Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

For January, I decided to tackle the biggest project of my Epinions career: the current range of Doctor Who on DVD. Nine hundred episode, 26 years - and only 30 days to go. Something tells me I'm not going to make it. . . .

But first the standard Doctor Who Primer for those of you just joining us:

From 1963 to 1989 (and a couple of false starts thereafter) the BBC ran an immensely popular family program called Doctor Who. The main character is called The Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He travels the universe in the TARDIS, a wondrous spaceship that can go anywhere in time and space - provided that the Doctor can steer it correctly. During his adventures, he and his companion (usually a young human female with weak ankles and good lungs) combat evil and injustice wherever they find it. Key to the longevity of the series - Doctor Who can do what the James Bond movies have done several times. When fatally injured, Time Lords have the ability to regenerate, totally changing their faces and personalities, allowing the ability to swap out the lead roll when the actor wants to leave the series. So there have been several Doctors with different faces (ten, so far), but all of them the same character.

Oh, and the name of the show is Doctor Who. The main character is simply called The Doctor.

On a distant planet unnamed desert planet, a huge sandminer vehicle is slowly harvesting the surface of the vast wasteland in search of precious minerals. The sandminer is commanded by a crew of lazy and avaricious human staff - many of whom have secrets to hide - who are served by numerous robots who wait on them hand and foot while running the day to day duties of the sandminer. Everything is running fine in their robotic paradise until one of the crew is murdered.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS arrives on the sandminer. As these things tend to go, the fourth Doctor (the one with the scarf) and Leela are promptly captured as stowaways and accused of murder. As tensions increase and the Doctor escapes custody, the body count begins going up and the engines of the sandminer are sabotaged and forced offline. If power isn’t restored, the robot revolt put down, and the real murderer caught - and quickly - none of the humans will survive the voyage. And what of the sinister mastermind Taren Capel, acting from the shadows as a robotic Che Guevara. . . .

Honestly, The Robots of Death is a textbook example of how timeless Doctor Who can be. While the sets and costumes look very much from the 1970s (Robots was shot in 1976), the story holds up very well. Ok, it's a retelling of any number of Agatha Christie novels, but with killer robots and Time Lords. With some subtle pacing changes, you could easily drop the story part and parcel into the upcoming 2008 series.

Tom Baker is really has his game face on as the Doctor, and Louise Jameson as Leela manages to hit both notes - simple savage yet intelligent and savvy - at the same time. Sure she fills the typical companion roll of having plot points explained through her by the Doctor, but it's natural. The supporting cast gives some rock solid performances, and the characters (always one of writer Chris Boucher's strong points) are very well-developed.

In short The Robots of Death goes a long way to showing just how damn flexible the series and how it'll always be good story telling - and not flashy effects - that carry the day.

THE DVD -
The video has been re-mastered and restored, per the Restoration Team's primary purpose - but the video hasn’t been lovingly restored frame by frame like some of the later releases. It looks ok, but not outstanding like some of their later work.

THE EXTRAS -
A very disappointing set of extras, on a Doctor Who disc? Wait - isn’t this the series, judging by your other reviews, that you consistently praise for the wealth of extras? Yes - normally, but you have to remember that this was the first release of the range (not counting the experimental Five Doctors release), released way back in 2002. While they were able to put together a pretty good release, the Restoration Team were navigating uncharted waters back then. In fact Steve Roberts, head of the team, has said that nearly 28% of the available space was simply wasted - and that they'd take steps to fill it up on future releases.

So what did we get? Included on the DVD is a really dry commentary track from Chris Boucher and producer Philip Hinchcliffe, some Shibaden monochrome video recordings that had once belonged to the Doctor Who Production Office, a number of unused model shots of the sandminer and a photo gallery and the studio floor plan.

So, more than most TV shows get, but a pretty poor showing considering what we would get in the future.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
The Robots of Death is a great story with a strong cast on a (comparatively) weak DVD with a tiny handful of extras. A must buy for the story alone, but the package could be oh so much better.

OTHER DOCTOR WHO EPISODES ON DVD:
* The Beginning
* Doctor Who and the Daleks
* The Aztecs
* The Lost in Time Collection
* Tomb of the Cybermen
* Spearhead From Space
* The Ark in Space
* Genesis of the Daleks
* The Pyramids of Mars
* The Robots of Death
* The Caves of Androzani
* Vengeance on Varos
* Revelation of the Daleks
* Rememberance of the Daleks
* The Television Movie
* Doctor Who - Series One
* Doctor Who - Series Two
* Torchwood - Series One
* Doctor Who - Series Three
* The Infinite Quest


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12