A DOG’S BEST FRIEND

ROBOTS

Doctor Who has embraced many genres since it began

DIABOLICAL INVENTIONS

The Doctor’s complex relationship with robots has been tested in numerous perilous encounters…

MECHON-MANIA

In the mid-1960s the robotic Mechonoids made a brief but memorable bid for supremacy over the Daleks, both on and off the screen.

Galaxy 4

A SPACESHIP CREWED BY A DOZEN RILLS AND THEIR multi-function

TRAP OF STEEL

The novelisation of Galaxy 4 was first published by Target Books in 1985. Four years later Doctor Who Magazine visited the writer, William Emms, to discuss some of the ways the novelisation departed from his original script.

THE WAR MACHINES

THE YEAR IS 1966. THE TARDIS ARRIVES IN LONDON, where

STREET-FIGHTING MAN

In 1990 Ian Stuart Black spoke to Doctor Who Magazine about his seminal 1966 story The War Machines. These are highlights and previously unpublished extracts from that conversation.

THE WEB OF FEAR

PROFESSOR TRAVERS FIRST ENCOUNTERED THE robotic Yeti

Comic-strip ROBOTS

Quarks are just some of the memorable robots to have menaced the Doctor in his numerous comic-strip incarnations.

THE DOMINATORS

AS THE DOMINATORS’ WAR FLEET HEADS TOWARDS Epsilon

RECYCLED ROBOTS

In the surreal first episode of The Mind Robber, Jamie and Zoe are assailed by robots that had their origins in another BBC series…

COLONY IN SPACE

UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE TIME LORDS, the TARDIS takes

THE VAMPIRE PLANET

Several years after creating the Chumblies for Galaxy 4, writer William Emms submitted another story to the Doctor Who production office. This time, however, the robots he devised were rather more sinister…

ROBOT

ASENTRY GUARDING A MINISTRY OF DEFENCE weapons research

I, ROBOT

Many actors have played robots in Doctor Who, but Michael Kilgarriff brought a touching humanity to the definite article.

THE ANDROID INVASION

FORCED TO FIND A NEW WORLD TO INHABIT, THE Kraals of

MURDER ON THE ROBOT EXPRESS

The 1977 classic The Robots of Death was written by Chris Boucher. In 1993 Chris recalled his brief but acclaimed tenure on television Doctor Who in an interview with the fanzine The Hourly Press. Here are highlights of that conversation.

THE ROBOTS OF DEATH

ON THE DISTANT COLONY WORLD OF a robot-dependent civilisation

THE ANDROIDS OF TARA

ON THE PLANET TARA, THE CORONATION OF a new king is

PARROT SKETCH

Douglas Adams’ notes reveal his original intentions for the Polyphase Avatron in The Pirate Planet.

FOUR TO DOOMSDAY

MONARCH DRAGGED HIS FROG-LIKE PEOPLE FROM the slime

IMITATION OF LIFE

The Doctor’s second robot companion suffered a short, troubled and over-ambitious journey.

THE TRIAL OF A TIME LORD

THE DOCTOR AND PERI VISIT RAVOLOX, A PLANET in the

SHORT CIRCUITS

Award-winning visual effects designer Mike Tucker began his career as a Doctor Who crew member in the late 1980s. He reflects on some of the most memorable robot designs from that era.

THE HAPPINESS PATROL

POLITICAL EVENTS HAVE TAKEN AN UNUSUAL TURN on the

ONE MAN AND HIS DOG

A chance encounter in a London pub brought actor John Leeson the defining role of his long career.

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE

THE DOCTOR AND ROSE TYLER TAKE MICKEY SMITH on his

LIKE CLOCKWORK

They may be the stuff of nightmares, but the repair droids from The Girl in the Fireplace were inspired by historical fact…

THE WATERS OF MARS

IN THE RIM OF THE GUSEV CRATER ON MARS, THE Doctor

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Paul Tams was a teenage Doctor Who fan when he first encountered K9. Since then he’s co-created the robot dog’s television comeback, and now has plans for a feature film…

LET’S KILL HITLER

IN 1938, A JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TESELECTA ANDROID assumes

YOU NEED HANDS

Writer Tom MacRae trapped Amy Pond on the planet Apalapucia for 36 years, prisoner of an automated system that only meant well…

THE GIRL WHO WAITED

THE DOCTOR TAKES AMY POND AND RORY WILLIAMS to Apalapucia

BY- MILLENNIUM MEN

Kate Walshe recalls some of the awesome automata that have emerged from the workshop of Millennium FX.

THE CARETAKER

THE DOCTOR DETECTS AN ALIEN PRESENCE IN EAST London.

MURPHY’S LAW

As the director of two stories that pitted the Twelfth Doctor against mechanical adversaries, Paul Murphy has first-hand experience of the challenges posed by the series’ robots.

THE HUSBANDS OF RIVER SONG

VISITING THE HUMAN COLONY MENDORAX DELLORA, the Doctor

SILVER MACHINE

There can be few better examples of the ingenuity employed by Doctor Who’s robot-builders than the device that captured subjects for The Sontaran Experiment.