The Eighth Doctor and Lucie meet evil cannibal robots who dismantle meek, kind robots for spare parts. The robots speak of mythological "humans", beings who lived on the homeship long, long ago. With the humans gone, all they have left to worship is "Protocol".
The Doctor befriends a robot named Servo (Phil Jupitus), who writes poetry about the nature of memories and existence. He's pleasantly surprised, because that's not the sort of thing robots usually do. Servo tells him about Minerva, the ship's A.I., who wipes the minds of robots. The Doctor establishes contact with Minerva and is mistaken for a human. With that power of control, he orders Minerva to never wipe the mind of his friend, just as a precaution.
They try to find the ship's universal reset button, which will override the glitches in the cannibal robots by literally "turning them off and on again". However, they realise that this would wipe their minds, destroy their bodies, restart all robot production and begin the robot society all over again. And that this has already happened hundreds of times. Humans haven't lived here for centuries, and each consecutive robot society collapsed in on itself in the exact same cannibalistic disaster. Servo's ability for poetry isn't just a random malfunction — it's actual evolution, caused by generations of mutations in the robot consciousness.
The Doctor refuses to perpetuate the cycle, but the other robots, imitating the Doctor's voice, activate the reset. However, Servo is spared when Minerva still obeys the Doctor's orders of not wiping his mind. The Doctor asks him to become the leader of the next robot generation and teach them what he knows.
Tropes
- Body Horror: The robots being dismantled.
- Cold-Blooded Torture
- Contemplate Our Navels
- Expecting Someone Taller: The Assembler robots' idea of a human is a tall man with a beard. Lucie comes as something of a surprise to them.
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Promoted Fanboy: Phill Jupitus named Eight and Lucie as his favourite Doctor and companion. - Shout-Out: Servo is a robot from Mystery Science Theater 3000. His numerical poetry starts with the numbers "4, 2".
- Unusual Euphemism: Lucie and her "unorthodox protrusions". Servo writes binary poetry about them, which the Doctor wisely refuses to translate.
