By Fiona Moore

Obverse Books, out now

Obverse Books’ ongoing series of monographs focusing on a Doctor Who serial or story hits 1977’s Season 14 serial The Robots of Death.

With the imminent release of the remastered Blu-ray boxset of Season 14, now’s the ideal time to dive into fifth story, The Robots of Death, an enduring fan favourite for good reason. You can see the appeal in writing about such a beloved story, and author Fiona Moore makes it clear from the outset that the four-parter’s true brilliance is alchemical – a perfect storm of all its aspects. It’s hard to disagree.

The downside to writing about a classic is that so much has invariably already been written about it, and yet Moore manages to take the obvious influences (Expressionist cinema, Asimov’s Robot novels, Frank Herbert’s Dune) and expand them in satisfying asides. Setting up the serial’s context within both the wider golden age of 70s TV and Doctor Who’s Hinchcliffe era, Moore uncovers the background to the writing of the story, comparing and contrasting rehearsal and camera scripts with the final televised version.

The history of Expressionist design is revisited, as is the concept of artificial intelligence and questions asked around what’s going on in D84’s head. An interesting aside is a chapter on class and power in the TV work of Chris Boucher – The Face of Evil, Blake’s 7 and Star Cops – and I really learnt a lot of new background information on multi-ethnic casting on British TV into use, straying inevitably into the ‘yellow face’ approach of The Talons of Weng Chiang.

A welcome chapter on the legacy of the story takes a look at Chris Boucher’s sequel novel Corpse Maker, then DWM’s Crisis on Kaldor comic strip and sets of audio plays. The final chapter wraps up with an overview of how the serial has influenced 21st Century Doctor Who adventures from The Impossible Planet through to Kerblam!

Verdict: Fiona Moore loves The Robots of Death as much as we do, unravelling the various threads that combine to create a pretty much perfect story. And as much as you might think you know there’s nothing new to say here, you might just be surprised. 9/10

Nick Joy

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