles (1989-90) and Poins in Henry IV(1991).

26. In 2000, he won an Olivier Award for his performance as the villainous Scar in The Lion ing.

27. This is the first time Leela has travelled in the Tardis.

28. She barged aboard uninvited at the end of 'The Face of Evil', and fortuitously dematerialised it before the Doctor could stop her.

29. This is the last time we see the Doctor's yo-yo in use,

30. although he still has it in his pocket in the next serial, 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang'.

31. The Doctor's line was Tom Baker's unscripted contribution.

32. The secondary control room, making its last appearance in this episode,

33. was designed by Barry Newbery for the first adventure of the 1976-7 series, 'The Masque of Mandragora'.

34. One design imperative was to make the set easier to shoot.

35. That's why the control console is placed on a dais.

36. Cameramen are stationed on the camera pedestal, so their eye-level is usually above the actors.

37. To get a shot like this, level with the actors, the cameraman had to crouch down.

38. This was even more uncomfortable!

39. So putting the actors on a dais at the console meant the cameraman had more opportunities to be upright.

40. When we go back inside, look for the chair at the top left of the screen. It's a reproduction of the alabaster throne

41. in the ancient Palace of Knossos on Crete.

42. Previously the Tardis scanner screen had simply been a studio monitor.

43. The production team wanted to do away with that system, for two practical reasons:

44. Because it took up one of the studio's limited number of video channels,

45. and because, under the studio lights, the image on screen was often hard to see clearly.

46. The picture on the new scanner screen was put there with the blue-screen process, Colour Separation Overlay (CSO),

47. which entails keying the output of one camera into that of another, replacing anything in the shot that's blue.

48. Leela is carrying a Tesh gun from 'The Face of Evil'.

49. The script calls for a less technological weapon: Her crossbow.

50. There were no Tardis scenes in 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang',

51. so the control room set was put into storage for the winter break in production.

52. Three months later, the set was checked during pre-production of the intended 1977 series opener, 'The Invisible Enemy'.

53. The walls had warped, and the set was unusable.

54. Goodbye, wooden Tardis!

55. The design team (severally responsible for sets, costume, and make-up) worked together to create an integrated "look" for the serial.

56. They were influenced by the "futurist" design movement of the 1920s and '30s,

57. and especially by Fritz Lang's 1926 film, Metropolis, which had been reshown by the BBC in 1975.

58. Toos's "dimetrodon" headgear is loosely based on a costume from the film:

59. The Robot Maria's "Whore of Babylon" headpiece (but with a ninety-degree "Napoleon to Wellington" turn).

60. After production, the funny hats went into store, and Toos's later turned up in a 1979 Christmas play in the school serial, Grange Hill.

61. Around the same time, Zilda's cowl returned to Doctor Who in 'Destiny of the Daleks' (1979),

62. adorning one of the shorter-lived incarnations of the Doctor's friend Romana.

63. Toos refers to the spectroscope reading, which identifies the various minerals in the sandstorm

64. by differentiating the wavelengths at which they refract light.

65. Costume designer Elizabeth Waller has taken pains to give the robots squared-off feet.

66. The cross-gartered "boots" have four separate components: Slippers, lurex "socks", rectangular soles,

67. and silver foil wrapping round the outside.

68. The resultant footwear made for wobbly walking,

69. and the actors had no rehearsal opportunity to get used to the boots before the studio sessions.

70. The robot's-eye-view we're about to see was created using an electronic colour synthesiser.

71. The machine was made for use in Top of the Pops by BBC engineer lan Chisholm.

72. He was a specialist in electronic video effects.

73. Earlier in the 1970s, he had helped to develop the CSO process.

74. Set designer Kenneth Sharp was assigned to this serial against his will.

75. He saw Doctor Who as an exercise in economical budget-twitching rather than genuinely creative work.

76. He became interested when he learned that he'd be working with the award-winning Elizabeth Waller.

77. His main concern was that the script (which he and director Michael Briant both felt to be profoundly cliché-ridden)

78. Tended to invite an equally clichéd style of generic "science fiction" design.

79. So the design imperative was to avoid showing characters in spacesuits crewing a metal walled Sandminer.

80. Despite the rust and rivets, this set was made of wood by the specialist firm Ackland Snow.

81. The script specifies that the Doctor uses a jeweller's eyepiece to examine the wall surface.

82. The shadows reveal one of the set's secrets:

83. There are apertures down one side, to facilitate lighting and camerawork.

84. This model shot was done live in the studio and fed to the monitor built into the set,

85. whereas this model shot was pre-filmed on Stage 2 at Ealing Studios three weeks earlier.

86. The scoop set was also designed to be shot from end on, both ways.

87. The set is a composite, with a second room (where the Tardis landed) through the aperture at the left-hand end.

88. The control deck, says the script, is "not unlike that of an aircraft, but larger and more complex".

89. Chris Boucher developed the Sandminer concept from Frank Herbert's science fiction blockbuster, Dune (1965).

90. The novel is set on the desert planet of Arrakis, the only source of a valuable organic spice.

91. The spice is mined from the sand by giant mechanical harvesters, much as the Sandminer sifts minerals here.

92. The Sandminer crew wear their own diverse clothes, rather than a uniform, for several reasons.

93. They're on a long tour of duty in the desert, which needs brightening up,

94. especially when they're surrounded by the uniformity of the robots, variegated only by their status.

95. And since the robots do the manual labour, they don't need to wear practical working clothes.

96. Behind the louvres is a blue CSO cloth: The landscape is an electronically inlaid model.

97. In a cut line, the Doctor realises that Leela, who comes from the jungle, has never seen a desert.

98. Hazel Holt gave this episode a good review in Television Today. ;

99. "This new series has considerably more style than the last one" (in other words, 'The Face of Evil'),

100. "with a script subtly reminiscent of I Claudius, Ellery Queen, and Tomorrow's World.

101. "My compliments, Mr Boucher, on your script. They need men like you on Mars."

102. That wind-speed is well above Earth-normal, but is typical on the outer planets of the Solar System.

103. "A sound like a thousand express trains full of souls in torment," says the script,

104. "is building and screaming towards where the machine stands in still and eerie half-darkness."

105. The sound design for the Sandminer aimed to combine a noise like a jet engine, representing the propelling power,

106. with the sound of grinding and thumping, representing the scoops pulling in the sand and pulverising it.

107. Russell Hunter, who plays Uvanov, didn't much care for his "stupid hat" or his "outrageous shoulder-pads".

108. The beard is his own, not a piece of stuck-on postiche.

109. He was asked to grow it, to emphasise that Uvanov is older than the rest of the crew.

110. As almost every British viewer knew, it's a bicycle reflector disc.

111. Uvanov's scripted line was "Government scientists!"

112. Kenneth Sharp had designed for Doctor Who twice before ('The Macra Terror' in 1967 and 'The Claws of Axos' in 1971),

113. but much of his work had been for comedies like Up Pompeii (1970) And The Goodies (1971).

114. His notable later credits included Abigail's Party (1977), By the Sword Divided (1983), and Men Behaving Badly (1994-7).

115. The music is Claude Debussy's 'The Girl with the Flaxen Hair' (1909), from his Préludes.

116. It's an electronic arrangement from Electrophon's debut album, In a Covent Garden (1973).

117. In this episode, classical music is part of the background sound design for the crew room

118. in order to emphasise the luxury of what the script calls "a softly furnished recreation area".

119. Among the soft furnishings are three fake tiger-skin rugs on the seating.

120. Chris Boucher never named the planet, even in his imagination, but he envisaged it as an Earth colony.

121. However, the period setting is so far in the future that Earth is no longer regarded as "home".

122. The twenty "Founding Families" were the original colonists: In effect, an aristocracy, albeit now an impoverished one.

123. Both Founding Family characters are played by non-white actors.

124. This was a deliberate casting choice by Michael Briant, who felt that Doctor Who

125. had not, to date, properly reflected the multi-racial, multi-cultural nature of modern British society.

126. Dask is played by South African David Bailie (born 1937).

127. After emigrating to Britain in 1960, he found repertory work at Barrow-in-Furness, where the company also included Peter Purves.

128. His Royal Shakespeare Company roles included the Bastard in ing John and Mosby in Arden of Faversham (both 1970).

129. He worked with Michael Briant again in The Onedin Line and Blake's 7 (both 1978).

130. In the late 1980s, he lost his speaking voice to mouth cancer,

131. but returned to acting to play the mute pirate Cotton in the Pirates of the Caribbean series (2003-7).

132. In the script, Cass hastily pulls off the corpse marker as the scene ends.

133. Dominating the control deck is another blue CSO screen, with inlaid model footage and computer graphics.

134. Michael Briant began with a determination that the robots should not just be actors in masks.

135. He and Kenneth Sharp decided that the robots should be pleasing to look at, not "big and butch" as per the script.

136. If you're going to create a robot servant, they reasoned, you wouldn't make it appear threatening.

137. Briant suggested that they might appear Grecian, but Sharp opted for the periwig-pated look instead.

138. The masks were made in two parts. The main section covered the actor's face and the top of his head.

139. The lower rear panel was secured with a strip of velcro and a hook.

140. They were uncomfortable, and stank of paint.

141. But note the padding at the bottom edge of the mask, to avoid chafing the actor's jaw.

142. Note also the green make-up on his neck.

143. The uncovered neck dealt with the practical problem of ventilation,

144. but nevertheless the robot actors used to sit around the set between takes with their masks off.

145. They also removed their gloves whenever possible.

146. She was scripted to call him a shaman, not a Tesh.

147. The Tesh were the technological tribe on Leela's home planet, and her implacable enemies.

148. Look at Leela's eyes when we come back to her.

149. On the left, her contact lens slips towards her nose, revealing Louise Jameson's natural blue pupil.

150. She was contractually required to wear the red lenses in order to darken her eyes,

151. partly because it was felt that her blue eyes would look odd with her tanned "savage" skin,

152. and partly because the name Leela was understood to mean "dark-eyed beauty" in an Indian language.

153. Leela deliberately misunderstands the question, says the script.

154. The line was Louise Jameson's unscripted contribution.

155. He was scripted to say: "If we should get separated, I'll meet you back here.

156. "When they find we're gone, this is the last place they'll look."

157. Elizabeth Waller was very highly regarded in the industry, and won an Emmy for Elizabeth R (1971).

158. Her other BBC work included The Adventures of Don Quixote (1973) And Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads (1974).

159. She also designed costumes for the big screen, notably For Your Eyes Only (1981) And Company of Wolves (1984).

160. She was nominated for four BAFTAs,

161. and won one for The Camomile Lawn (1992).

162. In the theatre, she worked extensively with both Harold Pinter and Sir Peter Hall in the late 1970s,

163. and designed the Chichester Festival production of Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House in 2000.

164. One surviving document seems to indicate that she wasn't the original choice of costume designer for this serial.

165. During early pre-production, the former opera designer John Bloomfield was on the slate.

166. But this was probably nothing more than a paperwork error: He was designing costumes for 'The Face of Evil' at the time,

167. and that serial's production dates clashed with pre-production for 'The Robots of Death', so he just wasn't free.

168. "The Doctor and Leela are ghosting along," says the script evocatively.

169. On 26 January 1977, the Wednesday before this episode was shown, Tom Baker was a guest on Woman's Hour.

170. The long-running BBC radio series interviewed him about Doctor Who and his previous career,

171. during which he hinted at an opinion which was mainly only voiced in the rehearsal room and studio:

172. "If I bothered about the plots, I really wouldn't get much done. Frequently, the plots wouldn't bear serious examination."

173. But he fended off the usual mid-1970s criticisms that Doctor Who was too frightening,

174. and feigned a typical BBC uncertainty about the precise identity of the series' best known antagonist:

175. "We've come in for a lot of stick from a Mrs Whitehouse particularly, who won't even have lunch with me, I understand."

176. This is the serial's only live-action film sequence, shot on Stage 2 at Ealing on 3 November 1976.

177. For his film sound recordist, Michael Briant asked for Mike Savage, but he proved to be unavailable.

178. Kerril is played by Peter Sax, the serial's only extra.

179. The original intention was that we wouldn't actually see the body,

180. so the budget didn't earmark any money to hire an extra.

181. The sequence was written to be recorded in the studio, like every other live-action scene.

182. However, Michael Briant reasoned that the falling ore would be easier to control in a film studio,

183. where work could proceed shot by shot rather than scene by scene.

184. Uncredited production contributors

185. Lan Brindle (Film Operations Manager)

186. John Gatland (Film Sound)

187. Morton Hardaker (Film Sound Assistant)

188. Judith Dalton, Anne Spiers, Heather Squires (Make-up Assistants)

189. Nansi Davis (Artists' Booker)

190. Ruth Hyde (Scenic Props Buyer) 46,407 —> 00:19:47,886 - Now, just a minute. - Yes, what do you mean,

191. let's get back to work?

192. You heard SV7. There are intruders, a man and a woman.

193. They're obviously the murderers and we've got them under lock and key.

194. Why are they obviously the murderers? I don't see that.

195. You just don't like to be wrong, do you?

196. Nobody's proved that I am.

197. I mean, who are these people?

198. - Could they be ore raiders? - Ore raiders? There's no such thing.

199. No, listen. We are at this moment in the middle of the biggest storm

200. we've come across since we started this tour and we are wasting time.

201. The robots are mining.

202. Robots do not have instincts.

203. They'll be lucky to get half of what we can get.

204. We are not out in the middle of this desert for pleasure.

205. We are here to make money.

206. So get on your feet and get back to work.

207. That is an order!

208. Give it to a robot.

209. - What did you say? - Commander,

210. we've got to find out about those two.

211. For all we know, there may be more of them.

212. Makes sense.

213. If there are more of them, they will be caught.

214. In the meantime, as the Commander suggests,

215. I think we should return to our posts.

216. Why? Nothing's changed.

217. - All right. 7. - (BEEPS)

218. - SV7: Yes, Commander? - Bring the man and the woman here.

219. I was about to inform you, Commander.

220. - They have escaped. - You see?

221. What? Escaped?

222. Then you'd better find them and find them quick.

223. Put every spare robot on it.

224. Ah, there we are.

225. Hello, my dear old thing.

226. The ore comes in under pressure from the separators.

227. I wonder what it is, Leela. What do you think...

228. Leela?

229. Leela?

230. I wish that girl wouldn't wander off like that.