Day 447: The Robots of Death Part 4

After spending two of the past three entries discussing how terrifying this story is it is nice to get some recognition from the story itself as to its nature. Poul, an undercover investigator on the Sand Miner, has had a mental breakdown. The Doctor attributes this to Robophobia, or Grimwade's Syndrome, and there is some discussion of how this occurred. Grimwade theorised, that it occurs due to a lack of body language from the robots, the 'uncanny valley' effect that we looked at previously. This accounts for the feelings for the audience, but not for Poul himself.

Poul, you see, saw blood on a robot's hand. This directly implicated the robots in the murders, which went against their first principle being that they cannot harm humans. This development suddenly creates a vast amount of horror in Poul, as the robots are stronger, faster, and all around better than humans, and we would die if they were allowed to harm them. It's enough to send a man insane, which indeed it does as Poul cries in front of the silhouette of a robot to not kill him in a very good performance from David Collings.

It's another reminder of why this story is so frightening, and it's certainly one that I'll remember as one of the absolute best stories of all of Doctor Who.