Review of all 4 episodes:
In the fabulous series 14 this is another very impressive story. Basically a murder mystery in a futuristic setting with horror elements. The Doctor and his new companion Leela arrive on a sandmining vessel manned by a human crew along with robot workers. There has been a murder and The Doctor is immediately assumed to be the killer. As more murders take place The Doctor has to discover the true killer before he himself becomes a victim. The robots are involved and when you hear their gentle, passionless voices and see them turn from servants to red eyed attackers it is chilling and effective. This is clearly an influence (mixed with First Doctor aliens The Sensorites) on Russell T. Davies creations 'The Ood' which first appear in 2006.
The 'Art Deco' style design of the robots is absolutely beautiful and impressive and their calm, butler like voices are wonderful. The brilliant realisation of these impeccably designed robots is one of the highlights of this production. Some of the other effects and the sets are equally impressive. There is also yet another exceptional, intelligent script and thrilling story with great scares and terrific performances from Tom Baker and his new sidekick Louise Jameson who establishes Leela as an excellent companion straight away. This Hinchcliffe/Holmes era just has the best standards and writer Chris Boucher has provided more great material.
The cool science fiction idea of robots having their programming overruled and attacking humans continues to be used in many films and TV shows and at the time this was made it had been used before but far less than it has now. It is a very strong idea, hence it gets used so much, and it is presented really well in this adventure creating fear and menace.
The human characters are good but it is The Doctor and Leela who really are the wonderful characters while the robots, the premise and the dialogue is all very high quality stuff. The tension and mystery is worked really well with some exciting cliffhangers and powerful horror elements.
This maintains the super high standards of the series in this period and is another must see for fans. All 4 episodes 10/10.