One of the most formidable adversaries faced by U.N.I.T in Doctor Who was the giant K-1 Robot. The newly regenerated Fourth Doctor, Harry and U.N.I.T had to work together to defeat a huge K-1 Robot, which had kidnapped Sarah-Jane. However, the robot had been programmed with feelings by an evil scientific think tank headed by Miss Winters. Sarah-Jane empathised with the robot in a manner similar to King Kong.

Robot

★★★★☆

TX: 28/12/1974 – 18/01/1975

Written by Terrance Dicks    Directed by Christopher Barry

The newly regenerated Fourth Doctor wakes up at U.N.I.T HQ and is immediately placed in the care of Dr Harry Sullivan. But the new Doctor has little time to relax because some top secret military plans for a disintegrator gun have been stolen. Journalist Sarah Jane Smith infiltrates the scientific establishment of Miss Winters and finds that a giant K-1 Robot has been reprogrammed for evil purposes. Miss Winters is a fascist and her scientific team known as Think Tank (who later appear in Lucky Day) are keen on world domination through the use of the K-1 Robot. However, the K-1 Robot has feelings and Sarah-Jane empathises with it, as a deliberate pastiche of King Kong. U.N.I.T battle with the K-1 Robot at the headquarters of a nuclear military bunker where Miss Winters and the other scientists are planning to take over the Earth. The K-1 Robot, sickened by humanity’s actions, decides to launch a nuclear strike against the rest of the world. The Brigadier uses the disintegrator gun, but unfortunately it backfires and causes the K-1 Robot to grow to a gigantic size. The Doctor and Harry work together to manufacture a metal eating virus in the U.N.I.T laboratory. The Doctor and Harry drive up to the robot in Bessie and throw a bucketful of the virus onto the K-1 Robot which destroys it. The Doctor offers Sarah-Jane and Harry the chance to travel in the TARDIS with him. They accept and the TARDIS dematerialises inside U.N.I.T HQ. “There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.” Sadly, I never met Ian Marter who played Harry Sullivan as he died long before I was born because he was diabetic and he unfortunately missed one insulin dose!