The King's Demons

Dear Gary—

Am I missing something? I had described Enlightenment as half of a good story, but at least it had another half to go with it. The King’s Demons is just half a story. I even checked my copy to make sure I didn’t have another abridged version like I had found with The Brain ofMorbius, but no, that’s all there is.

“Do our demons come to visit us? Bid them attend us,” King John greets the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough as they first emerge from the TARDIS in 1215 England.

“A king welcoming demons,” the Doctor muses to himself. It’s all a very promising start. Even Tegan comments, “Makes a nice change for you not to take everything in your stride, I must say.” (“Must you?”) Too bad it doesn’t live up to its full potential.

There have been two part episodes before, but they were always a complete story. The King’s Demons, on the other hand, is almost just an excuse to introduce the character of Kamelion. Needing a reason to bring him on board, they simply dressed up some good actors in some splendid period costumes and set them at it on a wonderful set. The result is a jolly good story, but then Kamelion is revealed and I guess they decided, ‘that’s a wrap,’ and they shut down production even though I think Ranulf, Isabella, and Hugh were anxious to keep going.

Hugh especially seems eager to keep up the fun. “You’re always threatening me,” a wonderfully exasperated Turlough says to the overzealous Hugh, “and without the slightest justification.” I suspect Hugh is trying to make up for his defeat in the joust early on in our story. He doesn’t much care who he fights, he’s just aching for a scrap, and Turlough always seems to be on hand.

Wouldn’t that be great—if Hugh was the new companion instead of Kamelion? Hugh and Turlough would have all of time and space to spar in. Or the two could eventually ally and team up against Tegan. Those would have made for some fantastic TARDIS moments. The contentious Tegan, the devious Turlough, and the excitable Hugh.

Actually, Tegan isn’t so much combative in the King’s Demons as she is weary. She continues to voice resistance, but it is a resigned, half-hearted effort. Complaining bitterly about the cold, more to herself than anyone, she just shrugs deeper into the various coats and rugs she is handed. Or when John assumes her to be the Doctor’s squire, she pauses momentarily before deciding it’s not worth the protest and meekly trails along after the Doctor. And when the Doctor begins asking his inevitable questions regarding the suspicious king, Tegan unenthusiastically replies, “Do you seriously expect me to answer that?” Her heart just is not in this adventure, perhaps because she knows it is all just about filling screen time until Kamelion can be introduced.

Hugh, on the other hand, knowing his performance will be fleeting, fervently throws himself wholeheartedly into the proceedings. Meanwhile poor Turlough stops to check out the scenery through a window and is immediately carted off to the dungeon where he spends most of his time out of commission.

What we do get with The King’s Demons is some quality Master time. Although really Doctor, you can’t recognize the Master when you see him? Granted, he is in disguise, but he has repeatedly masqueraded during their acquaintanceship, you’d think the Doctor would have been better prepared, especially given the fact that the Master doesn’t go to any great lengths on this particular cover.

“You may disguise your features,” the Doctor states when the Master unmasks himself, “but you can never disguise your intent.” Perhaps the Doctor wasn’t fooled after all, or perhaps he’s just trying to save face for being so completely blind yet again.

Accommodating the perfunctory nature of this serial, the Master has scaled back his plans. “He wants to rob the world of Magna Carta,” the Doctor explains. “Small time villainy by his standards.” Indeed, it seems something more along the lines of the Meddling Monk, except the Monk was more benevolent and might have instead speeded along Magna Carta rather than impede it. But that is academic.

The Master, having escaped his entrapment on Xeriphas with the help of Kamelion, has come to 1215 England with the intent of blackening the name of King John. It’s rather murky to me how this will prevent Magna Carta. Wouldn’t it instead fuel the flames of the rebellion that pushed for the signing of this momentous document? But again it is all academic because the real intent of The King’s Demons is simply to get the Doctor and Kamelion together.

Kamelion, a C-3PO wannabe who doesn’t quite work, is in his own words “a complex mass of artificial neurons,” or to quote the Master, “a decoy, capable of infinite form or personality” that is controlled by “nothing more than simple concentration and psychokinetics.” Dominated by the Master, Kamelion has been giving a delightful performance as a deliciously diabolical King John.  I don’t really know why the Master isn’t worried about the Doctor attempting to wrest control away, because that is exactly what he does once Kamelion is revealed. And for some bizarre reason the Doctor transforms the chameleon Kamelion into the spitting image of Tegan (who has just arrived in the TARDIS—Tegan seems to have quite a lot of opportunities on her own to bang away haphazardly at the TARDIS console).

Grabbing the Tegan impersonator, the Doctor and Turlough duck into the TARDIS. Turlough, having been sidelined for the majority of the serial, takes the opportunity to grab a sword first to threaten the Master. “I’ve had quite enough of you, whoever you are, so don’t try me too far,” he says, expressing his pent up frustrations.

“I don’t believe it, can you see it too,” an incredulous Tegan asks as she confronts her double in the TARDIS.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Turlough responds. Oh great, I’ sure he’s thinking; just what we need, two Tegans.

But Kamelion quickly changes over to his true android form, and over Tegan’s objections he is welcomed on board as a new member of the crew.

“You can have my room for all I care,” a defeated Tegan tells Kamelion, which leads into an inexplicable sequence of a pouting Doctor informing Tegan that he is returning her to her own time and place despite her protestations that she doesn’t want to leave.

“It’s a shame, of course; there were many wonders I wanted to show you,” he tells her.

But, “No,” she insists; she does not want to go home. Instead: “Show me the Eye of Orion, please.”

The Doctor reveals that his little act of a hurt snit was all a sham and he had the coordinates set for the Eye of Orion all along.

This scene, coupled with his choice of Tegan as Kamelion’s form, leads me down all kinds of paths that I don’t really want to follow.

Turlough, in the meantime, is a bit miffed that the plan for taking him back to his own planet has been put on hold, and Kamelion, who up until now has been the whole point of The King’s Demons, is shunted aside with no say in the matter.

And Hugh, along with his mother and father Isabella and Ranulf, are left behind in a bewildered cloud, while the Master’s continuing threat to all of time and space is pooh poohed by the Doctor—he has done yet another brilliant maneuver to decommission the Master’s TARDIS using the Master’s own tissue compressor eliminator; never mind that the Master has overcome each and every obstacle the Doctor has ever put in his path.

“Medieval misfits,” the Master shouts after them as the TARDIS takes off, abruptly putting an end to our story. That might make a great title for the untold story of Hugh, Isabella, and Ranulf; it’s rather a lame curse for the Master, though.

I send this out, Gary, into the Doctor’s bewildering cloud, hoping that you are visiting a multitude of wonders along with our band of medieval misfits . . .