The King's Demons

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129 - The King's Demons
Doctor Peter Davison (Fifth Doctor)
Writer Terence Dudley
Director Tony Virgo
Script editor Eric Saward
Producer John Nathan-Turner
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 6H
Series Season 20
Length 2 episodes, 25 mins each
Transmission date March 15–March 16, 1983
Preceded by Enlightenment
Followed by The Five Doctors

The King's Demons is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was originally broadcast in two parts on March 15 and March 16, 1983. This serial introduced Kamelion, voiced by Gerald Flood, as a companion.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The Fifth Doctor, Tegan Jovanka and Vislor Turlough become involved with intrigue at the Court of King John.

[edit] Plot

The Fifth Doctor and Kamelion
The Fifth Doctor and Kamelion
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In March 1215, the Court of King John of England is at the castle of Sir Ranulf Fitzwilliam to extort more taxes, and when the lord refuses to pay the King insults him. To defend his honour his son Hugh takes on the King’s champion, Sir Gilles Estram, in a joust. The latter wins easily, though the joust is disturbed by the arrival of the TARDIS. The Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough are greeted as demons and welcomed by the King.

Having established the date, the Doctor concludes the King is not himself - in fact, he is not the King at all, as he is actually in London taking the Crusader’s Oath. Sir Geoffrey de Lacy, the cousin of Sir Ranulf, arrives at the castle and confirms he knows the King is in London. Sir Gilles is about to torture him as a liar during a royal banquet when the Doctor intervenes. It seems the King's champion is not who he claims to be, either: Sir Gilles sheds his disguise and reveals himself to be the Doctor’s arch nemesis, the Master. He flees in his own TARDIS, which had been disguised as an iron maiden.

The King knights the Doctor as his new champion, and he is given run of the castle. After a series of mishaps, including the death of Sir Geoffrey at the Master’s hands, the Doctor confronts the King and the Master and discovers the truth. The monarch is really Kamelion, a war weapon found by the Master on Xeriphas, which can be mentally controlled and used to adopt disguises and personas. Disguised as King John, the Master intends that Kamelion will behave so appallingly so as to provoke a rebellion and topple the real King from his throne, thus robbing the world of Magna Carta, the foundation of parliamentary democracy. It is a small plan on the Master’s usual scale, but nevertheless particularly poisonous to the normal progress of Earth society. The Doctor resolves the situation by testing the Master in a battle of wills for control over Kamelion. He takes control of the robot and steals it away in the TARDIS, thus foiling the Master’s scheme. Kamelion reverts to its robot form and thanks the Doctor for his assistance and rescue.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Continuity

  • Every story during Season 20 had the Doctor face an enemy from each of his past incarnations. The old enemy for this story was the Master, who faced the third, fourth and fifth incarnations of the Doctor. This story reveals how the Master escaped the events of his last story Time-Flight (1982).
  • This story marked the first appearance of Kamelion as voiced by Gerald Flood. Freelance effects designer Richard Gregory and software designer Mike Power gave a demonstration of the robot prototype for Nathan-Turner and Saward. Nathan-Turner was so impressed he commissioned scriptwriter Terence Dudley to develop a storyline to introduce Kamelion into the series. However, shortly after filming, Powers died in a boating accident and no one was able to continue his work. Subsequently, this would be the first of Kamelion's two appearances before the machine was written out of the series.
  • In the story, the Master disguises himself as Sir Gilles Estram. Estram is an anagram of "Master". The Master adopted numerous pseudonyms in the course of the series, usually to be plays on the word "Master". Other examples include "Colonel Masters", The Rev. Mr. Magister," and "Professor Thasceles", as well as the unfortunate Tremas, whose body the Master stole. In order to hide the Master's involvement in the story, the first episode and Radio Times listed Estram as being played by "James Stoker", an anagram of "Master's Joke".
  • This story marks the last appearance of the TARDIS console room set which had been in use since The Invisible Enemy. A new console room would debut in the next story The Five Doctors, although the console itself would make another appearance as the Second Doctor's console in The Two Doctors.

[edit] Production

  • The working titles for this story were The Android, The Demons, A Knight's Tale and Demons Keeper.
  • Producer John Nathan-Turner originally wanted the Master to appear in two stories every season. However, due to production problems, he was forced to settle for one Master story per season.
  • Part One of this story was billed by the BBC as the six hundredth episode of Doctor Who.

[edit] Outside references

The Master's TARDIS is disguised as an iron maiden. The earliest iron maiden known to historians is the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg, which was built in 1515, 300 years after the setting of this story. Viewers may decide for themselves whether to attribute the anachronism to the chameleon circuit of the Master's TARDIS or the production team.

[edit] In print

The Target novelisation by Terence Dudley
The Target novelisation by Terence Dudley

A novelisation of this serial, written by Terence Dudley, was published by Target Books in February, 1986.

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews

[edit] Target novelisation

 v • d • e The Master television stories
Third Doctor: Terror of the Autons • The Mind of Evil • The Claws of Axos • Colony in Space • The Dæmons • The Sea Devils • The Time Monster • Frontier in Space
Fourth Doctor: The Deadly Assassin • The Keeper of Traken • Logopolis
Fifth Doctor: Castrovalva • Time-Flight • The King's Demons • The Five Doctors • Planet of Fire
Sixth Doctor: The Mark of the Rani • The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe
Seventh Doctor: Survival
Eighth Doctor: Doctor Who
Minor appearances: The Caves of Androzani
See also: The Curse of Fatal Death
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