Grimwade’s Syndrome

40 years ago today you were advised to stay away from the TV if you suffered from Grimwade’s Syndrome.

Grimwade’s Syndrome, frequently called robophobia, was a psychological condition among humans who had frequent contact with androids and robots, commonly attributed to the androids moving like humans, but without any of the characteristic and subtle movements associated with humans.

In the mind of the afflicted, they appeared to be “surrounded by walking, talking dead men.” According to the Fourth Doctor, it caused “identity crisis, paranoia, sometimes even personality disintegration”.

The Doctor was meeting The Robots of Death

The name “Grimwade’s Syndrome” was an in-joke reference to then-production assistant Peter Grimwade (later to become a director and writer on the series), who had bemoaned the fact that the stories on which he was assigned to work almost always involved robots. This was ad-libbed by Tom Baker during recording from the originally scripted “Gimwol’s Syndrome”. However, the description of robophobia given by the Doctor in fact coincides with a real-life phenomenon called the Uncanny Valley.

I have always thought this “Murder on The Sandminer” episode was very good.

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