History Recap / DoctorWhoS14E5TheRobotsOfDeath

'''Production code:''' 4R

Written by Creator/ChrisBoucher. This four-episode serial first aired from January 29 to February 19, 1977.

* ThePlotReaper: The Doctor had become quite fond of D84 and D84 had no reason to want to stay in its world (it was in an undesirable social class even by robot standards, its only friend hated it, and it was at risk of getting implicated for murder). Chances are the Doctor would have wanted to give D84 a trip in the TARDIS, but a creepy robot companion probably wouldn't work and so D84 sacrifices itself to save the Doctor from V5.

The one where a man slaps some Jelly Babies.

* BadassBaritone: The Doctor uses his respiratory bypass system to avoid being affected by the helium leak Leela springs, just so he can continue sounding cool in one specific scene.

%%* BaseOnWheels: The Sand Miner.
%%* BigBad: Taren Capel.

%%* EliteMooks: [=SV7=].

%%* EvilGloating

%%* MobileFactory: The Sand Miner.
%%* {{Mooks}}: The titular robots.

%%* RobotBuddy: D84.

%%* SanitySlippage: See FreakOut.

* DeconstructorFleet: The story explores the real effects of living in a society with robots as a work force. Wouldn't, for example, UncannyValleyrear its head?

* DeconstructorFleet: The story explores the real effects of living in a society with robots as a work force. Wouldn't, for example, UncannyValley[[invoked]] rear its head?

While the Doctor tries to convince Poul otherwise, a woman named Zilda goes into Commander (and LargeHam) Uvanov's room and announces over a loudspeaker that she knows he's the murderer, but before she can explain how or why she gets strangled. For those watching at home, the body count is now up to 4. Suddenly, the ship shakes! Turns out, the ship has been sabotaged, and RedShirt repairman Borg (No, not [[Franchise/StarTrek that Borg]]) has become dead body #5. The ship can't handle the stress and is about to blow up, but the Doctor cuts out the power and gets a man named Dask to repair the motors so the ship won't sink into the sand. Leela bandages up the hand of acting commander Toos, who heads to her quarters.

* EveryoneIsASuspect: In a twist, the viewers already know that the killers are robots, but the crewmembers initially dismiss this as impossible and focus on the Doctor and Leela as the likeliest suspects. However, after it becomes clear that the robots have become homicidal, the question remains of who among the crew has been reprogramming ghem.

* {{Tuckerization}}:
** Robophobia is officially known as "Grimwade's Syndrome", an in-joke regarding production assistant (later to be a director and writer) Peter Grimwade, who had complained that all the stories he worked on seemed to involve evil robots.

This serial begins in the recreation room of a giant sandminer ship belonging to a civilisation utterly dependent on robots. The workers discuss the urban legend of a guy whose arm was ripped off by a robot massaging him. But of course, they all know the robots have tons of safety systems in place and that they could ''never'' kill a human, [[TemptingFate right?]] Just then, the robots announce that they've detected a sandstorm, which stirs up ores in the sand that are worth a fortune. One poor RedShirt, Chub, goes into the storage room to collect instruments for a weather balloon when he's strangled by... go ahead, guess. Thus begins a round of Creator/AgathaChristie-style paranoid accusations.

While the Doctor tries to convince Poul otherwise, a woman named Zilda goes into Commander (and LargeHam) Uvanov's room and announces over a loudspeaker that she knows he's the murderer, but before she can explain how or why she gets strangled. For those watching at home, the body count is now up to 4. Suddenly, the ship shakes! Turns out, the ship has been sabotaged, and RedShirt repairman Borg [[Franchise/StarTrek (No, not that Borg)]] has become dead body #5. The ship can't handle the stress and is about to blow up, but the Doctor cuts out the power and gets a man named Dask to repair the motors so the ship won't sink into the sand. Leela bandages up the hand of acting commander Toos, who heads to her quarters.

Suddenly, a robot named D84 reveals that it and Poul are undercover agents for the mining company. They were placed on board the miner due to threats of a robot revolution by MadScientist Taren Capel, who was raised by robots and therefore a bit funny in the head. The Doctor and detective D84 search the miner for proof that Taren Capel is on board, and find a secret workshop where the robots' programming has been changed to enable them to kill humans. He tells Toos over the communications system to get the others and head for the command deck. But as soon as she can get to the door, she's blocked by a strangle-happy robot and just barely gets away by making the door slam onto its hand. Leela manages to find Poul, but he's too busy lying on the ground in the fetal position while he screams about how the robots have always controlled him. Meanwhile, it dawns on the Doctor and D84 that "Dask" is really Taren Capel, and he wants to liberate robots by giving them the ambition to take over civilization. (Meanwhile, Leela makes her way to Toos's bedchambers and the two engage in some very rather sweet LesYay for a bit.) Taren Capel (now wearing the robots' clothes and metallic facepaint to mimic them) gives his order to the robots: destroy all remaining humans on board. The Doctor realizes that this is the end of this civilization, as the robots they so depend on will become a source of overwhelming fear.

The Doctor explains that he used his own [[ContinuityNod respiratory bypass system]] to keep his CompellingVoice intact, and ponders a bit about how this society might now crash in on itself. He and Leela vworp off.

* AndroidsAndDetectives: D84 and Poul.

* BaseOnWheels: The Sand Miner.
* BigBad: Taren Capel.
* BigShutUp:
-->"Would you like a jelly baby?"
-->"SHUT UP!"
-->"Well, a simple "No, thank you," would've been sufficient."
* BizarreAlienBiology: The reason the Doctor's voice didn't go all squeaky, building on the reveal of Time Lords' respiratory bypass systems in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMars "Pyramids of Mars"]].

* ContinuityNod: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E5TheDaemons The Doctor again (incorrectly) cites that technically it's impossible for a bumblebee to fly]].
* CranialProcessingUnit: The robots have their 'brains' in their heads, as more than one is 'killed' by having a laser probe plunged into its brain through its head. This makes sense given what we know of the society that created them: with the robots having being made in human form for aesthetic reasons.

--> '''V4:''' Kill. Kill. Kill.
--> '''V5:''' Do not kill me.
--> '''[=SV7=]:''' V4, that is not the Doctor.
--> '''V5:''' Do not kill me.

* DepthDeception: The Doctor's explanation for the whole "bigger on the inside" thing. One box is actually larger than another, but appears smaller because it's far away. The TARDIS uses transdimensional engineering to put two similar spaces in the same place, while keeping those relative sizes.
* DoesntLikeGuns: The Doctor tells Leela,
--> "I never carry weapons. If people see you mean them no harm, they never hurt you. Nine times out of ten."
* EasilyDetachableRobotParts
* EliteMooks: [=SV7=].
* EveryoneIsASuspect
* EvilGloating

* HeroicSacrifice: D84.

** Every crew member is a jerk, but Borg appears to be rather an abrasive person, thriving on arguments and being the only crew member who gets in this setting’s swear word “give it to a robot”. (He may mean it literally, since he's responding to Uvanov saying he's given an order.) He slaps Jelly Babies out of the Doctor's hand, and starts choking him in response to a sarcastic joke the Doctor makes at his expense. At one point he becomes affronted that people are accusing him of murdering his friends, causing Zilda to retort, "you don't have any friends!"
** Uvanov. At first, he seems to care about little more than getting as much sand (read: money) as possible. Of course, this is before he realizes how truly screwed he is.
** JerkWithAHeartOfGold: When he tells the story of what Happened to Zilda's brother it's clear he's haunted by the memory, and tries to keep Poul calm.
* JustBetweenYouAndMe: {{Subverted}}:
-->'''The Doctor''': I see. You’re one of those boring maniacs who’s going to gloat. Are you going to tell me your plan for running the universe?
-->'''Taren Capel''': Oh no Doctor. I’m going to burn out your brain. Very very slowly.

* MadScientist: Taren Capel.
* MobileFactory: The Sand Miner.
* {{Mooks}}: The titular robots.

* ThePlotReaper: The Doctor had become quite fond of D84 and D84 had no reason to want to stay in its world (it was in an undesirable social class even by robot standards, its only friend hated it and it was at risk of getting implicated for murder). Chances are the Doctor would have wanted to give D84 a trip in the TARDIS, but a creepy robot companion probably wouldn't work and so D84 sacrifices itself to save the Doctor from V5.
* RaisedByRobots: Taren Capel was raised by robots. Having more empathy for them than his fellow humans, he decides to create a RobotUprising.

* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: {{Subverted}}. Taren Capal, who thinks that robots should be free of human rule, is a maniac and the villain of the story. And is pursued by a secret agent robot. It's a dangerous step to go from "Robots should be free" to "I must kill all my fellow humans to free the robots", but that villain takes it. The robot society is also portrayed as having three classes of robot -- Dums, which are basic machines with human form but no intelligence, Vocs, which can speak, and Supervocs (like the previously mentioned secret agent detective robot), which are intelligent and can make reasoned decisions, possessing something close to free will other than being programmed ThreeLawsCompliant and still being much less perceptive than even a below average human. The Supervocs struggle with certain modes of perception (as they can't recognise humans, they have a kludge based on voice patterns, which the villain [[CompellingVoice was able to exploit]]) and D84, the most intelligent robot in the story and possibly in the whole setting, still makes blatantly obvious logic mistakes in its reasoning that the Doctor points out as being typical robot psychology mistakes.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The plot involves robots that instinctively creep people out - basically, the UncannyValley[[invoked]] effect, which had been newly described at the time.
* RobotBuddy: D84.
* RoboticPsychopath: The eponymous automatons, because they were programmed by a psychopath.
* SanitySlippage: See FreakOut.

-->By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.
* TheSpeechless: The robots are divided between "Dums" that cannot speak and "Vocs" that can, a trope originated by Creator/IsaacAsimov. In addition, "Super Vocs" like [=SV7=] have advanced intelligence and command the lesser 'bots.
** {{Lampshaded}} by D84 near the end of part 3:
--->'''D84''': This is a communicator. It can function on either human or robot command circuits. Would you like to use it? ''I'' cannot speak...

* SpaceClothes: The robot-chic fashions.
* {{Spinoff}}: [[http://www.kaldorcity.com/ Magic Bullet Productions]] have produced plays centred around this civilization and their robots. Russell Hunter reprised his role of Uvanov for them, with David Collings and David Bailie making guest appearances as Poul and Capel.

* StandardFemaleGrabArea: Used on [[ActionGirl Leela]] and immediately subverted when she [[GroinAttack kicks Uvanov in the goolies]] and threatens to cripple him.

* StrappedToAnOperatingTable: The robot "reprogramming" (actually just horrific, dangerous and sadistic MeatGrinderSurgery on a sentient being considered subhuman).
* TenLittleMurderVictims: The twist being the killer is obvious hence the titles, likewise the mastermind behind reprograming them is revealed early on. The mystery is trying to figure out which of the crew, is them in disguise.
* ThoseTwoGuys: Poul and D84, though it ends unhappily - Poul has a Phobia-induced meltdown and D84 kills himself in a Heroic Sacrifice to save the Doctor. This was partly a TakeThat at the book series the story was referencing.
** Even more harrowing is that up until the second half of Episode 4, where D84 is carrying an unconscious Poul, the two of them never actually interact with each other throughout the serial.

** Robophobia is officially known as "Grimwade's Syndrome", a shout out to production assistant (later in the 1980's to be a Who director and writer) Peter Grimwade, who had complained that all the stories he worked on seemed to involve evil robots.
* UncannyValley: The Doctor describes how, in a society rife with humanlike servant robots, the total lack of body language from them results in some people developing a chronic form of this trope called "robophobia" or "Grimwade's Syndrome," where the robots come off as "walking, talking dead men." One character suffers from robophobia, and slowly grows increasingly unstable as a result of the the murders of his crewmen by modified robots. Taren Capel, meanwhile, was raised solely by robots, and finds humans to be the uncanny ones.

* WoundedGazelleGambit: Dask tries this in order to trick the remaining human survivors into letting him in their control room. Fortunately for them they listened to The Doctor and refused to let anyone in. Good thing, as he's really [[BigBad Taren Carpel]].
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: "Robophobia" or "Grimwade's Syndrome" is a reasonably common psychological condition in the setting, apparently caused by people with particularly keen body language skills [[UncannyValley subconsciously associating the stiff, humanoid robots with walking corpses]]. Poul suffers from this condition, and in the sequel ExpandedUniverse material it is revealed both Toos and Uvanov have developed cases of it as a result of the trauma they suffered at the hands of the robots, while Poul's has worsened to the point of being barely functional.

* YourHeadASplode: The effect of the "final deactivator" on nearby robots.

* NiceHat: The workers have some...odd headgear.

* UncannyValley (InUniverse): The robots themselves, with their blank expressions and creepy sing-song voices. The Doctor [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]] on this: see the page quote.
** Inverted in the case of the villain: Taren Capel was raised entirely by robots and so believes ''humans'' are the Uncanny ones.

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: "Robophobia" or "Grimwade's Syndrome" is a reasonably common psychological condition in the setting, apparently caused by people with particularly keen body language skills [[UncannyValley subconsciously associating the stiff, humanoid robots with walking corpses]][[invoked]]. Poul suffers from this condition, and in the sequel ExpandedUniverse material it is revealed both Toos and Uvanov have developed cases of it as a result of the trauma they suffered at the hands of the robots, while Poul's has worsened to the point of being barely functional.

** Every crew member is a jerk, but Borg appears to be rather an abrasive person, thriving on arguments and being the only crew member who gets in this setting’s swear word “give it to a robot”. He slaps Jelly Babies out of the Doctor's hand, and starts choking him in response to a sarcastic joke the Doctor makes at his expense. At one point he becomes affronted that people are accusing him of murdering his friends, causing Zilda to retort, "you don't have any friends!"

* CranialProcessingUnit: The robots have their 'brains' in their heads, as one is 'killed' by having a laser probe plunged into its brain through its head. This makes sense given what we know of the society that created them: with the robots having being made in human form for aesthetic reasons.

* {{Spinoff}}: [[http://www.kaldorcity.com/ Magic Bullet Productions]] have produced plays centred around this civilization and their robots. Russell Hunter reprised his role of Uvanov for them.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, this example was removed. Please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

Written by Creator/ChrisBoucher. This four-episode serial first aired from January 29 to -February 19, 1977.

Written by Creator/ChrisBoucher. This serial first aired January 29-February 19, 1977.

* AdultFear: The story combines various social and political ParanoiaFuel[[invoked]] (class warfare, revolution) with various mental illness fears -- being in a mental state where you [[ParanoiaFuel subconsciously associate everyone you love with a walking corpse]] is one thing, but what happens if you become delusional enough to believe that the same applies to you? Then throw in some good old-fashioned spooky robots and fear of suffocation to keep the kids interested.

* AdultFear: The story combines various social and political ParanoiaFuel (class warfare, revolution) with various mental illness fears -- being in a mental state where you [[ParanoiaFuel subconsciously associate everyone you love with a walking corpse]] is one thing, but what happens if you become delusional enough to believe that the same applies to you? Then throw in some good old-fashioned spooky robots and fear of suffocation to keep the kids interested.

* DeconstructorFleet: The story explores the real effects of living in a society with robots as a work force. Wouldn't, for example, UncannyValley rear its head?

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The plot involves robots that instinctively creep people out - basically, the UncannyValley effect, which had been newly described at the time.

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: "Robophobia" or "Grimwade's Syndrome" is a reasonably common psychological condition in the setting, apparently caused by people with particularly keen body language skills [[UncannyValley subconsciously associating the stiff, humanoid robots with walking corpses]]. Poul suffers from this condition, and in the sequel ExpandedUniverse material it is revealed both Toos and Uvanov have developed cases of it as a result of the trauma they suffered at the hands of the robots, while Poul's has worsened to the point of being barely functional.

* BizarreAlienBiology: The reason the Doctor's voice didn't go all squeaky, building off of the reveal of Time Lords' respiratory bypass systems in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMars "Pyramids of Mars"]].

** Every crew member is a jerk, but Borg appears to be rather an abrasive person, thriving off of arguments and being the only crew member who gets in this setting’s swear word “give it to a robot”. He slaps Jelly Babies out of the Doctor's hand, and starts choking him in response to a sarcastic joke the Doctor makes at his expense. At one point he becomes affronted that people are accusing him of murdering his friends, causing Zilda to retort, "you don't have any friends!"

%% * GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* AdultFear: The story combines various social and political ParanoiaFuel (class warfare, revolution) with various mental illness fears - being in a mental state where you [[ParanoiaFuel subconsciously associate everyone you love with a walking corpse]] is one thing, but what happens if you become delusional enough to believe that the same applies to you? Then throw in some good old-fashioned spooky robots and fear of suffocation to keep the kids interested.

* BadassBaritone: The Doctor develops one of his more specific NewPowersAsThePlotDemands when we discover Time Lord larynxes aren't affected by helium, just so he can continue sounding cool in one specific scene.

* BizarreAlienBiology: The reason the Doctor's voice didn't go all squeaky.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: {{Subverted}}. Taren Capal thinks that robots should be free of human rule is a maniac and the villain of the story. And is pursued by a secret agent robot. It's a dangerous step to go from "Robots should be free" to "I must kill all my fellow humans to free the robots", but that villain takes it. The robot society is also portrayed as having three classes of robot - Dums which are basic machines with human form but no intelligence, Vocs which can speak and Supervocs (like previously mentioned secret agent detective robot) which are intelligent and can make reasoned decisions, possessing something close to free will other than being programmed ThreeLawsCompliant and still being much less perceptive than even a below average human. The Supervocs struggle with certain modes of perception (as they can't recognise humans, they have a kludge based on voice patterns, which the villain [[CompellingVoice was able to exploit]]) and D84, the most intelligent robot in the story and possibly in the whole setting, still makes blatantly obvious logic mistakes in its reasoning that the Doctor points out as being typical robot psychology mistakes.

* CranialProcessingUnit: The robots have their 'brains' in their heads, as one is 'killed' by having a laser probe plunged into brain through its head. This makes sense given what we know of the society that created them: with the robots having being made in human form for aesthetic reasons.