BOOK OF LISTS: TOP TEN WHO STORIES - #5

Robots of Death

            

Like Kinda and Human Nature/Family of Blood, the quality of Robots Of Death's script is what earns it so many points.   

            

There's a lot to be said about the other aspects of this story's production.    It's a very solid cast of actors - several of which were so good that they would be hired again in future stories.   The "extreme art deco" set and costume design is magnificent, too (well, perhaps they went a bit too far with the hats!).    The director also did a solid job.   Shooting things in a way that makes the lovely sets still feel claustrophobic and the elegant mechanical men still seem sinister.    It's a great touch, really.   Making the pleasant aesthetics, somehow, dangerous at the same time.   Even the charming robot voices are suitably creepy.    

            

But so much of what truly makes Robots of Death the treat that it is derives from a ridiculously well-written script.   Everything else is awesome, too - don't get me wrong.   But the script really sells it. 

            

There's a great sense of economy in the telling of this tale.  Everything feels very "tight".    Not just in terms of creating an enclosed setting with a limited group of characters - but there's not a wasted word of dialogue, either.   Everything that is said does something to propel the plot forward and/or add to the sinister atmosphere that hangs over the whole story.    It's rare that you see a writer achieve this in any manuscript.   Inevitably, "filler" is created to pad out the story or fill in some time.   This, however, never seems to occur in Robots of Death.   Even the silly scene in the console room at the beginning with Leela and the Doctor gives us some nice insights into both of the characters and actually goes to the trouble of trying to explain transdimensional engineering a bit.   It's still the closest the show has ever come to telling us how the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than it is the outside.   Which is a special treat in itself!

            

Still, before dwelling too much on this, Chris Boucher throws the Doctor and Leela into the action.    Their first few moments of peril aboard the Sandminer immediately demonstrate his writing abilities.    Thanks to a well-executed plot, our two time travellers are saved from the oncoming storm (no pun intended) because Chubb's murder forces Uvanov to shut down the scoops.    Instead of employing the usual "waving the sonic screwdriver at it" technique, Boucher relies on the circumstances of the plot to save the day.   It's our first clue that this is going to be a well-conceived script that will consciously choose to stray away from so much of the formulaic nonsense that litters 70s Who.  This is an early Fourth Doctor/Leela story where the conflicts will be resolved with cleverness and wit rather than Janis Thorns and sonic screwdrivers.

            

And yet, for all its economy, Robots of Death still remembers to include a lot of charm in its narrative.   Oddly enough, we see little of it in the human cast.    The humans, in fact, are largely unlikeable.    A group of people who have been stuck together for too long and are really starting to wear on each others' nerves.    Which is a great dynamic to have when one of these characters is meant to be a murderer.    But our real charmer in among this cast is the remarkably-loveable D84.    He genuinely steals the show and gets all the best lines.    He doesn't really start shining til Episode Three, of course.   But once he steps into the full spotlight, we can't get enough of him.    With great lines like: "Please do not throw hands at me!" and the notorious "I heard a cry...." it's difficult not to be just a little teary-eyed when he presses the final de-activator and wistfully declares:  "Goodbye, my friends".    Tom Baker turns in a great performance, here.   But it's gotta be pretty tough to watch someone in a full mask that renders them completely expressionless upstaging you.   And it's completely evident that this is going to happen just from what's on the page.   Forget about watching the final product!   

            

Boucher manages to have a bit of fun with some of the other robots, too, of course.  Like so much else that went into the script, it's done in a macabre manner.    The highlight of this is that great moment where SV7 watches impassively as the two Voc-class robots bungle up their attempt to take out the Doctor and Uvanov in Episode Three.   How can you not adore a line like:  "Please stop killing me."   It's there beneath a mix of other dialogue that's far more important to the plot.   But we listen for it every time we watch cause it's just delightfully absurd in its politeness.

            

But this is the more subtle stuff of Robots of Death.   Its real "meat" is found in the murder mystery storyline.    Here is where Boucher earns his greatest praise.    There seems to be this unwritten law that a good murder mystery does not need to be wholly consistent in its telling.    That it can, in fact, have gigantic, bulging plot holes if it so desires.    After all, even Agatha Christie did this sort of stuff with her novels.  Boucher, instead, goes to painstaking lengths to make sure everything cross-checks and lines up.   Another great example of the "tightness" of the plot I was mentionning.    Quite possibly, the most important aspect of the whole script.   As a murder mystery, it stands head-and-shoulders above most of what is written in the genre because it makes that conscious choice to tell it right rather than use the "Ah well, if certain things don't jibe properly, no one else seems to care when they write a murder mystery" philosophy.  It's nice to see someone go that extra mile and make the whole plot work.

            

Of course, the tact Boucher takes with presenting the mystery is another high point of the script.    We know, within minutes, who is committing the murders.   We actually see the robot stalking towards its first victim and strangling him to death.  The scene plays out right before our very eyes.   We must share in the Doctor's frustration as he claims, over and over, to various characters that the robots are murderers but is believed by no one.    It's a very novel way to present a whodunnit, when you think about it.   We know the answer to half the mystery and must just sit tight until other characters accept it. 

            

The real mystery doesn't truly start playing out til Episode Three - where we realise that, although the robots are the killers, we still don't know who's re-programming them to do it.    Most of the characters we saw in the earlier episodes are now dead and we've narrowed things down to just a few suspects.    Enough evidence is presented to us so that we, now, even know that the person messing with the robots' programming is a male.   It is at this point in the tale that I become seriously impressed with the writer's plotting.    He puts in place certain situations that cast aspersions on all three of the remaining male characters.   Zelda finds evidence that Uvanov is responsible for someone's death.  Leela and the Doctor both indicate that there is something more to Pool than meets the eye.   And, of course, Dask places the corpse-marker on the destroyed robot.    Thanks to some really clever scene arrangement, our suspicions are cast about in every possible direction.   We have no truly clear idea of who might've done it.  

            

As we move on to Episode Four, Boucher continues to manipulate or even break all those firm laws of mystery-writing.    There's no gathering of suspects in a single room by the detective where the suspects are whittled down to one.   Again, by arrangement of scenes and circumstances, we are allowed to do this ourselves'.    Pool's robophobia dismisses him and Uvanov clears his name, too.    So we know it's Dask - if we've been watching close enough, we may have even figured that out back in the latter half of Episode Three.   And yet, the final reveal of him in robot make-up is still so disturbing because it shows the truly maniacal levels that this character has plunged into.    He's not just a murderer - he's nuttier than squirrel crap!    That nice little extra twist really adds to what could've been a fairly anti-climactic plot revelation.

   

And all these painstaking efforts that Boucher takes is what propels this story to the high level of praise and respect that it receives.   Not just from me, but from Fandomn, in general.   In the Mighty 200 survey, you'll note that this story made it in to that particular Top Ten, too.  In fact, this is the only moment where I seem to agree with The Mighty 200's choice of what deserves to be in the Top Ten.  And the main reason why this story is as popular as it is with both myself and the rest of fandomn is because it truly is a great piece of writing.    It's my sincere belief that authors who work in the mystery genre could really learn alot from watching Robots of Death.   The plot to this tale is so tight, you could bounce quarters off of it.   

  

Misssed the others? 

#10 - http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/12/book-of-lists-top-ten-who-stories-6.html

#9 - http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/12/book-of-lists-top-ten-fave-who-stories-9.html

#8 - http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/12/book-of-lists-top-10-fave-who-stories-8.html

#7 - http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/12/book-of-lists-top-ten-who-stories-7.html

#6 - http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/12/book-of-lists-top-ten-who-stories-6.html