Customer Reviews
"Heeeeerrrrrre's Tommy!" - By: Bob Marlowe, 24 Nov 2008 
No classic but good fun. As a pre-teen when originallly broadcast, I wasn't sure about Great Uncle Jon's replacement (He won me over during Ark in Space) but watched now a lot of the fun is in seeing this hyper-active loon in a situation that is full metal Pertwee-homegrown menace being battled by UNIT.
There's a bit of subtext to Nicholas Courtney's performance as the Brigadier, you can almost hear him thinking "Can I have the frilly shirted one back please?"
Unrestrained, Uncle Tom indulges in some clowning most of which works e.g. making Harry Sullivan skip with him while reciting a nursery rhyme in a slightly disturbing tone, some of it doesn't-e.g. an interminable sequence where he tries on costumes.
He is still the intelligent & steely determined timelord clowning & alll, witness his estimation of the weight of their enemy based on what it did to a flower & his taunt to Thinktank; "Come on where's your metal man?"
Tom clearly hit it off with Lis Sladen from the start, Sarah providing the anchor for his performance here. As in Planet of the Spiders, her journalist background is used & at times it looks like a Sarah Jane adventure- no bad thing with a strong companion.
There are great villains in Patricia Maynard & Alec Linstead, plus a sympathetic Robot courtesy of a great design & Michael Kilgariff's voice, plus a believably mad scientist.
A good script with a minor demerit for the unconvincing denouement of who's on whose side.
Also, fans of bad model work look for a toy tank that looks amazingly like a toy tank!
"Are Friend's Electric?" is a fun intro to the epic tenure of Uncle Tom & a making of. Many key people are interviewed like Barry Letts who cast him, Terrance Dicks who wrote Robot & of course the man himself. We get some good anecdotes & a glipmse of "Tom the Builder", as his hod carrier days are recallled.
"The Tunnel Effect" is also good fun as graphics designer Bernard Lodge talks us through various title sequences.
Best is of course, the Tommentary. naturallly Uncle Tom is there plus Lis Sladen, Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks. A rollicking round of stand up philosophy, & eccentric comedy is served up with topics covered including Pertwee's nose, how Lis Sladen makes men feel good,the reappearance of Miss Winters in a Big Finish story, impersonating John Culshaw & how everything Uncle Tom has done since may be just a variation on the Doctor!
There's an easter egg of a continuity sequence too.
If you are an Uncle Tom fan, buy it & if he's not your favourite, there are better stories. A very good package!
Suprisingly Good! - By: Matthew D. Phillips, 24 Jan 2008 
I didn't expect a lot from this tale but was pleasantly suprised to find that this is one of the best old school Doctor Who tales I have viewed in some time. Tom Baker is excellent as The Doctor & comes out of the starting blocks with a fully formed character right from the start.
I would reccomend this one to fans of the new series who would like to check out the old stuff as the feel is quite similar in tone. We have Sarah Jane Smith on her own quest much like the modern Sarah Jane Adventures & the Doctor's eccentric behaviour after his regeneration reminded me a lot of David Tennant's performance in 'The Christmas Invasion'. Harry is introduced to the team (yay) & the Brig is left behind as the doctor leaves earth at the end of episode 4.
Great extras, & it's interesting to listen to Tom Baker in the Commentary as it is the first time he has actuallly seen the show himself!
All in alll - this is great fun & full of energy - well recommended!
It Begins! - By: Calculus, 20 Aug 2007 That's right, Tom baker's era as The Doctor begins here. This is back when Tom baker was an un-heard of actor, struggling for any role at the time.
Robot, as a story, works very well with the 'mostly' convincing effects. I was never much a fan of Terrance Dick's writing on Doctor Who. However, here, Dick's pens a truely brilliant opening story for Baker. The contrast from Pertwee is immediate & a chemestry between Baker & Sladen is almost immediately established.
Robot is a quaint & rewarding story, showing from the (very) later days of The Doctor's career with UNIT. Also, just as a point, watch out for the action man 'tank' at the end of Part Three. It's BBC budgeting at its absolute best.
The Documentary, 'Are Friends Electric' is a good, thirty-nine minute affair, pading out the extras nicely. I'm sure after such a good serial as Robot, extras can only seem like a 'sweetener'.
So, finallly, alll to be said is: 'Enjoy Baker's first day'.
A very important story, but not the very best - By: M. Wilberforce, 04 Aug 2007 
Story: 3/5 - Extras: 4/5
"Robot", by Terrance Dicks, is a transitional story designed to ease the viewer from the earthbound UNIT era into the new era of the show, which would see the Doctor & his companion(s) freed from the established Earth ties of the Jon Pertwee years. The newly regenerated Doctor, played for the first time by Tom Baker, & established companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisbeth Sladen) are joined in their travels by the old-fashioned & highly British UNIT medic Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter), a likeable character making his first appearance in this story.
The first episode is devoted partly to the aftermath of the Doctor's regeneration, with ample clownery by the boggle-eyed Tom Baker in his scenes with the exasperated Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), interspersed with Sarah Jane undertaking her own investigation into goings-on at the scientific organisation Think Tank. It is Sarah Jane's investigations at Professor Kettlewell's lab that leads the Doctor & UNIT into contact with the robot. After that, the robot takes centre stage in the story, along with its creator (an eccentric performance by a flyaway-haired Edward Burnham).
Unlike the Cybermen, however, the robot is a much more "human" creature, & we actuallly feel a certain amount of sympathy for the confused machine, as it wrestles with instructions to kill that are contrary to its prime directive. After Sarah shows it compassion, the story takes on "King Kong"-like overtones that play out in the story's crazy fourth episode (I shan't spoil it, but it involves some very bad CSO special effects!).
Although there are some good guest performances & Tom Baker is on splendid form from the off, I wouldn't describe "Robot" as being much more than average, with episode four being over-ambitious, resulting in it being rather silly & badly put together. However, the story occupies a very important position in the show's continuity, & sets the Doctor, Sarah & Harry off on the journey that would link the rest of the stories in "Doctor Who"'s acclaimed twelfth season under new producer Philip Hinchcliffe ("Robot" itself being produced by outgoing producer Barry Letts).
The DVD features aren't quite as comprehensive as sometimes, but as well as a feature commentary with Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen & writer Terrance Dicks, there's a documentary on the casting of Tom Baker & the making of "Robot", & a featurette on the creation of the Fourth Doctor's well-known title sequence, plus other extracts from the archives.
Workman-Like Start - By: JA Fairhurst, 20 Jul 2007 This was the first of Tom Baker's stories so obviously, no-one had any knowledge of how Tom would develop the role.
There's little evidence of the eccentricity that he would bring to the role very quickly after this & that had attracted the production staff to him in the first place. Sarah, as always, was in fine fettle as she investigated the mysterious disappearing equipment & we're introduced to Ian Marter as permanent companion Harry Sullivan who actuallly gets to play the role in a serious fashion - later stories would see him sinking to Mickey like comedic side kick.
There are a number of interesting extras ranging from how the new Doctor was cast & the rest of the cast assembled round him to how the various title sequences were constructed (this *was* interesting - honest!).
