The Robots of Death

"The Friday Voc Show", "Taren on TV", "Holi-D84"

"The One With the Silent Killing Machines", "Masked Death Bringers in Shiny Clothes Bring Doom Bringers” (China)

Doctor Who and Leela find that some camp robots have been killing on behalf of a man who wears makeup.

*** - Tom Baker is no Joan Hickson.

“Let me tell you a really interesting story about the making of this episode...” (cut from the DVD commentary)

"You know, you're a classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the pants"

Louise Jameson took great care to act in an alien manner during her first few serials. The effort was wasted as she had great legs and that’s all that matters.

This story was the first (apart from the one that doesn’t count) Dr Who DVD and it got the range off to an excellent start. The commentary alone was praised by DWM as being “rather lovely” while the drawings of the studio floor were said to be “very interesting for proles who have never seen them before, unlike me who has been enjoying them for almost twenty years” by Mucky Devastation’s Dennis “The Menace” Brent.

David Collings is top glamour actress Joan Collings’ brother and he often visited her on the set of Dynasty.

This story would later be remade as an episode of Blake’s 7 with only the plot and the characters changed for legal reasons. Some of the hair was reused under Equity dispensation.

The Cheadle Rampart’s television critic said this story was ‘more well rounded than jelly and twice as yummy’. He gave it seven marks out of seven on the Cheadle-o-meter.

Tom Baker foolishly agreed to take part in a sponsored silence to raise money for his favourite charity – Otters For Life – and all dialogue in episode 3 had to be dubbed on later once he’d collected the money.

...is that you'll end up being murdered if you don't wear sensible clothes at work.

Si Hunt

“I was minding my own business and explaining to a total stranger why they were wrong to regard Andrew's "Archive" features in "Doctor Who" Magazine as anything more than light and enjoyable froth when the prole asked me a startling question.

"Mr Brent" he said with due respect, "do you consider the 'Kaldor City' spin off productions to be a legitimate continuation of "Doctor Who" considering they include elements of both "Doctor Who" and "Blake's Seven"? Is it possible that they both take place in the same universe?"

I tried to answer but found the words would not come. I had been able to come to definitive conclusions about other "spin off productions" and anyone who disagrees with them is a contemptible fool. The Dennis Brent Official Canon is as follows, any request for explanation will be treated with the contempt they deserve.

Sarah Jane Smith - yes

K9 and Company - no

BBV monster stories - no

Bernice Summerfield - yes

Dalek Empire - first two seasons, yes but no to the third

V-i-r-g-i-n New Adventures - no

V-i-r-g-i-n Missing Adventures - yes

BBC Eighth Doctor novels - yes

BBC Past Doctor novels - no

Faction Paradox - no but I reserve the right to change to yes retrospectively

Kaldor City - ???

There was nothing else to do but emulate Jesus and spend forty days in the wilderness as I considered my answer. For forty days and nights I lived off the land on Bendaton Common and paid no heed to personal hygiene barring Doctor Flapjack's suite of ointments (neglecting them would've made it impossible to sit still in quiet meditation). At the end of my ordeal I staggered round to the prole's home - tired and hungry - and gave him my answer.

"No" I gasped. My torture had been worth it - his face betrayed relief. Then my aroma registered and he turned the hose pipe on me.”

Controversy engulfed the fanzine "Doctor Whodunnit" when the reviewer of Robots of Death said "It is often compared to 'Murder on the Orient Express' despite the fact that the killer is Taren Capel aka Dask and not everyone on board the Sandminer as would've been the case had the story been a proper homage". The letters page of the following issue was inundated with messages from people who hadn't read Murder on the Orient Express. Rather than leaving the author, Colin Mousetrap, apologetic it merely spurred him on to list every other Agatha Christie book whose murder-resolution isn't the same as Robots of Death. Sadly, Colin Mousetrap died at a Doctor Who convention. His body was discovered with well over nine hundred stab wounds but none of the convention's nearly one thousand attendees saw or heard anything.