Resurrection of the Daleks - season 21 - 1984

“Up on the second floor two ‘stunt’ Daleks are awaiting their
cue. Unlike their brethren, these Daleks are not made from wood
and fibre-glass — they are elaborate constructions of expanded
polyurethane foam, cast from the same moulds as the live
Daleks. They are much lighter in weight and hollow inside. Into
each of these hollows has been packed a quantity of explosive
material. A tiny, thin wire emerging from the base will, on cue,
detonate these charges. This is why the casings are of foam —
though the charge is estimated not to be too powerful, it will
explode. There must be no danger of flying material likely to
cause harm, especially since Peter Davison and Janet Fielding
will be involved in this scene, with literally a bird’s eye view of
the event.

Carefully, the Visual Effects Designer, Peter Wragg, checks
the length of wire that will detonate the explosives; it is long
enough to reach almost to the ground from the loading bay door.
At the end of the wire is a pin connected to the charges inside the
Dalek. When the wire goes taut it will pull the pin out, allowing
two sprung connectors to come together. And when that hap-
pens, Bang!!!”

- Jeremy Bentham writing in Doctor Who In Vision #73 (Oct 1997)

“You feed on living minds…”

Enlightenment - season 20 - 1983

“I’s not pleased.”

The Awakening - season 21 - 1984

“Why have we come in here?”

Warriors of the Deep - season 21 - 1984

im the robot

Again, this is even funnier if you know what a fucking production nightmare, with a possible curse attached to it no less, this robot prop was for the Doctor Who crew…

I want to know about the cursed robot

So the robot isn’t a guy in a suit, it’s an animatronic/puppet thing, and it wasn’t built for the show. In fact, no one knows who built it, one of the producers just FOUND IT ONE DAY in a building near the studio. It had apparently been built for another production that was cancelled and then just left to gather dust. So they thought “oh cool, let’s make this dumb robot the Doctor’s new companion, it’ll look neat and weird, everyone will have a gas with it.” NOPE.

Kamelion was incredibly complicated to operate, so they assigned a guy named Mike Powers to figure out the best way to go about it. Apparently he did a great job streamlining Kamelion’s operation, and then he promptly died in a boating accident (which is where the “curse” idea comes from.) He didn’t leave any notes or instructions, and the show was already behind schedule, so they had to rush Kamelion’s scenes into production with no idea how it worked. It was a gigantic pain in the ass to use, took forever to set up, and needed constant upkeep and repairs. Everyone hated working with the prop, to the point that before Kamelion’s first episode even aired, they had already decided to kill him off later in the same season.

Peter Davison, who played the Fifth Doctor, had the most scenes with Kamelion, and absolutely hated it. When Kamelion dies, the Doctor is really sad, but Davison said later that it was one of the best acting jobs of his career, because in reality, he was absolutely giddy with joy at being rid of the thing.

tl,dr: In the 80′s a Mystery robot prop built by unknown hands caused chaos on the Doctor Who set.

finding an abandoned mystery robot and bringing it home, leading to death, is the most doctor who plot ive ever heard

“You won’t like Earth.”

Tegan, getting gobby with the Cyberleader.

Earthshock - season 19 - 1982

“You’ll be alright.”

The Visitation - season 19 - 1982