Doctor Who and the Giant Robot

Doctor Who Target Books (Numerical Order) #28

by Terrance Dicks

'Look, Brigadier! It's growing!' screamed Sarah.

The Brigadier stared in amazement as the Robot began to grow...and grow...swelling to the size of a giant!

Slowly the metal colossus, casting its enormous shadow upon the surrounding trees and buildings, began to stride towards the Brigadier. A giant metal hand hand reached down to grasp him...

Can DOCTOR WHO defeat the evil forces controlling the Robot before they execute their plans to blackmail — or destroy — the world?

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Media Tie In, Time Travel, Novels

128 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 1975

About the author

Terrance Dicks was an English author, screenwriter, script editor, and producer best known for his extensive contributions to Doctor Who. Serving as the show's script editor from 1968 to 1974, he helped shape many core elements of the series, including the concept of regeneration, the development of the Time Lords, and the naming of the Doctor’s home planet, Gallifrey. His tenure coincided with major thematic expansions, and he worked closely with producer Barry Letts to bring a socially aware tone to the show. Dicks later wrote several Doctor Who serials, including Robot, Horror of Fang Rock, and The Five Doctors, the 20th-anniversary special.
In parallel with his television work, Dicks became one of the most prolific writers of Doctor Who novelisations for Target Books, authoring over 60 titles and serving as the de facto editor of the range. These adaptations introduced a generation of young readers to the franchise. Beyond Doctor Who, he also wrote original novels, including children’s horror and adventure series such as The Baker Street Irregulars, Star Quest, and The Adventures of Goliath.
Dicks also worked on other television programmes including The Avengers, Moonbase 3, and various BBC literary adaptations. His later work included audio dramas and novels tied to Doctor Who. Widely respected for his clarity, imagination, and dedication to storytelling, he remained a central figure in Doctor Who fandom until his death in 2019, leaving behind a vast legacy in television and children's literature.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robot is a pretty basic Doctor Who serial that holds more notoriety for being Tom Bakers first story as the Doctor.

I guess that I always found it slightly jarring having this new incarnation thrust into essentially the previous era and UNIT, though it does give us the brilliant Harry Sullivan as a companion.

It might be because of the weak plot thats main focus is to introducing the Fourth Doctor, or publishing demands as this novelisation was released just two months after the episodes aired but it felt very workmanlike by Uncle Terrance.

The short page count does help the story zip along at a quick and enjoyable pace.

[Polly Batchelor · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes!"

4th Doctor, Sarah Jane, Brigadier, Harry Sullivan

The story focuses on a newly regenerated 4th Doctor. It was a good story for a transitioning story between the 3rd Doctor era and 4th. As per usual Terrance style, he hasn't developed much further than what we saw on tv. He expanded a little bit more on characters and on their movements. I enjoyed the book a lot, probably more for nostalgic feelings as it was one of my first classic Who I remember watching (Black Orchid, 5th Doctor was my first.)

"You are enemies of humanity. Go! Go now or I shall destroy you all."

"I'm the Doctor" The definite article, you might say,"

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a novelization of the first serial of the twelfth season of Doctor, which was broadcast in December of 1974 and January of 1975, adapted by Terrance Dicks from his own teleplay. It introduced the fourth regeneration of the title character, who was joined by returning companion journalist Sarah Jane Smith, UNIT personnel Sergeant Benton and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and new companion Harry Sullivan (who was a doctor, but not a Doctor.... the part was played by Ian Marter, who wrote some good Doctor Who novelizations in his own right.) The novel is a good translation of the story, and Dicks took advantage of his opportunity to tweak a few details to turn it to more of what his original vision was as opposed to what was actually filmed. (I liked the nod to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.) It's not a great stand-alone story because it gets a little too mired in the regeneration mythology details, but it's important as part of the series. The story itself obviously owes a lot to King Kong, with Sarah Jane playing the part of Ann Darrow and the titular giant robot as Kong. After the inevitable conclusion, the book ends happily with the indignant Brigadier observing wistfully, ""He's off again!" And so he was."

[Mark]

"The thought of Miss Winters in handcuffs gave Sarah considerable pleasure." (p. 49)
Oh, Terrance.

[Matthew Kresal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Terrance Dicks novelized his own script from the serial that introduced Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor to the world. Like its source serial Robot, The Giant Robot owes more to sixties spy-fi than it does to the fare fans usually think of when it comes to the Fourth Doctor's era. Indeed, it feels even a tad apart from the time of Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor and UNIT, despite the latter appearing. It's very much a thriller, one that wouldn't have been out of place even in the James Bond films of the Roger Moore (which was getting into full swing when the TV serial was made and broadcast). Albeit a thriller with one major science fiction elements thrown in: the titular mechanical creation.

Interestingly for how much fan wisdom has it that Robot on-screen is little more than a Third Doctor story with a different Doctor, that doesn't appear to be the case. Reading the lines Dicks wrote (and not the changes that Tom Baker and others made to them), it's surprising how much Dicks makes the new Doctor feel different from Pertwee. True, there's still a Pertwee-style line or two that creeps in even here, but the Doctor of Giant Robot is most definitely not written as Pertwee but looking like Tom Baker.

The Giant Robot isn't the greatest Target novelization, either by Dicks or of the overall range. But it is, like Planet of the Daleks, perhaps one of its quintessential entries. And still of interest to Doctor Who fans as a result.

3.5/5

[Ivana Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another quite fun adaptation by Terrance Dicks. As usual with these TV novelisations, there's little room for embellishment, but the plot zips along at a fair pace. Thankfully, we don't need effects in books, so the terrible toy tank is just a tank. Possibly not the best of the Target range, but certainly worth reading.

[Eliza Clara Hemming · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read. You can tell Terrance Dicks enjoyed writing this. A spirited, faithful adaptation of a breezy opening story for the iconic Fourth Doctor.

[Stefan Zondag · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I have the physical 1975 Target book, not 4 pages or read by Tom Baker, but it wasn't on goodreads otherwise. Lovely retelling of the serial. Man, Terrance Dicks knows how to convincingly write all characters, you just hear the dialogue. He was a master of his craft

[Clark Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's not to like about this? A story that starts with The Doctor regenerating into the 4th doctor read by the actor who played the 4th Doctor. Awesome!

[Adam Duclos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great audiobook featuring the Fourth Doctor's first story, and not only is the story pretty great, this was read by Tom Baker himself! It's like listening to all the best parts of the show, all the time. He does some great voices, but it's all in the accent, style and inflection, never in the pitch, which is great, because some of the other male Doctor Who audiobook readers will try to do female voices with a falsetto... not necessary, when you're as good as Tom Baker, I guess!

Out of the entire audiobook, there were just two times when I was a bit disappointed, and that was all down to the choice of the writer adapting the show to a book to lose some of the best dialogue of the show! I liked that some of the action scenes were just described generally, but they did the same with the Doctor waking up! In the show, this is great, and he speaks a number of great nonsense lines, like "Why is a mouse when it spins?" This was tragically omitted. Also at the end, they changed one of my favorite lines of the Fourth Doctor's... not much, but enough to be noticeable: "There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes!" They left out the 'sometimes'... small change, I know, but it does change the meaning of the statement.

Long story short, this was great!

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1041222.html#cutid1[return][return]Oddly enough, Dicks is not especially good at making his own stories transition happily to the printed page. There are some good bits added/changed here, especially the characterisation of the new Doctor, but in general it is competent rather than exciting.[return][return]One point that struck me on reading this (rather than on watching the TV original) was the similarity between the Robot and the Hangman in Roger Zelazny's Hugo/Nebula winning novella, "Home is the Hangman". The Who story came first, but I would be surprised to learn that Zelazny had had a chance to see it; both he and Dicks were, of course, drawing from many other sources going back at least as far as Mary Shelley.[return]

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good retelling of the fourth Doctor's first episode. Tom Baker is an enthusiastic reader and the story came to life. Great to have the extra insight into character feeling and thought which can easily be missed of misinterpreted in episodes when you're going on just a shared glance on-screen!

A giant robot is stealing classified items and with the Doctor still recovering from his latest regeneration it is at first up to Corporal Benton, Sarah Jane Smith, and the Brig to suss out what is going on.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to beat the infectious enthusiasm of Tom Baker reading the very first Doctor Who story to feature him (he is, after all, the REAL Doctor Who), and doing all the voices. A point docked only because Dicks (presumably deliberately) refused to use the TARDIS to solve the access to the bunker problem which would have made so much more sense, although it would have shortened the story somewhat...

[Jacob Licklider · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Target novelizations for Doctor Who really only became a continuous series in 1974 after the 1973 test reprints of Doctor Who and the Daleks, Doctor Who and the Zarbi, and Doctor Who and the Crusaders with two stories from Jon Pertwee’s first season as the Doctor, followed up by two stories from Season 8 and two from Season 9, the year ending with one novel from Patrick Troughton’s run as the Doctor. In December 1974, Tom Baker debuted as the Fourth Doctor with a story penned by Terrance Dicks who had already contributed three to the new novelization range, the story ending mid-January 1975. Terrance Dicks would have less than two months until the publishing of Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, his adaptation of his own scripts. These two months follow what Dicks would accomplish later in adapting Doctor Who and the Time Warrior, mainly adapting the story into something which doesn’t actually change much of the television script.

The biggest change is the description of the robot itself is described differently (partially due to not being restricted by the rather odd costume making the arms flop), Sarah Jane finds herself fainting more often here, and the opening sequence is from the perspective of the robot. By the perspective of the robot, Dicks describes it in a very clinical in its process as it kills the sentry and takes the plans for the disintegrator gun, something only done with a point of view shot. There’s also some more graphic descriptions which help make this book feel more than just something quick for children (indeed it would be adapted into another novelization aimed at even younger children). The Doctor’s regeneration is also recapped by the Brigadier, getting some perspective from him, though he is portrayed as the more bumbling version of the character like he was in the later television stories which is true enough to the original script. It’s telling as this was released nine months before Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders. There’s also an excellent additional scene at the end of Harry entering the TARDIS for the first time, getting something that never occurred on television (indeed Harry never had any scenes in the TARDIS console room).

Overall, Doctor Who and the Giant Robot may not do much to expand upon the original story, it follows the television script almost to the letter, including some of Tom Baker’s ad libs, but it does manage to make the story more gripping and through the addition of a couple of scenes feel like a real step up from what was essentially an average televised story. 7/10.

[Jason Bleckly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to start with a read of the Junior edition just to see what it was like. It’s a surprisingly good read for its brevity. A lot of the conversations are abbreviated and some of dialogue has been tweaked to use simpler words. Some scenes have been reduced to single retrospective sentences. For instance the bit where Sarah goes to SRS people for information and has quite a long conversation. That’s reduced to Sarsh returned from the SRS meeting with brochures. Bang, done. The interior art is also very good. It’s a shame they only did 2 Junior books.

Terrance’s full novelisation is excellent. You can see where he cut and pasted to the Junior version. There are some scenes which are verbatim in both books. For example, the scene where the Doctor stops the computer form ending the world. The countdown and the Doctors actions are word perfect duplicates in both books.

As for the rest of the novelisation, it’s up to Terrance’s usual high standard. It’s on Target. 😊 I didn’t notice any scenes from the broadcast version missing. The characterisation of all the main people is a good match to how they’re portrayed in the TV version. There’s the addition of internalised motivations for the characters actions, which doesn’t always come across in the TV version. One thing I did notice and was distracted by was POV shifts without either chapter or scene breaks. That made reading a little confusing at times.

Overall though, another classic novelisation by an author who truly understands Doctor Who.

[Gareth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere between a 3 and a 4 for me. The first story for the Fourth Doctor, and does a good job I think of separating him from the Third incarnation, helped by basically having another UNIT story (one of the last :( ) similar to the Third's run, but allowing for the Doctor to come across quite differently, much like the Second and Third Doctor differed quite a bit in their respective UNIT adventures.
Sarah and the Fourth Doctor start to gel almost immediately, and the Doctor still shows fondness for UNIT, though less of a feeling of duty towards helping them than the Third did - after finally gaining his freedom again, the Third Doctor still looked to want to base himself with UNIT as such, whereas the Fourth couldn't wait to get away :)
We also get to meet Harry, a fun character here, somewhat old fashioned, but also I think fancies himself a James Bond type person, without necessarily having the skills to match, which makes for fun escapades with him as well.
The story itself wasn't the strongest, though did have one or two interesting twists in it, but really didn't feel that much of a threat in some respects, outside of what felt somewhat forced.
But a good introduction nonetheless for the Fourth Doctor, and still a good read.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Fourth Doctor's first story, Robot, novelised as Doctor Who and the Giant Robot by Terrance Dicks, shows, I think, just how much Tom Baker brought to the role and Robert Holmes brought to the scripts in editing. Dicks, likely working from his own script, is lacking a LOT of the wit exhibited not just by the Doctor, but by other characters as well, especially in the front half. Where are all my favorite jokes and lines? Only a few show up. What Dicks is much better at is the nuts and bolts of plotting, and he fixes a lot of plot holes and generally makes scenes work better within the larger tapestry here than they did on screen. There's more urgency, the action scenes are more involved, and the restructuring of some scenes makes the revelations hit more strongly. But the dialog just doesn't crackle the way it did on TV, and you sometimes get the sense Dicks is still writing for the Third Doctor.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novelization of the first Doctor Who story starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. A group of scientists use a powerful robot to steal stuff they need to gain control of nuclear codes and blackmail the world into putting them in command.

But to do so, they have to monkey with the robot's original programming so that it's willing to kill human beings. This, in turn, begins to drive the robot bonkers. So aside from the fanatics who are willing to nuke the world if they don't get their way, the Doctor and UNIT also have to deal with an indestructable robot who eventually decides humanity doesn't doesn't deserve to live.

It's a good, solid Doctor Who story, though the Tom Baker era won't really take off until the next story, when he resumes travelling in the TARDIS and is thrown into a series of superb adventures before eventually returning to present day Earth.

[Jamieson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Target Novelization of Tom Baker's first story. It's a faithful retelling and that's about it. It doesn't really add anything and tells the story as seen on TV. As "Robot" isn't a favorite of mine (it's not bad, just not a favorite), the book was kinda lackluster for me. It's still, like all the Target novels I've read thus far, a quick read (when I found the time) and if you really like "Robot", you'll probably enjoy this book.

[Richard Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A not so well regarded story on TV but I reckon the book is solid stuff. The first of the Fourth Doctor’s adventures is quite Pertwee-like in tone and story. There’s lots of UNIT and some larger moral questions and none of the more gothic-ish horror that came to dominate Baker’s first few seasons.

Sarah Jane is on fine form, and Terrance Dicks always keeps the pace booting along.

[Dodau · Rating 3 out of 5]

again a target book, so not much to it. I have to admit to not liking Tom Bakers Doctor much and liking Sarah Jane Smith even less so not one of my favourite adventures. Typical 70's twaddle I'm affraid.

[C.S. Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the greatest literary work ever, but it is an enjoyable rendition of Tom Baker's first outing as the Doctor. The writing captures his character very well and the book does give some nice background on the villains of the piece.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A crisp, efficient, solid re-telling of Tom Baker's first story as the 4th Doctor, novelized by (1) a master and (2) the man who actually wrote the script. Barring a few exceptions, Terrance Dicks is always great at adapting his own material...the enthusiasm is always evident.

[Jeff Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Baker reads the audiobook beautifully. It's a great story, and without the limitations of seventies BBC budgets, the set pieces gleam, the explosions astound, and the terror rises with every page. Brilliant stuff again, Uncle Terrance!

[Ian Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robot is a rather delightful mash-up of Frankenstein and King Kong. It has the flavour of the UNIT era but with a new Doctor who is itching to get out and explore the universe. There’s also some rogue scientists (again!) and some rubbish science; pretty much everything we love about Doctor Who.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing too special, but I appreciated getting a bit more of Harry, a bit more mobility for the robot. Dicks' reading of environmental reform requiring a world dictatorship is uncomfortably defeatist, though.

[Malia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this was once a radio drama. While I like Dr. Who books.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another brilliant Fourth Doctor story! Incidentally his first outing as the Doctor.

[Dan Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Doctor Who. My favorite episodes are just as much fun on the page as they are on the screen.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This and other Terrance Dicks books reviewed here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.com...