DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
DVD ROM Features
Documentary
Featurette
Photo gallery
Production Notes

The single-disc DVD includes commentary by Baker, Sladen, Dicks, and producer Barry Letts, as well as a 40-minute documentary titled "Are Friends Electric?" which recalls the production of Baker's first serial via interviews with the cast and production team, including producer Phillip Hinchcliffe and director Christopher Barry. "The Tunnel Effect" is a 13-minute interview with graphic designer Bernard Lodge on how he created the memorable "infinite tunnel" titles for the Baker stories, and there's a clip from the U.K. children's program Blue Peter, which was broadcast from the set of Robot. The by-now standard photo gallery, production notes, and a PDF of the Radio Times listings round out the extras. --Paul Gaita

Doctor Who - Robot (Episode 75)

• Doctor Who - Survival (Episode 159)
• Doctor Who - The Sontaran Experiment (Episode 77)
• Doctor Who - New Beginnings (The Keeper of Traken / Logopolis / Castrovalva)
• Doctor Who - Arc of Infinity (Episode 124)
• Doctor Who - Time-Flight (Episode 123)
• Doctor Who - Planet of Evil (Episode 81)
• Doctor Who - Destiny of the Daleks (Episode 104)
• Doctor Who - The Complete Third Series
• Doctor Who - Genesis of the Daleks (Episode 78)
• Doctor Who - The Time Warrior (Episode 70)

Tom Baker *is* the Doctor. No doubt this is why he seems so perfect in the role. All in all this is a good package for a key (if not great) story. (It was probably less important for the story to work as a whole than it was to get people back for next week's installment). Even if you think the story is kind of lame there is a lot to like.

This bit is for kids only, I'm afraid. -Running audio commentary from Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith) and writer Terrance Dicks. The story is pretty typical of old-school science fiction: a slightly mad but benevolent scientist has created a robot which has been appropriated by a fringe organization. -A featurette on the turnover of the role from Jon Pertwee to Tom Baker and what was involved in it, what it meant for the show, and so on. This was also typical of the old show, I think due to its serial nature. It's easy to see why this incarnation of the Doctor has become the most iconic. The story has some twists, not all of which make sense. It also has some contrived aspects (the mad scientist has by chance developed two other scientific breakthroughs, one of which exacerbates the problem and one which solves it) which pretty much telegraph the major plot turns as well.

It was interesting to see how the various effects were accomplished before the age of computers and digital graphics. Even the worst stories have had entertaining commentaries, and this one is especially good because Baker participates. Particularly egregious is the bit where what is clearly a toy tank tries to sneak up on the robot (and fails). It's surprising how much these people remember from their work over thirty years ago. What saves this particular show, and what probably made it such a breakthrough when it was first aired, is how much Baker absolutely owns the role right from the start.

-A featurette on the man who created the title sequences for the show since its inception in 1963, including the "time tunnel" concept which was used throughout most of the seventies as well as in the new series. He says that himself, not out of egotism, but because he does actually feel like the charactera man slightly out of place in the human world. If this story had appeared somewhere else in the series, it would probably be considered average at best. This group of intellectual supremacists (sort of a fascist MENSA) is using the robot to steal plans and materials for a disintegrator gun and essentially take over the world. Then there's Sarah Jane's curiously subdued reaction to a man being disintegrated right in front of her; she registers a look of mild disgust, as if she had just found some moldy cheese in her refrigerator.

-A Blue Peter segment that I couldn't sit through for more than a minute or so. I think the only reason it is here is that it was filmed on the Doctor Who set. So it's fairly hokey, and of course it has all the elements longtime fans of the show have come to look upon with affectionate humor, like really bad special effects and dodgy acting. ROBOT is significant for being the first full appearance of Tom Baker in the title role. DVD bonus features include:.

This is the story that introduced Tom Baker to the world as the Doctor. Well worth the money to get for ones collection. And for 7 years he WAS the Doctor. Many to this day still consider him THEIR Doctor. Well written story by Terrance Dicks, former Scrpit Editor for the show, and with a cast that knew each other well, it just flowed. I bought this DVD from a contact of mine in England. And as both a introdcution tale, as well as one of the last stories to involve UNIT, it was superb.

Doctor Who becomes more colorful, more exciting, more interesting from this point on. The story is a good one, an artificial life form (the robot) is created with Asimov's limitations put in place. Tom Baker (Doctor Who) and Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith, his "sidekick") were both very entertaining. One reviewer suggested that this was a homage to "King Kong", but I feel that it was more like "Frankenstein", and "I, Robot". This idea is amplified when the robot was made to grow larger. It is fun, in a way, but the special effects become bad at this point.

I liked this story mostly because it seemed to take Doctor Who out of the past, old-style science fiction, into the present. I think too that this story might have been a message, from the show to the audience, as to what they should expect things to be like in Doctor Who stories from now on. I am not sure why this was necessary. The result is confusion, chaos, and, due to the immensity of the robot's intellect, and due to the combined intellects and ambitions of its creators, the world is put into danger. Right after it was activated ("born"), its prime directives are put in direct conflict with its primary orders.

Everything seems to "wake up", it was like opening the shades on the windows. Tom playing Jon's role makes the transition feel smoother, in spite of the fact that through most of the first part of the story the new Doctor seems to be confused by his transition. I am not sure how they pulled it off, but they did. The story is loaded with good quips and distractions, some of them very humorous. It really does feel like it was written for Jon Pertwee, but this makes sense because this is Tom Baker's first appearance.

This story is a great example of a typical Doctor Who story. The story-line would have been stale if it were not for the actors which includes UNIT, the Brigadier, the evil-scientist, and the robot.

Who, own the first three seasons on DVD. My family and I love the new Dr.

However, in an episode during the second season and with a new series of her own we really liked Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. We see why Tom Baker is a favorite of many older Dr.

Who until this new series came out.

We were surpriesed at how much we enjoyed it, though not nearly as much as the current ones. Who fans.

I was not particularly enamored of Dr. This caused us to order this 1970s show which featured a much much younger Sarah Jane.

It also sets the framework going for the trilogy to follow which is a high mark of the series Following Pertwee was a difficult task to be sure, but Tom can carry off nearly anything with that smile of his. The story is fun, a bit scary and true Who goodness. Never has an actor so quickly established himslef in the role as quickly as Tom Baker. THE most chariismatic actor to ever play the part gets his start here, and the episode is fabulous, except of course for the robot itself, which, typical of BBC is just not up to snuff.