Robot

The commonly held view of "Robot" is that it's a tactical, rather than an inspirational story. It's a jobsworth, a vehicle strategically designed to introduce the Fourth Doctor. It's a Pertwee story, except with Tom in.

Yet "Robot" arguably has more in common with the stories following it than with those that came before. "Robot"'s established setting comes in useful, but not as a safety net for integrating in the new arrival. Just the opposite, in fact. It's a neat way of showing the audience what Doctor Who is about to leave behind. Whilst the Third Doctor doggedly returned to Earth time and again even after he had regained his freedom, almost like he'd forgotten that his real home was time and space, the first thing the Tom Doctor wants to do is leave. Put simply, he doesn't see the NEED to "address the palace" and hang around helping the Brigadier with paperwork. He has a new body, new energy and the old setting simply reminds him, and us, of what the series needs to escape from.

At the same time, "Robot" is also a vehicle for the Doctor that Tom would become. There is a traditional assignment for him to follow, but the Doctor is more eccentric detective than reluctant employee, and he demonstrates the same unconventional methods of puzzle solving that would define the portrayal in later adventures, e.g when posing as a Customs Official on the Empress or outsmarting the conmen Garron and Unstoffe on Ribos. And despite this being an environment more natural to his predecessor, the Fourth Doctor tackles the mystery of the stolen weapon components and the shadowy SRC with twice as much verve than his predecessor would have mustered. The UNIT setup also allows his differing methods to come to the fore; the old Doctor would have tackled Kettlewell head on about his involvement with the Robot, perhaps dressing up as an old lady to infiltrate the SRC meeting. The new model uses his flippancy to hide his intelligence ("Alpha Centurai table tennis"), as he would be doing for years to come. Rather than being the reliable constant around the new arrival, the familiar elements in "Robot" are the least exciting. The story is mostly remarkable for just how quickly Tom gets a handle on his Doctor.

In short, he succeeds in showing up just why nobody was going to be missing Pertwee after Part 4. Perhaps it really was true that the Third Doctor, foisted unwillingly on Earth in "Spearhead from Space" to fight the establishment, had become a part of it, much as I hate to agree with a woman with Verity Lambert's dress sense. When we first meet the Doctor in "Planet of the Spiders", he isn't flying through space as he should be, but visiting the theatre with the Brigadier. After so long trying to "be" the Doctor again against the Time Lord's wishes, when he is at last allowed to do so he'd forgotten how. By contrast the Fourth Doctor shows up the Pertwee trappings for what they had become; old, tired and in need of leaving behind. In this respect, it was the perfect way to begin a bold new era. Clever eh?