Doctor Who/Recap/S12/E01 Robot: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|"''Still, I must be patient. A new body is like a new house: it takes a little time to settle in!''"|'''The Doctor''', observing his new body for the first time.}}

Picking up right from where [[Doctor Who ~~(TV)~~/Recap/S11 E5 Planet of the Spiders|the previous serial left off]], the viewers are quickly given a lovely 5-second flashback to the [[The Nth Doctor|regeneration]] of the Third Doctor into the Fourth. The Doctor slowly wakes up and babbles quite a bit, worrying Sarah Jane and [[The Brigadier]] before he's taken away by the new castmember: Doctor Harry Sullivan. However, a few scenes later, the Doctor has wrangled his way out the infirmary and ties up Harry in a jumping rope (in a rather funny moment) before leaping off into the TARDIS.

Picking up right from where [[Doctor Who/Recap/S11 E5 Planet of the Spiders|the previous serial left off]], the viewers are quickly given a lovely 5-second flashback to the [[The Nth Doctor|regeneration]] of the Third Doctor into the Fourth. The Doctor slowly wakes up and babbles quite a bit, worrying Sarah Jane and [[The Brigadier]] before he's taken away by the new castmember: Doctor Harry Sullivan. However, a few scenes later, the Doctor has wrangled his way out the infirmary and ties up Harry in a jumping rope (in a rather funny moment) before leaping off into the TARDIS.

Sarah Jane and the Brig return to the Doctor's lab just in time to see the TARDIS start to take off, but manage to stop the Doctor from fleeing into the cosmos. Eventually, the Doctor's memory lapses and random babbling subside long enough for him to remember what's exactly going on - and just long enough for the Brigadier to tell the Doctor our problem of the week: someone's stealing things from top-secret government and military bases. They pause just long enough for the Doctor to find his new outfit. Off at the scene of the most recent break-in, it takes the Doctor a few minutes (and a look at the list of other items stolen) to deduce that the stolen items could make... a disintegrator gun!

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Not satisfied with letting us rest there, the story leaps back to Sarah Jane at the think tank. She's taken on a tour by the head of the organization: Hilda Winters, where she sees... nothing. Except for slipping on some oil in an abandoned lab, supposedly left behind by the former occupant: Doctor Kettlewell. Sarah drives over to visit Kettlewell, only to have him ramble on at her worse than the Doctor just did. Kettlewell manages to get something out about "robot research," so Sarah sneaks back into the abandoned area of the lab, to confront... a giant robot! It lurches towards her, demanding to know why she's there.

This isn't Sarah Jane's first go-around at the Rodeo Of Weird; and anyway she's a level-headed woman who's [[Doctor Who ~~(TV)~~/Recap/S11 E3 Death to The Daleks|taken on Daleks]], so of course she panics and flees - but Winters and her lackey are standing at the doorway. They proclaim this is all a massive joke and everyone's having fun looking at this robot, the Experimental Prototype Robot K1. And Winters proves this is all a great joke by ordering the robot to... kill Sarah Jane! Of course, that's hilarious! The Robot, knowing that companions rarely die, decides to enter the dreaded Blue Screen of Death mode - and Sarah Jane hurries herself out of there pronto. Then Winters' lackey, Jellicoe, voices concern over that 'joke,' as the robot's programming has been screwed with.

This isn't Sarah Jane's first go-around at the Rodeo Of Weird; and anyway she's a level-headed woman who's [[Doctor Who/Recap/S11 E3 Death to The Daleks|taken on Daleks]], so of course she panics and flees - but Winters and her lackey are standing at the doorway. They proclaim this is all a massive joke and everyone's having fun looking at this robot, the Experimental Prototype Robot K1. And Winters proves this is all a great joke by ordering the robot to... kill Sarah Jane! Of course, that's hilarious! The Robot, knowing that companions rarely die, decides to enter the dreaded Blue Screen of Death mode - and Sarah Jane hurries herself out of there pronto. Then Winters' lackey, Jellicoe, voices concern over that 'joke,' as the robot's programming has been screwed with.

So, rather than let the robot defragment its hard drive or reflash its firmware or whatever the hell ailing computers did in 1974, Winters and Jellicoe decide to reprogram K1 and... send it off to kill a Cabinet Minister! Meanwhile, the Doctor and UNIT decide to visit Kettlewell, as Sarah Jane's reports of a giant robot that could crush you without a second thought if its operating system doesn't crash obviously aren't proof enough for UNIT. Kettlewell mocks the idea of the K1 Robot still being around, as only he has the ability to make it work... but does eventually admit that if the robot was reprogrammed, [[AI Is a Crapshoot|it could go utterly insane]]. But, really, what are the odds of THAT?

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* [[Because You Were Nice to Me]]

* [[The Brigadier]]

* [[Continuity Nod]]: After the Doctor incapacitates Harry, he goes to the TARDIS and after wondering to himself where he left his key, then pulls it out of his shoe, which is where he found it [[Doctor Who ~~(TV)~~/Recap/S7 E1 Spearhead From Space|last time he regenerated]].

* [[Continuity Nod]]: After the Doctor incapacitates Harry, he goes to the TARDIS and after wondering to himself where he left his key, then pulls it out of his shoe, which is where he found it [[Doctor Who/Recap/S7 E1 Spearhead From Space|last time he regenerated]].

* [[Costume Test Montage]]

* [[Don't Make Me Destroy You]]: When he first comes out of the bunker, K1 would clearly prefer that UNIT's forces go away and not make him destroy them.

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* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: UNIT causes the robot to grow.

* [[The Nth Doctor]]

* [[Off the Shelf FX]]: The tank UNIT sends to destroy K1.

* [[Off-the-Shelf FX]]: The tank UNIT sends to destroy K1.

* [[One Word Title]]

* [[Putting On the Reich]]: SRS.

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* [[Reluctant Mad Scientist]]: Kettlewell

* [[Robot Buddy]]: Ol' K1 himself. One wonders if future robot buddy K9 is his descendant...

* [[Shout Out]]: The story contains several resemblances to [[I Robot (Literature)|I,Robot]] and [[King Kong]].

* [[Shout-Out]]: The story contains several resemblances to [[I Robot (Literature)|I,Robot]] and [[King Kong]].

* [[Stock Episode Titles]]: 10 uses

* [[This Is No Time for Knitting]]: The Brigadier, Harry Sullivan and the Doctor are investigating the scene of a robbery, only to have the Doctor play a seemingly inordinate amount of attention to a squashed flower on the lawn. However, the Doctor explains that he is investigating an important clue, considering that flower was near pulverized by being stepped on by something that apparently weighed a quarter ton, a piece of information that the officers definitely find interesting.