Robot (Doctor Who) - Production

Production

The initial script was written before Tom Baker had been cast as the Fourth Doctor, and there was some discussion of returning to an older actor. This would have required a younger character to handle the action scenes, so the character of Harry Sullivan was created. This was Sullivan's debut story, but he had been mentioned in the final episode of the preceding story, when the Brigadier telephoned him, requesting medical help for the Doctor.

This was the first Doctor Who serial to have its location material shot entirely on OB videotape, as opposed to the more usual BBC television drama practice of the time of shooting studio interiors on videotape and location exteriors on film. This was due to the large number of video effects involving the eponymous robot required in exterior scenes (shot at the then BBC Engineering Training Department at Wood Norton, Worcestershire), which were easier and more convincing to marry to videotape than to film. The team had learned that lesson during the previous season's Invasion of the Dinosaurs. The Wood Norton facility was chosen for location shooting because it had an underground bunker, which director Christopher Barry felt would be suitable for the entrance to the underground complex in the story; however, they were refused permission to shoot in that area.