We watched compressed DVD copies of p1 then p2-3 before we realised we have a BLU RAY of this.
We then watched p4 in HD with a HD projector on a big screen.
When CSO disasters are decried they never seem to whine about this. Well they should. Underworld might be misconceived and Green Death might be over quickly (at least) . Even the CSO in Planet of the Spiders or Terror of the Autons is practical Barry.
In p4 of Robot it's crude, crude, crude. And according to the Info Text subtitles it took 6 months to finish.due to scheduling problems. (Sarah's hair length changes from shot to shot...)
The plot concerns the 'desperate' fascist scientists who wanna threaten the word with nuclear missiles because people won't listen to them. This might have been twee and may have been dismissed as cartoon-ey convenience in the 70's but these days sounds like right wing political anti vaxx, anti climate change style propaganda. (You know... the corrupt scientists are manipulating the data to make it seem like there's a problem to keep their grant (under)funding and ruin your lifestyle.... The sort of thing conspiracy theory nut Malcolm Roberts might want to tell you...)
After the previous year's Invasion of the Dinosaurs anti-science screed this show might be leaning heavily towards 21st century right wing propanganda.
The 'king kong' homage aspect of Robot is desperate, explanatory, post-legitimisation. (In short an attempt at a plausible excuse.) The King Kong thing would *not* be obvious to most of the kids watching. Given (in 1974) that the King Kong movie was 40 years old and the 70's and 00's remakes were yet to surface I think many adults watching would have been unaware of the link also. There was no home video in 1974 and B&W King King would be rarely seen on 70's colour TV.
The metal virus is not a great idea. It kills metal robots real quick but has no effect on metal cars (Bessie) or anything like blood (iron) or bone (calcium). I think a metal virus in active solution would be extremely dangerous to animals and plants.(Hint: it's actually a bucket of soap suds dyed red.)
Hilda Winters as played by Patricia Maynard is good and OTT in her role but the writing is not real deep.
Alec Linstead as Jellicoe is boring.
Ian Marter as Harry is new but underused.
Tom is great right from the off. He nails the new 'crazy' Doctor in a very confident and charismatic way. It develops later into a more serious presentation but will also fall apart when the scripts fall away. We'll get to this. For now, he's great.
Ed Burnham as Kettlewell is wasted. The way the Doctor seems to simultaneously or in rapid succession seek collegial rapport with Kettlewell, he trusts him enough to accept an invitation to visit him after hours, then attacks him as suspicious and dangerous (even though he might have been tricked or coerced by Winters and Jellicoe) and then explain/excuse his role as something of a victim is both confused and confusing. Is he a baddie or not? Is he vacillating? Conflicted? The performance given on screen DOES NOT make it clear. In p3 he's supporting the SRS fascists (or at least condoning their campaign) but in p4 he tries to stop the missile countdown (before he getting killed) so he's probably trying to be a goodie. This is Terrance's fault for writing it this way and Chris Barry's fault for letting it get to the screen. It is a major flaw in the story.
The Robot costume is great. The story is terrible. Other performances are good enough.
Part 1 seems incredibly jokey. Part 2 settles down well into a investigation plot and works well. Part 3 falls apart because of the Kettlewell character problem.. Part 4 is insane. How does the disintegrator gun cause the robot to transform to a giant robot? (It disintegrates everything else... such as toy tanks....) What (apart from, of course it does) makes robots grow large? Eating lots of Robot porridge when they're young? This makes no less sense than Brigadiers using a Disintegrator Gun...
At this point in the DW Marathon I guess the fear is knowing that this is peaking and some of what lies ahead is so disappointing. The half mask rubber aliens will be downgraded. The music will go crappy. The studio lighting will go from cinematic back to 'game show'... The scripts will become trash, the Doctor will be played as a clown.
But occasionally there will be a few dead set classics that make it worth it.
Robot isn't one of them.
ABM Rating 2.30/4.00
LJM Rating 3.00/5.00
SPJ Rating 5.80/10
No. 52 (out of 75)
Link to Cumulative Rankings
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