The King's Demons Part Two

The one where the TARDIS gains a new crewmember...

The title of this story unusually refers to the Doctor and his companions, rather than any particular threat or destination. King John refers to the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough as his "demons", which got me wondering how many other story titles are simply alternative ways of describing the regulars. It all begins, of course, with An Unearthly Child (Susan) and The Firemaker (the Doctor), but there's also The Myth Makers (the Doctor, Vicki and Steven), and at a stretch, The Face of Evil (the Doctor). More recently we've had stories such as The Runaway Bride (Donna), The Lodger (the Doctor) and The Magician's Apprentice/ The Witch's Familiar (Clara), among others, but The King's Demons is a particularly potent example.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, the Master's revealed himself, and Tegan reveals herself to be a dab hand at knife-throwing, although the renegade Time Lord also has a trick up his sleeve when he manages to catch the knife in flight without even looking. There's a lot wrong with this sequence, particularly for younger viewers, as it shows a companion casually hurling a knife at someone's head, and also suggests it's easy to catch a knife safely. It's the sort of thing that might have been edited out in the Hinchcliffe era (I'm thinking back to a drowning Doctor and a knife-throwing Leela).

After a pedestrian but solid enough opening episode, part 2 just collapses into a heap of nothingness, not unlike the Master's last appearance in Time-Flight. His plan is to discredit King John so that the barons of Britain turn against him and end up killing him. This in turn will prevent the signing of Magna Carta, and the "foundation of parliamentary democracy will never be laid", thus causing havoc and chaos, over which the Master wishes to rule as emperor. So far, so fruitcake.

The moment where the Doctor hears King John singing, and ventures into his chamber to investigate, is very well done, because the last thing you expect to see sitting there strumming a lute is a silver robot ("Welcome, my demon!"). This is Kamelion, a shape-changing android left on Xeriphas by a race of unnamed invaders who used him as a tool and decoy. The Master took advantage of Kamelion's abilities to escape "that benighted planet", and is now using the robot to pose as King John so that he may be discredited.

It's a shame Kamelion appears so late in the story, a little over 10 minutes from the end. I know they had problems getting it to work properly on set, but it's such a dazzling contrast to the medieval setting that the story would benefit from more Kamelion. Naturally, spin-off fiction has filled in the gaps left by the TV story, with a Big Finish audio claiming Kamelion was created by the Kamille of Mekalion, and a BBC novel claiming he was a weapon of war manufactured by the Gelsandorans.

Cue lots of threats and loaded conversation between the Master and the Doctor where each vows to stop the other, but never says how. It's all talk and very little do, like kids playing a game of Doctor Who in the playground: "Ha ha, I am the Master and I'm going to destroy you!" - "Oh no you're not, I am the Doctor and I'll stop you!" When it boils down to it, what does it all mean? The Doctor even admits he hasn't got a plan. "How do you propose to stop me?" enquires the Master. "I shall have to give it some thought," replies our hero. It's a nice little face-off between Davison and Ainley, but it's all mouth and no trousers.

Ainley is quite impressive in this episode. In most of his interactions with other characters, he's refreshingly understated, approaching the subtlety of Roger Delgado (eg, when he has Isabella and Hugh released from the dungeon, or when he talks with Ranulf and his family in the hall). He still has moments where the purple prose he's given to say overwhelms any attempt at subtlety, such as "Come, my toy. Perform!" and the atrocious "Medieval misfits!" (worthy of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon).

When it comes down to it, the Master's plan - "small-time villainy, even by his standards" - just isn't up to scratch. His main weapon is a shape-shifting android which can be controlled psychokinetically, and that means by anyone with a strong enough will, ie the Doctor. All the Doctor needs to do is overpower the Master's psychokinetic hold on Kamelion, and bundle him into the TARDIS safely out of the way. Job done. Add the fact that he's left the Master's own Tissue Compression Eliminator switched on in his TARDIS, presumably putting the kibosh on his dimensional circuits, and the Master's vanquished all too easily.

In a particularly poor storytelling choice, we don't actually see the Master defeated. We're told he'll lose control of his TARDIS, but we're not shown this. All we see is the Master escaping in his iron maiden. There's no resolution, no satisfying denouement, no bidding farewell to Ranulf and his presumably grateful family. The story ends with an overlong scene in which the Doctor introduces Kamelion to Tegan as her latest travelling companion, whether she likes it or not. In the event, she likes it not, so the Doctor bluffs her by insisting he take her back home to Earth so she can stop moaning. It's amusing that Tegan prefers to stay and see the apparently beautiful Eye of Orion, rather than go back to boring old 1980.

The Kamelion prop isn't all that bad. There's plenty of stories from the time about how awkward and frustrating it was to work with, and how it couldn't possibly have worked as an ongoing companion week to week. But the design is rather beautiful, sleek and futuristic in a way only the early 1980s could pull off. On screen, it moves adequately, if rather stiffly, and while its physical limitations are obvious, it presents oodles of potential in storytelling. It's puzzling how the production team envisaged working Kamelion into the series on a weekly basis, and it is difficult to imagine him in the stories of Season 21 (bar that cut scene from The Awakening), but I've always thought of Kamelion as a missed opportunity rather than a flawed mistake.

A few other points:

• Ainley really milks the "death" of the Master when he's sealed into the iron maiden, it sounds truly blood-curdling (love the Doctor and Tegan wincing at his screams).
• Jonathan Gibb's music is nicely sympathetic to the period (I'm grateful Roger Limb didn't get this one), and Peter Howell's lute score is a bit of an earworm.
• The entire sequence with Tegan in the TARDIS is blatant padding, but neither do I understand the reasoning behind it. The Doctor tells her to get into the TARDIS and that "the coordinates will be set", but set for where, and by who, and when? When she's dematerialised, Tegan seems to be at a loss as to what's going on or what to do, and then suddenly manages to materialise the TARDIS exactly where the Doctor needs it to be. It doesn't make sense!
• The Doctor refers to superstitions put about by monks, which refers to the monks of Canterbury, who were in dispute with John over who should become Archbishop. They set about portraying John as a monster, which is where the idea of "Bad King John" comes from.
• The Master refers to the Doctor's TARDIS as "dreary", LOL! He also utters the immortal line: "You're getting old, Doctor, your will is weak", which I can't help but mishear as "your willy's weak"!
• Love Mark Strickson seizing his only moment in the entire story when he brandishes a sword at the Master, backing into the TARDIS saying: "I've had quite enough of you, whoever you are!"

The King's Demons is a frivolous, lightweight, throwaway story that ends Doctor Who's 20th season with a muffled whimper rather than the Dalek-drenched finale originally planned (thanks for that, BBC electricians). It looks lovely, and is directed and designed well, but the actual story is unforgivably weak, making this one of the most forgettable and pointless entries in the entire canon.

In the eight months between Season 20 ending and the fanwank spectacular The Five Doctors, Doctor Who's slot on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings was taken up by the likes of The Pink Panther, doomed soap opera Triangle, and Russell Harty's chat show. Overall, Season 20 wasn't Doctor Who at its best, or its most innovative, or its most gripping, but when it returned in January 1984, it would up the ante considerably, with more monsters, more overseas filming, sad departures, unexpected arrivals, and... a new Doctor!

First broadcast: March 16th, 1983

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: I'm rather fond of the Kamelion prop.
The Bad: Terence Dudley's already shaky script structure collapses into a soggy mush.
Overall score for episode: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (story average: 4 out of 10)

NEXT TIME: The Five Doctors...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site.

The King's Demons is available as part of the Kamelion Tales BBC DVD box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Kamelion-Demons-Planet/dp/B002SZQC6Q