Doctor Who: Robots of Death

[armoredlancer]

After K-9, Leela was my favorite companion.

She was clever, brave and a fighter. And she wasn't a panicky moron or acted stupidly
And of course she had the best outfits of all!

But about the episode, were the silly hats ever explained?
And that has got to be one the worst cells/ways to lock someone up. Sure the waist and neck are secured, but the arms and legs are free so they can still attack anyone that gets close.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

For a second I thought you were saying "least-favorite companion" and I was ready to throw down with you.

I met her in The Horror of Fang Rock. She's super.

[cdrood]

The point made in the video reminds me of the interview in 2001: A Space Odyssey when the Bowman and Poole are asked about HAL and whether its responses constitute actual emotion or is it just how its programmed to respond. When is an AI sentient and when is it just doing what it's programmed to do in order to get past the Uncanny Valley? Would we even know it, if we saw it?

Star Trek seems to follow the opinion that it if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. So Data, Moriarty, and Voyager's Doctor are classified as sentient. To be honest the holograms especially bug me as Trek acts as if a "program" is one bit of isolated code completely unconnected to every other "program" instead of a slew of shared modules and databases wrapped in a user interface. Could Voyager's Doctor actually ever choose to NOT be a doctor. Sure it can add features, but could it come to the decision that it doesn't like medicine and take another career path. If it can't, then is it actually sentient at all? It also fails to bring up the fact that the ship's computer is therefore probably capable of sentience and they should be asking permission to live in it.

In Robots of Death, there really isn't any question. No matter how sentient they appear, the robots are apparently just sophisticated tools. They appear capable of independent action due to all the tasks and situations they've been created to deal with. Ultimately, they are incapable of choice. They can only have different owners. Some will use a hammer to build, while another uses it to break. The hammer doesn't know the difference.

[cdrood]

After K-9, Leela was my favorite companion.

She was clever, brave and a fighter. And she wasn't a panicky moron or acted stupidly
And of course she had the best outfits of all!

But about the episode, were the silly hats ever explained?
And that has got to be one the worst cells/ways to lock someone up. Sure the waist and neck are secured, but the arms and legs are free so they can still attack anyone that gets close.

Silly hats were a staple of 60's and 70's sci-fi. Fashion is a quick way to clue in the audience that it didn't take place on present day Earth. It's also faster and cheaper than making the guest stars aliens with makeup. Given how long it had been on at this point, Doctor Who had probably burned through all the variations of sparkly jumpsuits. I always liked how Star Trek seemed figure the Nehru jacket wasn't a fad that would last in the real world and so used it for Earth civilian clothes "of the future".

[LittleRaven]

Leela was my favorite companion, followed closely by Nyssa of Traken.

Not that there haven't been plenty of good ones since. But those really stuck with me.

[Maximara]

This is one of my favorite episodes from the Baker era. I just wish they could have revisited the Robots in the actual TV series. The two "sequals" (the "Robophobia" audio drama and the novel Corpse Marker) have their issues that detracts from the stories.

Even though from the standpoint of the characters in the drama Robophobia's mystery more or less holds together but for the listener there is one scene in "Robots of Death" that makes one of the critical clues in this drama fall flat:

Fourth Doctor: You're a robot detective. What does your computer mind make of this?
D84: Strength is indicated, but not beyond human capacity.
Fourth Doctor: Typical robot. No imagination.

However the Fourth Doctor's comment isn't borne out by the events in "Robots of Death". Taren Capel had programed the robots to initially be secret in their killings but clearly they interpreted those orders to use only human level strength and THAT takes "imagination".

Similarly if as is hinted at for much of the drama the events of the Sandminer are being duplicated then from the listener's POV any displays of less then full Robot strength could be echos of similar secrecy (if one assumes the Robots have been reprogrammed rather than "gone bad" as many of the characters in the drama assume)

Yet this display of strength is a key clue in the drama and in the content of the story on its own makes sense but it is conflicted by events in "Robots of Death" so the listener is left scratching their head in trying to get the two stories to agree.

[Darth Wedgius]

...

Star Trek seems to follow the opinion that it if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. So Data, Moriarty, and Voyager's Doctor are classified as sentient. To be honest the holograms especially bug me as Trek acts as if a "program" is one bit of isolated code completely unconnected to every other "program" instead of a slew of shared modules and databases wrapped in a user interface. Could Voyager's Doctor actually ever choose to NOT be a doctor. Sure it can add features, but could it come to the decision that it doesn't like medicine and take another career path. If it can't, then is it actually sentient at all? It also fails to bring up the fact that the ship's computer is therefore probably capable of sentience and they should be asking permission to live in it.

...

As just a point, in the Voyager episode "Virtuoso," he does decide to give up medicine, resign from Voyager, and settle on a planet as a world-famous singer.

I think in Star Trek the possibility of simulated emotions is just ignored by all the writers. As another data point, FWiW, I got the impression in TNG's "Offspring" that Troi was sensing Lal's emotions.

Not that I disagree with anything you said.

[Darmani]

okay one thing I took away from this is the fact that the main villain of the story of the war cleaner picture of a video game villain that sort of makes sense aside from lovable goofball or Visionary robot revolutionary. I'm of course referring to dr. Wily of Megaman. Because of this it honestly feels like it connects everything to a solid Human Experience. And dust makes me appreciate classic Doctor Who just a bit more. I don't know it's something about modern Doctor Who and the way uses classic Doctor Who that makes me cringe at the thought of visiting it

[Robovski]

I just want to thank the commissioner and Chuck as #4 my fav doctor and his time with Leela my favorite of that time (but Sarah Jane a close second).

[proporRocket]

One of the things that I love about this story (and often gets overlooked) is the world building. Even though the "humans" are miners they were opulent clothing, lounge around on comfy chairs and of course ware the silliest of hats. Between that and a few bits of dialogue, we really get a feeling that we're looking in to an alien culture. Just a good bit of economical story telling IMO.

I have a feeling that if this story was made on New Who, the miners would be wearing dirty jumpsuits with welding goggles and grease on their faces.