We have now watched the whole of the first Tom Baker adventure. My memory is sketchy already, as we took in the various episodes over a week or so of late night laptop watching and ice-cream eating adventures. But basically, what happens is this.
- Dr Who regenerates from Jon Pertwee to Tom Baker. We have no idea what caused this regeneration, as we have decided not to watch the Pertwee era, and so it could be due to absolutely anything. My theory is simply that the Pertwee doctor got really bored with being stuck on earth with a rubbish car and having to deal with UNIT’s incompetence and decided to partake of Timelord seppuku. Still: compared to the neverending melodrama of some of the regenerations, this seems to have been a relatively stress-free one. He’s up and about in no time.
- While the Doctor recovers from his paper cut of a regeneration, a large robot with wildly flailing arms and self-esteem issues breaks into a top secret base and steals something or other. This something-or-other turns out to be a disintegrator gun. Sarah Jane Smith does some investigating, and meets the mad-haired professor who made it, and also – CLIFFHANGER – the robot itself. Fortunately the robot fancies Sarah Jane, so doesn’t kill her.
- The mad haired professor turns out to belong to an organisation called the Scientific Reform Society, whose leader – Miss Winters – holds a Nuremburg style rally of scientists fed up with having sand kicked in their faces at the beach, and so who vow to take over the running of the world by any means possible, so they can stop the environment from being destroyed by stupid non-scientists. This, they plan to achieve by threatening to destroy the world via nuclear armageddon.
- Unit attempt to stop the robot / scientists, now holed up in what appears to be a World War II pill box, but thanks to their epic incompetence only manage to throw a few grenades around, fire machine guns uselessly, get themselves killed a bit, and finally the Brigadier mis-uses the ray-gun to accidentally expand the Robot to silly proportions so it now towers over two storey buildings like a low-rent, thoroughly English version of King Kong. Adding to this comparison, the Robot grabs Sarah Jane, who does some excellent screaming.
- Fortunately everyone is saved by the Doctor, thanks to the utilisation of a lovely old-fashioned chemistry set which he uses to make some kind of metal-attacking virus to attack the robot and put it out of its misery. Thoroughly bored of saving UNIT from themselves, at the end of the episode the Doctor buggers off back to the tardis and interdimensional adventuring, accompanied by Sarah Jane and an affable UNIT chap named Harry Sullivan.
It is total hogwash, saved entirely by Mr Baker himself and his wide eyed, grinning, big fat plate of a face.
Ideas
There are a few interesting ideas in this episode. Firstly, can robots feel pain? Can they be morose and irritating? Can they fancy women? This serial provides the answer: yes, on all counts.
Secondly, it asks whether the running of the world should be left to an oligarchy of spec-wearing, vaguely Nazi scientists. The answer provided is clearly “no”. The scientists were quite happy to destroy the entire world in a nuclear armageddon, while hiding themselves in a bunker with a few tins of spam, breeding, waiting a few hundred years for the fallout to subside, and then emerge to create a new society. These are not sensible people.
SFX
The robot looks a bit crap, but walks exactly like a robot should walk. Also, extra marks for flailing arms. But the best use of effects come when the Brigadier attempts to destroy the robot with a tank. He gets very excited about the fact that UNIT ACTUALLY HAVE A TANK, then it comes rolling in, and the camera attempts to film it in close up, with the robot in the distance, to make it look like a proper tank. But it’s clearly about two feet tall.
Overacting
Mrs Winters is the clear winner in this category, her Robot-unveiling speech to the Scientific Reform Society reaching such a mad Adolf crescendo that the whirring of her gesticulation nearly causes her to fall off the stage.
