Doctor Who review: The Robots: The Mystery of Sector 13 begins to tie the series together
By James Aggas
The third volume of Doctor Who audio spin-off The Robots begins with The Mystery of Sector 13, an episode that gives us major hints about the spin-off’s bigger picture…
Earlier this month, the third volume of Doctor Who spin-off series The Robots was released. Set in the world of Kaldor, the story explores both the society and even some of the characters originally depicted in the classic Fourth Doctor serial The Robots of Death.
The spin-off has been envisioned as a limited run series right from the start – in fact, the whole series takes place during a “gap year” for the Eighth Doctor’s companion Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker), one that takes place at the end of the episode Escape from Kaldor. With just four box sets to tell this story, there’s not much room for filler.
So it’s not surprising that volume 3’s opening episode isn’t really an opening episode at all. The Mystery of Sector 13 is not only set almost immediately after Do No Harm from the second volume, but it ties into a great deal of the overall story so far. Not just for The Robots as a whole, but even further back – to its very roots in the Doctor Who universe…
This episode features several key threads from previous episodes in the series – and even beyond…
Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions
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The bigger picture
The Mystery of Sector 13 focuses on two distinct plotlines. The first is Liv investigating the Sons of Kaldor – an extremely mysterious and highly dangerous political group that’s slowly taking control of Kaldor City. Her investigation takes her to an abandoned warehouse. But what exactly will she find there?
The other half of the story focuses on Liv’s sister Tula (Claire Rushbrook). She starts to dig deeper into recent events, only to uncover evidence of a huge coverup. But who’s behind it? And why?
What’s extremely enjoyable about this episode is that we’re starting to see how the overall story of The Robots ties together as a whole. The earliest episodes of Volume 1 felt rather standalone, although there were certainly hints of a larger arc unfolding. Volume 2 pushed things forward in more significant ways – particularly how it reintroduced two major characters from The Robots of Death. But it’s with The Mystery of Sector 13 that we begin to understand how it all ties together.
On top of that, we get an episode that feels like a strange mix of haunted house mystery with conspiracy thriller. In a lot of series, that mix wouldn’t usually work, but Robert Whitelock (who also plays recurring character Skellen) gives us an extremely gripping story, one that uses strong elements from both genres while pushing the overall story of The Robots nicely. Overall, it’s another great episode of one of Big Finish’s most intriguing series right now.
Next. The Eighth Doctor remains stuck on Earth in Stranded 2. dark
Have you been following The Robots so far? Are you a fan of the original serial The Robots of Death? Do you enjoy arc-focused series? Let us know in the comments below.