Written By Terrance Dudley
“You're
mistaken. With Kamelion's unique ability at my command, it's only a matter of
time before I undermine the key civilizations of the universe. Chaos will
reign, and I shall be its emperor.”
The
TARDIS materializes in the middle of a joust and is welcomed as demons by King
John. The year is 1215 and it is March
and The Doctor is wondering why King John is at the castle of Sir Ranulf
Fitzwilliam and not in London preparing to sign the Magna Carta. The
three travelers are made welcome and invited to dine with the king later
on.
Things
get weirder when Sir Geoffrey arrives from London after just taking the
crusaders oath with King John. Sir
Gilles insists that is not true as the King has been here all along. The Doctor has had enough of the accusations
that Sir Gilles has been slinging and ends up accepting Sir Gilles challenge to
a duel. The two men pick swords and
prepare to have it out in an old fashion sword fight. The Doctor appears to have won the sword
fight when his opponent sheds his disguise and aims his tissue compression
eliminator at The Doctor which is the calling card of his nemesis The Master.
With The Master there it all makes sense what is going on and it’s up to The
Doctor to stop him from changing history.
The
Kings Demons is the final story of season 20.
The Five Doctor’s is a special but usually gets lumped in with season 20
but it really is like 20 B. The King’s
Demons is known for being the story that introduces Kamelion. Kamelion was a robot that can change his
appearance to whoever he wishes or in this case whoever The Master wants him to
be. Kamelion never really panned out as
we never saw him again until his demise in Planet of Fire. I think it would
have been a good idea if they got a guest star every week to play
Kamelion. You know a different actor
every week playing a character as needed and you wouldn’t need to have to use
the clunky robot.
The
King’s Demons kept up the theme of a returning villain or character as the
Master makes his annual appearance in this story. Well it seems like a story that was just not
fitted for him. It’s not really your prototypical Master story and his scheme
just seemed pretty lame. I mean trying
to prevent Magna Carta getting signed seems just beneath The Master as he is
more suitable in trying to kill The Doctor or take over the Universe. It just did not seem like a good story for
him and his disguise, well, it did not fool anyone. What was good was the sword fight between The
Doctor and The Master. It reminded me of
the one in The Sea Devils and The King’s Demons gave us that rematch. It was actually a pretty decent sword fight
at that and the last time we would see The Doctor sword fight until The
Christmas Invasion.
While
The Kings Demons isn’t the best of stories and in fact it is the goose egg of Season
20 it is a fun story to watch in a guilty pleasure kind of way. I mean it takes place during medieval times
and there is a joust and sword fighting and of course The Master and The Doctor
in a battle of wits to gain control of Kamelion.
Grade
C -
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