The TARDIS materializes in England in 1215, right before the eyes of an astonished crowd who were watching a joust (an unusual move for the TARDIS, which normally manages to arrive out of sight, though friendly guest characters are often around to wave goodbye when it departs). Everyone is terrified the time travelers are demons— including King John, who mysteriously seems delighted by the fact and welcomes them as such.
Also present is the King’s champion, the French knight Sir Giles Estram, who even apart from his anagram surname is very clearly the Master (the Doctor doesn’t even pretend to be surprised when he drops the disguise at the episode 1 cliffhanger). It turns out that “King John” is actually an imposter, a shape-shifting robot called Kamelion under the Master’s control. The Master is using him to discredit King John and prevent the signing of the Magna Carta, thereby preventing the invention of parliamentary democracy on Earth and so undermining what will one day be one the Galaxy’s dominant civilizations (the Earth has been the center of several Galactic Empires in the Dr Who universe). The resulting chaos in the Galaxy of the future will allow the Master to seize power.
At only 2 episodes, the story is rather simple. The short length has both pros and cons; the story doesn’t have time to drag or get bogged down in needless padding, but on the other hand it doesn’t have time to built to much of a climax: by the time the Master’s plot is revealed, its time for it to end, and the Doctor thwarts his enemy simply by stealing Kamelion and making his escape, having sabotaged the Master’s TARDIS so that when he tries to move it he’ll “end up anywhere except where he’s trying to go.” (“Rather like the TARDIS,” Tegan observes.)
Like any time Dr Who does a period piece, the story looks good, with lush costumes and sets. The guest actors put in good performances as well, especially Gerald Flood who plays “bad King John” (actually Kamelion in disguise) with a happy over-the-top villainy that’s a match for Athony Ainley’s mustache-twirling version of the Master. It’s undermined by the very disappointing scenes of Kamelion in robot form (see below) but it’s entertaining for its short 2-part length.
The King’s Demons can probably be seen as a pointer toward the 45-minute standalone episodes of the modern series. The last 2-parter, Black Orchid, basically gave the Doctor and crew a short vacation in a fun roaring-twenties party before tacking a little adventure onto the end of it. This time, the story is a real Dr Who adventure, just one that wraps up unusually fast. Watching it now, in many ways it feels more like a new series single episode story. That’s neither a good nor bad thing in itself, just interesting to notice.
Details
- At the end of the previous story, Turlough (freed from the Black Guardian) asks the Doctor to return him to his home planet. When the TARDIS lands in medieval England instead, the Doctor is puzzled and speaks as if something other than the unusual navigational errors has ocurred. However, the story never follows up on this. As we get more evidence of something mysterious happening, it’s easy to just file this away with the rest of the clues, but when the Master is finally revealed it’s clear he did not bring the TARDIS there. He thought fast in order to take advantage of the Doctor’s arrival by making it seem King John is aligned with black magic, but he didn’t plan on it. So what was it that worried the Doctor about the TARDIS’ detour?
- The story plays some games with history. Tegan at one point mentions how King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta by rebellious barons. The Doctor contradicts her and says John was actually the one in favor of the Magna Carta. Meanwhile the imposter king is acting exactly like later reputation will describe King John— as if the Master is upholding history rather than changing it. The DVD for this story includes a short documentary interviewing actual historians on the subject, who pretty much agree that Tegan’s the one who’s got it right: the rebels forced John to sign the Magna Carta. Now, it’s perfectly okay for the Doctor to say “Earth’s historians have it all wrong” (given who he is, the Doctor should be able to say that from time to time) but the irony is that the Master is changing history by making things play out the way later historians will believe they really did happen.
- Okay, let’s talk about Kamelion, who at the end of the story comes aboard the TARDIS with every appearance of being a new companion. The Kamelion robot was the invention of a couple of guys (one of whom engineered the hardware, the other who did the software) who sent brochures around promoting their new fully computer-controlled, programmable robot. It was supposed to be able to move, talk and even walk around in a human-like fashion. The Dr Who production office was thrilled, seeing the publicity possibilities of saying the series would feature a new companion that was an actual robot— not a special effect, not a man in a costume, not even a remote-controlled machine but an actual computer-controlled robot.
When the robot arrived, it failed to live up to its promises. Not only could it not walk (the designers were thinking that someday they might be able to make that happen, but not yet), it couldn’t even stand up. When appearing in robot form, it had to either be seated or be leaned against a wall. Although it was true it could move its arms and head, the movements were about as fluid and natural as a department store window Christmas display— and they had to be programmed well in advance (including its dialog, recorded by an actor on a tape cassette ahead of time).
Kamelion’s wooden movements are a painful contrast to the flamboyant acting of Gerald Flood playing the robot in King John form, and the actors around it have to alternately hurry through their lines, or else stop and wait for Kamelion to react, owing to the programmers’ having to guess ahead of time how many seconds to allow between Kamelion’s lines.
By the time they were done shooting The King’s Demons, it was obvious to everyone except the ever-enthusiastic John Nathan-Turner that Kamelion was a disaster. Peter Davison and Eric Saward suggested to JN-T they rewrite the ending so as to leave Kamelion behind, but the robot companion had already been written into the script of an upcoming story, The Awakening, and JN-T was determined to make it work.
Before reaching the air, The Awakening had to be cut from 4 episodes to 2 as a result of schedule changes and every scene & subplot with Kamelion ended up on the cutting room floor. Meanwhile, the software writer of the robot’s design team died in a boating accident leaving no one who knew how to program it. The final result is that after coming on board the TARDIS, Kamelion was not even mentioned again, let alone seen, until the story where they got rid of him. - At the end of the story, the Doctor promises to take Tegan to see the Eye of Orion, which Turlough agrees is one of the most remarkable places in the galaxy. That’ll lead us into the next story.
Reviewing Season 20:
Dr Who’s historic 20th season began with the promise that it would feature the return of an old adversary in every story. Coming to the end of it, it sadly failed to live up to the pre-season hype. It started off well, with the return of Omega, the villain from the season 10 episode The Three Doctors. Then a script fell through (I don’t know what was in it) and had to be replaced by Snakedance, which technically qualified since the Mara was a returning villain— but only returning from the immediate previous season, so not exactly a blast from the past.
Things looked up again with Mawdryn Undead and the return of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart along with the menace of the Black Guardian, last seen in the Key to Time season. But the next two stories of the Black Guardian trilogy had no old adversaries returning except the Black Guardian again. Finally, we have The King’s Demons. The Master should definitely have a story in this season, even though he’s also a “new” version, but the short 2-parter leaves him without much chance to build a really dangerous scheme. With this story ending the season, the overall arc of season 20 is a real let-down.
Besides hoped-for scripts not working out, a major chunk of the blame lies in the labor disputes that cut the season short. For a while it looked like the last three stories of the season would have to be shelved due to strikes, leaving season 20 to end with Terminus, but Enlightenment and The King’s Demons eventually got the go-ahead for production. But the season was cut short by 4 episodes, and the intended season finale, a Dalek story called Warhead, had to be shelved. It’s really the loss of Warhead that ruins the overall impression of season 20. A finale featuring the return of Dr Who’s most iconic villains would have made up for the mid-season letdown— on the other hand, the Daleks’ absence from a season supposed to be all about the series’ history would have brought it down even if the whole season had been one blast from the past after another.
Warhead did not suffer the never-made fate of Shada, however: it was produced, and aired under the title Resurrection of the Daleks, during season 21 (along with at least one other script that should have been in season 20, but more on that when we get to it).
Meanwhile, as hype over the actual 20th anniversary of Dr Who’s premiere started to build following the end of the 20th season, the series was about to make up for season 20’s letdown in a big way.
Next Week:
“The Five Doctors,” 1 90-minute special episode.
