Outside References
The murder plotline owes a great deal to Agatha Christie; notably Ten Little Indians and The Mousetrap. The treatment of robots in this serial has many intentional nods to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. The villain of the story is named Taren Capel, which is a reference to Karel Čapek, who is credited with first coining the word "robot". Uvanov's name is a reference to Isaac Asimov, while Poul is a reference to the science fiction writer Poul Anderson. The script several times refers to Robophobia (the irrational fear of robots) as 'Grimwade's Syndrome', an inside joke reference to Peter Grimwade, a production assistant who directed some of the filmed scenes in the episode. Grimwade had frequently lamented that he was always working on material involving robots.
Read more about this topic: The Robots Of Death