The King's Demons
review

Holistic Review: The basic premise is pretty cool, but the plot is seriously thin and the companions are terribly underutilized.

With a runtime of around 50 minutes, The King's Demons is one of those 2-episode oddities in classic Doctor Who which has, of course, become de rigueur as of the 2005 version. It shares this distinction with 6 other stories... all of which I like much better than this one, which means that, pre-2005, this was the only hour-long story that was less than fully successful, in my opinion.

Now, the basic idea is a good one. From the very beginning, King John seems like an appalling and dislikeable monarch. He's already taken Sir Ranulf's entire fortune, yet he demands more, forcing Ranulf's only surviving son into a duel with his champion. Worst of all, it's a completely capricious decision, and the King seems gleeful at the thought of a joust to the death, rather than being even slightly apologetic that he's just essentially called for the sacrifice of his loyal hosts' son. When we discover that on this particular date, history says that King John was in London, it comes as a huge relief. If this isn't the real King, then (a) something peculiar is going on, and (b) perhaps the real King is, as Sir Ranulf claims, a much nicer man! The historical setting is also great - I love it when Doctor Who takes advantage of its peculiar setup, here giving the Doctor the foreknowledge that allows him to know with absolute certainty that this King John is not the real King John. Besides, it gives us lots of fun jousting and feasting and swordfighting and cool (well, actually frigid) medieval castles.

The disappointing thing is that there isn't a whole lot else to love about this story. But, just to avoid getting negative too soon, let me go over what else I do really like.

First off, The King's Demons is perhaps most noteworthy for being the story that introduces Kamelion, our new shapeshifting companion. He's a brilliant idea for a character - not only does he shapeshift, but he's also very easily swayed by other people, so he's not necessarily (or ever) the one who dictates his current form, and it builds in the possibility that he may not be entirely trustworthy. What makes him even more interesting is the fact that he was designed to be a weapon, used to infiltrate other cultures for a purpose we never learn. Does he perhaps have offensive capabilities? Or was he just an information-gathering device for the Xeraphin? Either way, he's definitely interesting. It's very sad that his programmer passed away, meaning that the production team had to try to operate Kamelion with essentially one hand tied behind their back, and he never worked correctly. What I don't understand is why they decided that they had to abandon him entirely. If he had been intended as a robotic companion, fine - working with a malfunctioning robot all the time would clearly have been a massive headache. But, people, you've scripted him to be shapeshifting! In his début adventure, he spends all of, what, two scenes? in his natural robotic form. So, why not just hire an actor to portray him most of the time? It could easily be explained away as the Doctor suggesting a form for him that would fit in on their travels. Or maybe Kamelion could have started to assert his independence more, and actually choose a form for himself - that could have worked much like the holographic doctor's attempts to choose himself a name on Voyager (although hopefully without being drawn out as long). Ignoring him until his final story just seems like a sad waste.

Gerald Flood does a great job as Kamelion, too, particularly in his form as King John. You can tell that the King could be a likeable man, but he just seems so bloodthirsty and amused by cruelty. I love Flood's deliciously wicked delivery of "Ha! It must be a decade, our champion, since we've boiled in oil." and the knowing way he says "Behold, our demon. We too have tricks." I'm not really convinced that Flood is a very good singer, but nevertheless, I like the King's little Saracen-abhorring song, violent though it is. Using Kamelion for a battle of wills between the Doctor and the Master is nice, too, even though we've seen similar things before (like the Doctor's battle with Morbius), and here we learn that, despite what the Master claims, the Doctor seems to possess the stronger will.

Frank Windsor and Isla Blair are very good as Ranulf and his wife Isabella. Ranulf seems like a good-natured man being forced into desperate measures by virtue of not knowing who to trust, as his life seems to be crumbling around him. Faced with the prospect of losing his wife and his only remaining son along with his entire fortune - and possibly his house and his lands, in the end, if the King continues to demand more - he understandably begins to strike out at anything he finds suspicious, in order to protect them. I hope that in the end, he figures out what really happened with the fake King and his fake champion. Isabella seems both warm and regal; I like her composure and her bearing when Sir Gilles orders her to be imprisoned, and she's impressively fiery when she needs to be, as when she orders the guard to release her. But on the morning of the joust, she does look surprisingly happy to see the King, despite the fact that it's his fault that her son is just about to fight for his life against the King's own favorite swordsman! Their son Hugh, played by Christopher Villiers, doesn't get a lot to do, but he's a good character, full of honor and wounded pride. And I really like Michael J. Jackson's Sir Geoffrey, who regards the pretend-King and his French champion warily, and seems like a very good ally for the Doctor. He plays a nice role in the plot, too, confirming the Doctor's belief that the real King is in London, and also revealing this fact to Sir Ranulf's entire court (much good that it does). It's a very sad moment when he gets struck in the back by the Master's arrow, just as he's on his way to London to expose the false King.

Davison gives an enjoyable performance; I like the medieval clothes he gets to wear here, and it's nice to see him get a chance to do some swordfighting. That seemed to be a popular pasttime for his two predecessors, and it's amusing that, like Pertwee before him, here Davison gets to clash swords with the Master as well. His disarming move is quite well-done! It is a bit odd that the Doctor seems so immediately convinced that something is wrong, based on no more evidence than the date, and the fact that he didn't set the TARDIS coordinates for Earth. (It's never explained, incidentally, why the TARDIS did end up there; the Master certainly wasn't expecting him. The only real answer seems to be that the TARDIS knew the Doctor's help was needed. Maybe the Doctor realized that, and that's why he was so convinced that something was afoot?)

We start to run into trouble with the Master. Now, to be sure, Anthony Ainley gives a compelling performance, as the Master plays everyone and their brother (almost literally) against one another. But, really... Sir Gilles? Maybe it's just hindsight, but I don't quite understand how that makeup was supposed to fool anyone in the viewing audience. The French accent was a clever idea, and it does throw you off the scent a bit, but by the time that we see a shot of Sir Gilles eavesdropping on Sir Ranulf's conversation with the Doctor, it's all too clear who the actor is.

One of the biggest shames about this story, though, is the way that the companions are treated. Tegan is mostly relegated to hanging on the Doctor's arm for the duration - as, of course, the audience substitute, so that the Doctor has someone to theorize to, and explain historical facts to. She does at least get some good lines, and she gets to hurl a knife at the Master, but that's about it. She seems to spend most of episode 1 complaining about something or other (the cold, not feeling safe, Turlough's whereabouts... she even sounds slightly irked when she asks the Doctor "When is it?"). She spends a huge chunk of episode 2 stuck in the TARDIS, just waiting for it to materialize at the right time to save the Doctor's life, which effectively writes her out of the story (although at least it implies that she's learned some TARDIS flight procedures by this point, after the disasters of Castrovalva and Four to Doomsday). And the less said about that hideous coat/blanket thing that the Doctor gives her as they're leaving the TARDIS, the better. I mean, her dress certainly wasn't great, but covering it up with that monstrosity was a crime. I do like that the Doctor manages to call her bluff about wanting to go home at the end of the story, even forcing a reluctant "Show me the Eye of Orion. Please." out of her.

Out of everyone, though, Mark Strickson is easily the most underused here. Poor Turlough... his entire arc is this.

In other words, his contributions to the plot? Basically zero. And when I say "number of lines", bear in mind that many of these lines are one-word, like "Doctor?", "Yes." and "Indeed." It's amazing how many times he's just standing there in a scene but never gets to open his mouth. And poor Mark Strickson... in among those 29 lines, he delivers a couple of clunkers, including his awestruck "He is the Evil One!" (?!?) and the manic "I've had quite enough of you, whoever you are, so don't try me too far!" And, whoa, what's up with Turlough wanting the Doctor to take him back to Trion?! Maybe he wanted to go into Trion's past, but seeing as how this comes right after Enlightenment, the implication is definitely that Turlough has had quite enough of Earth and just wants to go home. Overall, one gets the distinct impression that Terence Dudley really didn't know how to write for this character.

The overall storyline is problematic, too. I can buy that the Master is doing all this as a bit of an amusement, although he does seem to think this is really step one on the path to galactic domination... and really, when you think about it, this sort of story would have been much better suited to the Monk, who loves this sort of mischievous fiddling about with time. The problem is with the way it's done. The basic plotline is pretty simple - the Master plans to use an android version of King John to force the real King off the throne, thus derailing the signing of the Magna Carta and plunging the Earth into some sort of democracy-free alternative future. But this basic plot is so over-padded that it ultimately seems like a relatively uneventful story. The shifting allegiances alone are a headache. First everyone agrees that the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are servants (well, "demons") of King John. Then Hugh, suspicious of Turlough, captures him. Sir Ranulf is grateful when the Doctor spares his son's life, then turns on him when Sir Gilles has Isabella imprisoned, but the Doctor manages to win him over again. Although the Doctor manages to save Sir Geoffrey's life, Sir Ranulf turns on him again when the Doctor appears to threaten Isabella's life, and gets even angrier when he thinks the Doctor has planned to kidnap the King and has caused Sir Geoffrey's death. Meanwhile, Sir Ranulf is also devoted to King John, until the Doctor informs him that this King is an impostor. But then the Master comes along and convinces Sir Ranulf that the Doctor has bewitched the King. (Has he so quickly forgotten that the Master used to be Sir Gilles?) All in all, it's very easy to get confused about who trusts whom when. We're even left to assume that the Doctor's sabotage of the Master's TARDIS has gone according to plan... for all we know, the Master finds and removes his TCE before he gets in (a theory that seems to be supported by the following story; if this little act of sabotage does cause any problems for the Master, we never find out about it). Add to this the numerous times that people get captured and escape, the fight scenes, and the buckets of exposition that have to get dumped in a short span of time, and you end up with a plot that seems rather convoluted, talky and padded for such a straightforward idea.

I still don't even understand the title - was it really common for monarchs to believe that demons had come to aid them?! Maybe I'm just in an Inquisition frame of mind, but you'd think that would have been a serious no-no. Or was that just supposed to signal how unhinged King John had apparently become? Even the Doctor seems to be surprised at this plot development ("A king welcoming demons!").

Now, I will give the plot due praise for its skillful use of twists at the start of part two. After the rather-obvious unmasking of the Master, it momentarily looks like the King is going to have him killed, which is pleasantly shocking. The possibility of this actually happening is reinforced when the Doctor manages to briefly halt the execution, only to be forced to choose between the Master and Sir Geoffrey. Given the choice between the innocent cousin of his beleaguered host, and one of the cruelest beings in the universe, the Doctor naturally agrees to let the Master be sacrificed, but it's clearly not an easy or welcome decision - and even Tegan looks horrified as the Master seems to die in pain. And then we have one nice last twist, as the Iron Maiden turns out to be the Master's TARDIS and he makes a clean getaway. That actually would have made a great ending to the story, come to think of it - most of what follows is a bit of a runaround.

Being a medieval story, we don't have a ton of effects to discuss, aside from the shot of Sir Gilles' red-bearded face transforming into the Master's black-bearded one. It's a slightly odd ripply effect, made even weirder by the fact that some people gasp, but no-one seems especially curious or horrified. Doesn't anyone wonder how or why Sir Gilles just changed in front of their eyes...? (Or, for that matter, why the iron maiden he's in suddenly vanishes moments later?) Oh, and perhaps Kamelion counts as an effect of sorts, too. His design is certainly memorable, with the clear head, childlike face, exposed wiring, and that cool round panel in his stomach. The effect used to signal his shapeshifting is a surprisingly effective one.

I don't find myself with a whole lot to say about Tony Virgo's directing, except that it's competent, and he does a nice job with the swordfighting scenes. The location filming is pretty, and the castle sets used for the interior are very convincing. I'm also overall fond of the incidental music by Jonathan Gibbs and Peter Howell, which does tend to stick in the memory... maybe not one of the best ever, but it's pleasant.

Minor points:

Well, at least it's short. It's a fun little oddity, but a little too unengaging to be really memorable. If only Tegan and Turlough had actually been important to the plot, I might look on it with a little more kindness.

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