Nothing has ever been officially confirmed, but there is a rumour that on a Sandminer, bound for Kaldor City, the robots somehow turned homicidal and nearly wiped out the entire crew. Can that really be true?
The robot transport ship Lorelei has a cargo of over 157,000 robots on board, all deactivated. So even if there were any truth in the rumour of that massacre, there’d still be no danger. Surely, there wouldn’t…
But then, the Doctor witnesses a murder.
ROBOPHOBIA
Given Big Finish’s willingness to mine Doctor Who’s past for story ideas, it surprises that it took until 2011 to sequelize “The Robots of Death,” one of the Hinchcliffe era’s most popular stories. Perhaps the existence of Magic Bullet’s Kaldor City series – something I really need to get around to hearing – delayed this, but the long-awaited robot story has finally arrived in the form of Nicholas Briggs’ “Robophobia,” a story that sees Sylvester McCoy’s seventh Doctor at his most enigmatic and manipulative.
I praised McCoy’s “A Death in the Family” performance as one of his best ever, and I’m going to do the same here. Briggs writes the script from the perspective of the crew of the transport ship Lorelei, and uses the Doctor as an enigmatic, almost ghostly presence, drifting in and out of scenes, offering cryptic clues and advice, and generally alternating between mysterious and infuriating. It’s no secret that McCoy is brilliant at this sort of portrayal, and his performance is as great as expected: his low, quiet tones reverberate almost threateningly through the play. This is a Doctor with a near-perfect understanding of human nature, and we watch as he expertly manipulates the crew through each stage of the mystery until they finally learn the truth. Even when the killer is literally unmasked, the Doctor refuses to do it himself, waiting for Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker, excellent) to lift the robotic veil. His final scenes with Farel (Toby Hadoke, also excellent) are heartbreaking – it’s almost entirely through McCoy’s performance that we gain sympathy for a character that rightfully deserves none.
Of course, McCoy’s performance obscures a fairly significant problem with the plot: there’s really no apparent reason for the Doctor to be this mysterious in the first place. The killer wants the crew to think the robots are killers, but nobody believes this until the Doctor guides them to that conclusion – only to break them of the illusion two episodes later! As with all stories like this, it’s deliberately unclear exactly what the Doctor knows when he enters the situation, but at the very least he has to know the robots aren’t responsible. Perhaps he was letting Farel’s plan evolve so he could determine its extent? I’ll be honest, though, I’m a sucker for atmosphere, so I don’t particularly care about what could be a fairly significant plot hole. Give me Sylvester McCoy being dark and mysterious and I’m delighted.
There’s also a reasonable complaint that the play is too long, and this is borne out by the conclusion, in which, after the killer is stopped and his plan foiled, we learn that the ship is still moving unstoppably fast and must be piloted into the sun. Either this was put in to stretch out the running time, or it was put in as an excuse to lionize the robots at the conclusion. I’ll choose to believe the latter, because it’s a nicely heroic scene, and I’m also a sucker for scenes with loyal servants sacrificing themselves to protect their masters. Maybe Nicholas Briggs wrote this script specifically for me? I’ll have to send a card.
The supporting cast is solid across the board as well. “Spooks” veteran Nicola Walker fills the companion role admirably, giving her role surprising depth and subtlety, making the listener feel for her odd romantic life aboard the Lorelei. Nicholas Pegg is perhaps not serious enough as ship captain Selerat, but gets some good exasperated lines. Dan Starkey, better known as a TV Sontaran, turns in a completely dissimilar role in hapless security officer Cravnet. The star of the show, though, is Toby Hadoke – I’ve only seen him on DVD special features, so this was the first performance of his I’d heard, and it’s excellent. A quiet story like this often relies upon a melodramatic villain – jarring against the tone can make a villain subtly more threatening – and Hadoke goes exactly far enough over the top to make Farel effective. His breakdown at the conclusion is also some of the rawest acting we’ve heard in Big Finish. More of this, please.
The production is also excellent. Briggs directs his own material, and wisely opts for a quiet, measured tone and pace throughout, allowing his actors to step to the forefront. Jamie Robertson’s score is excellent, especially the gorgeous diegetic composition evoking Farel’s wife. Really, what’s not to like here? “Robophobia” has a strong script, it has wonderful performances, fantastic production design… so it doesn’t make very much sense. It’s Doctor Who – we’ve learned to love that.
Highly recommended.
9/10