Doctor Who has embraced many genres since it began in 1963, but the first on the drawing board was science-fiction. David Whitaker, the show’s original story editor, and Anthony Coburn, the first of its credited writers, spent several months developing a script that, had it been produced, would have firmly established the series as a traditional science-fiction adventure.
The Masters of Luxor, also known as The Robots, was intended to comprise episodes five to ten of Doctor Who’s initial run. Although the story’s elements of intrigue and jeopardy increased as it went along, Coburn was principally motivated by the philosophical struggle between the TARDIS crew, a society of robots that had assumed control of their planet, and the exiled scientist who lived in fear of the mechanical dictator he had created.