Rating: 
Summary: Robots Of Death is stylish as well as thrilling
Review: Story #90 in the Doctor Who canon is one of the few flawless, barring continuity, and the ability to deduce the villain's identity by episode 2. The Doctor and Leela materialize aboard a Sandminer, a large ore-gathering hovering craft sweeping across deserts. Its crew are a bickering lot, who are at odds with each other. Only a few seem reasonable when one scratches the surfaces underneath.The instant our heroes land, within the first episode, three crew members are strangled to death, with red robot deactivation discs a.k.a. corpse markers, (bicycle reflectors) attached to their wrists. Naturally they are framed and it isn't until the third episode that the remaining crew members are convinced of their innocence, during which time more people get croaked. It turns out that a robot revolution, engineered by the mad scientist Taren Capel, is in progress, and the Sandminer is the first beachhead, and it is up to the Doctor, Leela, and the survivors to defeat it. Capel, by the way, spent his childhood raised by robots and believed himself to be one of them. Pretty hardcore! The story combines elements of the French Revolution, Karel Capek's play Rossum's Universal Robots, which introduced the word "robot," and the Agatha Christie mystery And Then There Were None (a favorite theme of mine, by the way, and a theme utilized in other Who stories like Horror Of Fang Rock and Terror Of The Vervoids). Tom Baker has great lines in this one. The most classic of which is when he tells Borg: "You know, you're the classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain." Another time, he pokes fun at Capel: "You look ridiculous in that outfit. You're not half the robot your father was." Ouch! To Leela: "To the rational mind, nothing is inexplicable, only unexplainable." And he is totally Holmesian in the way he and Poul try to reconstruct the death of Chubb, the first victim. I also like the Doctor's attempting to explain to Leela the TARDIS's dimensions using two blocks. He sets the larger one on the TARDIS column away from them and walking towards Leela, holds the smaller one so it appears larger. It isn't silly, as Leela says dismissively; that's transdimensional engineering. Leela quotes a Sevateem proverb to injured Toos while bandaging the latter's injured arm: "If you are bleeding, look for a man with scars." Her sense of instinct and danger really flesh out her character in her second televised story. The handsomely designed Art Deco robots are the most effectively realized robots I've seen in the entire series. They must have scared young British viewers with their eerie humanoid faces, cerebrally serene Hal 9000-like voice, and red eyes glowing whenever they are ready to kill someone. Creepy mechanical men indeed! Second-in-command Toos' headdress is a metal framework that is halfway towards becoming a Mohawk with added hair, or a Roman helmet. And Uvanov seems to have shredded Omega's headdress (The Three Doctors), and painted it silver. All the performers give sterling performances, including Pamela Salem as the sensible Toos, Tania Rogers as the emotionally sensitive Zilda, and David Bailie as the rational and efficient Dask. One of Doctor Who's finest moments and worth watching repeatedly.
Rating:
Summary: Robots Of Death is stylish as well as thrilling
Review: Story #90 in the Doctor Who canon is one of the few flawless, barring continuity, and the ability to deduce the villain's identity by episode 2. The Doctor and Leela materialize aboard a Sandminer, a large ore-gathering hovering craft sweeping across deserts. Its crew are a bickering lot, who are at odds with each other. Only a few seem reasonable when one scratches the surfaces underneath. The instant our heroes land, within the first episode, three crew members are strangled to death, with red robot deactivation discs a.k.a. corpse markers, (bicycle reflectors) attached to their wrists. Naturally they are framed and it isn't until the third episode that the remaining crew members are convinced of their innocence, during which time more people get croaked. It turns out that a robot revolution, engineered by the mad scientist Taren Capel, is in progress, and the Sandminer is the first beachhead, and it is up to the Doctor, Leela, and the survivors to defeat it. Capel, by the way, spent his childhood raised by robots and believed himself to be one of them. Pretty hardcore! The story combines elements of the French Revolution, Karel Capek's play Rossum's Universal Robots, which introduced the word "robot," and the Agatha Christie mystery And Then There Were None (a favorite theme of mine, by the way, and a theme utilized in other Who stories like Horror Of Fang Rock and Terror Of The Vervoids). Tom Baker has great lines in this one. The most classic of which is when he tells Borg: "You know, you're the classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain." Another time, he pokes fun at Capel: "You look ridiculous in that outfit. You're not half the robot your father was." Ouch! To Leela: "To the rational mind, nothing is inexplicable, only unexplainable." And he is totally Holmesian in the way he and Poul try to reconstruct the death of Chubb, the first victim. I also like the Doctor's attempting to explain to Leela the TARDIS's dimensions using two blocks. He sets the larger one on the TARDIS column away from them and walking towards Leela, holds the smaller one so it appears larger. It isn't silly, as Leela says dismissively; that's transdimensional engineering. Leela quotes a Sevateem proverb to injured Toos while bandaging the latter's injured arm: "If you are bleeding, look for a man with scars." Her sense of instinct and danger really flesh out her character in her second televised story. The handsomely designed Art Deco robots are the most effectively realized robots I've seen in the entire series. They must have scared young British viewers with their eerie humanoid faces, cerebrally serene Hal 9000-like voice, and red eyes glowing whenever they are ready to kill someone. Creepy mechanical men indeed! Second-in-command Toos' headdress is a metal framework that is halfway towards becoming a Mohawk with added hair, or a Roman helmet. And Uvanov seems to have shredded Omega's headdress (The Three Doctors), and painted it silver. All the performers give sterling performances, including Pamela Salem as the sensible Toos, Tania Rogers as the emotionally sensitive Zilda, and David Bailie as the rational and efficient Dask. One of Doctor Who's finest moments and worth watching repeatedly.
Rating:
Summary: Doctor Who at its best
Review: Take one part of Murder on the Orient Express, add a dash of Dune and season it all with overtones of Asimov's Robot saga all the while adding the wit and intelligence that is Doctor Who at its best and you've got the classic Tom Baker era story, The Robots of Death. Robots of Death comes out of season 14, which is arguably one of Who's best. And Robots is one of the reasons it's so fondly remembered and revered by fans of Doctor Who. The story strikes the right chord between overwhelming dread and an intriguing mystery. And like the best mysteries, it will keep you guessing until the final episode when the culprit is revealed. Chris Boucher adds his own unique twist to the time-honored murder mystery genre and makes the final solution to the problem a wholly unique one. (To say more would be to give away too many details and it's best to see this one now knowing whodoneit. (No pun intended). The story alone would be worth the price of the DVD. However, the BBC and WB have packed this release with some many extras that it's icing on the cake. The commentary track by producer Phillip Hinchcliffe and writer Chris Boucher is interesting enough and contains a few interesting tidbits for long-time Who fans. The Howard DeSilva intros and exits for the episodes are a unique part of the American broadcast of Dr. Who and are a welcome addition. Finally, the best part--the story is presented in episodic format for the first time in the United States for a commercial release of the story--the way Dr. Who was meant to be seen. Of course, this being DVD the picture and sound are of the highest quality--though there are some obvious signs of age in the audio track. But you've got to give them credit for working with the material available to produce a nice sounding story. All in all, this is a MUST for any Who fan. Great story, great Doctor, great packing and presentation. Well worth the price of admission.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent TV in ALL aspects ...
Review: The Doctor and Leela find themselves in an 'Orient Express' murder situation aboard a mining machine roaming a distant planet's shifting sand mantle. Caught between a paniced crew dealing with recent strangelations of crew members and the appearance of the TARDIS' crew begins an intiguing story of human and robot limitations and triumphs in a future society dependant on automated assistance. Boucher's script is brilliant, and adeptly executed by all concerned. Designs of art deco and north african motifs are far more lush then most other Doctor Who episodes. Dialogue is extra witty. Much of the filming is beyond TV and into film comlexity, although the editor seems to have run roughshod over the final choice of shots. This is MUST SEE TV. Get it, you will be hooked.
Rating: 
Summary: The Docotor and his companion encouter some deadly robots!
Review: The Doctor(Tom Baker) and his companion Leela land aboard a mining ship run by robots and a small group of humans. There is also a murderer on the loose and the crew blames the Doctor and Leela. The Doctor starts to look into the murders. What he finds out is that is the robots are being reprogramed by a man who grew up amoung robots! The Doctor and Leela stop the madman plans ! The remaining crew go to finish the mining ship tour for the metal they're looking for! This video takes place before the new Doctor Who novel"Corpse Marker" where some of the same people are back and in trouble with robots again! After the madman is killed ,the Doctor and Leela leave in the TARDIS for more adventures in time and space!
Rating: 
Summary: Sturdy and Enjoyable, but Predictable
Review: The first story to take the sidekick character Leela of her native planet, The Robots of Death is a skillfully written and enjoyable episode of the TV series. The sets are very well designed, from the art-deco crew lounge to the rococo control booth to the scarred and filthy interior of the ore scoops. There are a satisfactory number of characters that each can be given room to breathe and to develop into fully-dimensional identities, without either crowding each other out or being too few and far between. The lighting job is probably one of the better designs of the series run, neither too garishly bright nor too muddy and dark. And the costume design is actually inventive rather than trying to put medieval gowns on futuristic people, as the costume designers often wanted to do. The story itself is a little predictable, and even resembles the movie Alien, which came out the same year. The crew of an isolated commercial vessel, cut off from any realistic hope of rescue, take aboard a mysterious killer they can't quite believe exists. The killer starts taking them down individually, in the classic "Ten Little Indians" style (thus the repeated comparisons to Agatha Christie). The few survivors, aided by the wit and wile of the Doctor, and the fighting skills of Leela, confront the killer (you may or may not be surprised by who it is, so I won't say). At the end, as the Doctor and Leela leave, it is up to the survivors to call for help, which may or may not come, but it's not for us to worry about yet, which leaves the door open to a potential sequel (vid. the BBC novel "Corpse Marker" by Chris Boucher). The story is quite good, stuffed with much less filler material than many seventies-era Doctor Who episodes were. The character development is much more thorough than is common in many of the stories from around this time, which tended to rush headlong into the action. Despite the predictable nature of the events, the show is quite enjoyable, and leads to a satisfying conclusion. The design is very strong, the sequence of events is plausible, and the weaknesses are much further apart than they are in many episodes. This is a good one to introduce new viewers to the series. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Tom Baker episode from the "golden age"
Review: This 4 part adventure is really one of the best ever made! Perfect introduction episode for people who don't know the series and a must for every fan!
Rating:
Summary: D-84 for smart!
Review: This is a story which is very intelligently told and acted. It does not have computer genorated FX or wild explosions, no it is actually good without that stuff. Tom Baker wasn't as funny as he was in other stories, but he told the story well while acting it out. Robophobia is something we all need to beware of when Robots do someday become sophisticated enough to be like humans(with owr help of course). This story makes you think, not just say 'way cool' or something. It was not my favorite but I rate it five stars for quality and of course Tom Baker.
If you are looking for excellent story and Special FX to boot, try E-space Trilogy and Leisur Hive. Two unusual and excellent stories(not released on DVD).
Rating:
Summary: D-84 for smart!
Review: This is a story which is very intelligently told and acted. It does not have computer genorated FX or wild explosions, no it is actually good without that stuff. Tom Baker wasn't as funny as he was in other stories, but he told the story well while acting it out. Robophobia is something we all need to beware of when Robots do someday become sophisticated enough to be like humans(with owr help of course). This story makes you think, not just say 'way cool' or something. It was not my favorite but I rate it five stars for quality and of course Tom Baker.
If you are looking for excellent story and Special FX to boot, try E-space Trilogy and Leisur Hive. Two unusual and excellent stories(not released on DVD).
Rating:
Summary: A gripping and well-written tale.
Review: This is Dr Who as it should be - intelligent, thought-provoking and filled with grown-up drama, believable characters and no shortage of suspence. The Doctor and Leela arrive on a sandminer in which the crew are assisted by robot servants. But somebody has been reprogramming the robots to commit murderous acts on the human crew in a clever 'whodunnit' storyline. So what we have here is a real classic piece of sci-fi. The cliffhangers are gripping and the robots, with their refined manner, contrasting the usual kinds of villains in Dr Who, are genuinely chilling. An interesting point is one the crew's psychological problem 'robophobia' known as 'Grimwade's syndrome' (named after Dr Who director Peter Grimwade, who hated directing stories containg robots). A genuine classic from the golden age of Dr Who.
| 
