The Robots of Death

The Black Archive #43

by Fiona Moore

‘That’s impossible. Robots can’t kill.’
A literate science-fiction mystery set in an elegant, multicultural future society, The Robots of Death (1977) represents a synthesis of a witty script, beautiful design and clever, sympathetic casting. This Black Archive examines these elements contributing to the story’s alchemical brilliance, alongside the themes of artificial intelligence, class and power in the works of scriptwriter Chris Boucher, and the titular robots’ legacy, including their reinterpretation in audio and stage plays.

Genres: Doctor Who, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published May 1, 2020

About the author

Fiona Moore is a writer and academic whose work has appeared in Asimov, Interzone, and Clarkesworld, with reprints in Forever Magazine and two consecutive editions of The Best of British SF; her story “Jolene” was shortlisted for the 2019 BSFA Award for Shorter Fiction, and her first novel Driving Ambition is available from Bundoran Press. She has written and cowritten a number of articles and guidebooks on cult television, including guides to Blake’s Seven, The Prisoner and Battlestar Galactica. She has also written three stage plays and four audio plays, and a blog entitled A Doctor Of Many Things. When not writing, she is a Professor of Business Anthropology at Royal Holloway University.. She lives in Southwest London with a tortoiseshell cat who is bent on world domination.

Reviews

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-robots-of-death-by-fiona-moore-and-chris-boucher-and-terrance-dicks-and-corpse-marker-by-chris-broucher/

Unusually for a Black Archive author, Fiona Moore has already contributed fictionally to the Robots of Death universe via the Kaldor City audios, which you can get here. So it’s not very surprising that she comes to the story with an even more positive approach than me, wanting to explain why it works so well, without explaining it away. She succeeds in this.

The first chapter, ‘The Robots of Death in Context’, starts with the big picture of 1970s arty TV, then zooms in on the Hinchcliffe era of Doctor Who and then briefly examines some of the aspects of the story that make it work.

The second chapter, ‘Script to Screen’, delightfully finds that some of the best bits were added at the last moment, by the actors including Tom Baker.

The third chapter, ‘The Machine Man’, looks at the very direct impact of Expressionism on the design of the story, specifically through the classic film Metropolis.

The fourth chapter, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Stupidity’, points out that contra some descriptions, the robots themselves don’t actually rebel; and finds roots for the story’s take on AI in the back-story of Dune.

The fifth chapter, ‘Class and Power in the Works of Chris Boucher’, looks at how these themes played out in The Robots of Death and in his other TV work, the series Blake’s 7, Gangsters and Star Cops and the two other Doctor Who stories (both of which have been Black Archived), The Face of Evil and Image of the Fendahl.

The sixth chapter, ‘Cast All Ethnicities’, makes the point that the story is ahead of its time in assembling a multi-ethnic cast and treating them equally, though the character of Leela is a little problematic.

The seventh chapter, ‘The Legacy of The Robots of Death’, lists at the various Kaldor-set sequels in print and audio (though curiously does not mention Moore’s own authorship explicitly, except in a footnote), and then also looks at the treatment of similar themes in the Ood stories of New Who, and Voyage of the Damned, Oxygen and Kerblam!.

All in all this is a good roundup of why the story is a good one.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first Black Archive I have read for a while, but very enjoyable it was.

I think it helps that The Robots of Death is one of my favourite ever Doctor Who stories, but Fiona Moore does a grand job of taking you through the process of the stories making from 'script to screen'; looking at the themes and influences of the story (and of Chris Boucher, the writer of The Robots of Death career) including Expressionism; AI; Class and Power and Race.

The final section talks about the ongoing life that Robots of Death has had both as the foundation stone for a setting that other stories, including ongoing Big Finish adventures, have been built on and it influence on other stories in New Doctor Who.

It also does the excellent job of offering other books that I might want to read that elucidate on some of these ideas and themes in more detail.

[James Neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

now I just want to watch The Robots of Death again