Doctor Who review: The Robots: Love Me Not explores love and grief
By James Aggas
A man copes with the loss of his wife in an unhealthy way in Love Me Not, the last episode from Doctor Who spin-off box set The Robots: Volume One.
The third and final episode of The Robots: Volume One is a rather emotional story by John Dorney. From the original Doctor Who classic The Robots of Death to the previous episode The Sentient, we’ve had many stories about the dangers of technology involving the Voc Robots. But so far, these have mainly been dangers to society, or at least, an immediate physical danger when they’re used as literal killing machines.
Love Me Not also explores the dangers of technology, but in a very different way. This episode looks at the more psychological dangers of relying on technology. The brilliant robotics scientist Volar Crick has just lost his wife in an accident. To cope with his grief, he seeks help from one of his robots. But is it helping a little too much?
Anthony Howell is perfectly cast as Crick. He’s appeared in a number of Big Finish Productions, most notably The Avengers audios, (based on the Sixties spy series, not the comics,) and can always be relied on to give a good, solid performance. In Love Me Not, he presents a man’s grief perfectly – dignified, but also vulnerable. As a result, he makes Crick’s gradually declining mental health believable, aided by a fantastic script from John Dorney.
Ken Bentley directs Claire Rushbrook, Nicola Walker, Annabelle Dowler, Anthony Howell and Tracy Wiles for the last episode of The Robots: Volume 1, Love Me Not.
Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions
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Adding layers
From the very beginning, it’s easy to guess exactly what direction Love Me Not is heading in. That’s not a criticism, in fact, knowing where the story is heading helps to add suspense to it.
However, that doesn’t stop the episode from being genuinely surprising. There are one or two little twists that Dorney adds to the story. Sometimes, adding in too much can be risky, especially when your story is just an hour long. But the little twists that Dorney included helped to add even more layers to the story. Along with exploring grief, there’s an interesting layer of exploring the difference between what we want a relationship to be and what it actually is.
Love Me Not is a pretty satisfying conclusion to a strong trio of episodes. It follows the themes and feel of the previous two episodes very nicely, but at the same time, it also stands out as a story that explores emotional, philosophical and psychological themes. With episodes like this, plus The Robots of Life and The Sentient, The Robots is shaping up to be a very strong Doctor Who spin-off, and I can’t wait for the release of volume 2 next year.
dark. Next. Review: Terror of the Vervoids: Special Edition
Have you listened to The Robots? If so, which story was your favorite? Are you looking forward to the next volume? Let us know in the comments below.