THE KING’S DEMONS – 1983 – ep 128

I think this is probably the only one of Davison’s episodes I have never seen, so I greet this with a little excitement. After all of these years I have been around DW, Davison is my favorite (which I have said before) so this is like finding some money in the clothes washer – a real treat.  Based on the DVD sleeves, it looks like we have to deal with the Master (again), the robot Kamelion, some medieval lute playing and it appears the fair haired Doctor is going to be involved in a good, old fashioned swordfight – exciting! Let’s see what we have here…

Episode 1:

We open in the court of what is obviously a castle with good people enjoying a good feast, complete with court jester and, yes, some lute playing.  The King is addressing a Lord as he is not pleased with the meager funds he’s given over to his Majesty. In fact, he’s so pissed and insulted that his minion throws the pitiful bag of coins down on the floor in disgust. ‘You insult the King!!!” He shouts and heads to face the Lord’s only son. Guess what – that minion is the Master in disguise and he’s going to kick someone’s ass. The King decides that his Champion (the Master) will face the son (on the morn) in battle!  The next morning, the Master bounds out of his tent and faces the day while the King and his mustachioed helpers arrive. The Master and the Son dramatically don their protective armor and – yes – the joust is set to begin! The horses prance! The King gives the signal! The Joust is straight up on! I think the Master gets the first shot in and as the second go around fires up, the TARDIS materializes and brings things to a halt.

In the console room, my second least favorite companion ever, Turlogh is admonishing the Doctor for failing to land him on his planet as Tegan looks on, wearing that wonderful flowery blouse she sported quite a bit. The Doctor deduces they are in the Middle Ages (1215) and they grab their coats and head out. Outside, the Master tells the King he needs no help with “the agents of Lucifer”, the King (John) tells his lieges to not fear these demons and welcomes them in while the Doctor ponders how close they are to the signing of the Magna Carta. The Demons go ahead and sit next to King John and the joust continues! The Master knocks the son down and prepares to strike the final blow! The Doctor talks the King out of it! The kid is spared! He is shamed for not being killed in battle!!

In the castle, the Demons are welcomed for saving their son and Tegan grouses about the bitter cold, while Turlough stays behind to look out a window. In their room, the Doctor figures out that something is definitely wrong – “King John can’t be here, he’s supposed to be in London taking the oath!!”  While Tegan and the Doctor discuss ancient history, the Lord’s son takes Turlough prisoner by sword point and is threatening to stick him in an iron maiden to loosen his tongue about the “Doctor Demon” who shamed him for life by saving him. “Fill her!!” He screams commanding his men to shove him in the casket but they are interrupted by the Lady of the house and the Master. “SEIZE THEM!!!” The Master screams and now the Son, Turlough and the Lady are all prisoners.

Up in the room, the Lord of the house busts into the Doctor and Tegan’s conversation about the Magna Carta and asks them what they’ve done with King – he’s stricken with something you see – something infernal you damn Demons! Of course the Doctor ushers in wisdom and calms him down and they start to question the actions of that weird Frenchmen (the Master) and they ponder the possibility that king John is, in fact, an impostor. From what I have learned in my years is that the TARDIS is not “light” but, outside the Master and a few men have it on a wagon and they are hauling it back to the castle. Elsewhere, some men are riding around on horses outside the castle – oh – they run into the Master and announce that the King can’t be here – he’s in London! “Seize them!!” The Master screams (again).

In the eating room, the Doctor and Tegan sit down for some zany antics by the court jesters – to eat some pig – while, elsewhere, in the dungeon, the three captives watch as a couple of guys come in and grab the iron maiden and carry it out of the room. Back in the food court, the King is playing his lute and singing and the Master is eating a carrot. After the song, the Master gets up and has some men bring in the iron maiden – he is going to put those guys from the forest to death, it seems. There’s some fine arguing about where the King actually is and the Doctor challenges the Master’s good taste – to which he gets a rebuttal challenge with a glove to the face! The duel is on! The Master and the Doctor / The Champion and the Demon – TO THE DEATH!! They parry! They thrust! They grimace!! The King is almost chopped!! The Doctor wins!! The Master reveals himself!! Aw snap!!

Episode 2:

The Master points his Tissue Compression Eliminator at the Doctor which freaks Tegan out to no end! She throws a knife at the Master! He catches it without looking!! The Doctor yanks the TCE out of his hand and points it at him! But it useless because he has scruples!! The King is going to put the Master to death!! His men stick him in the iron maiden!! They close it!! He screams and moans!! It dematerializes!! It’s the Master’s TARDIS!! Oh boy.

With the Master gone, the fake King John announces that the Doctor is now the King’s Champion. From his TARDIS the Master is still in control of the fake King – he’s giving him remote commands. Soon enough he materializes his machine in the dungeon, announces who he really is and turns the Lady and her son against the “Doctor Demon” using his suave sense of congeniality. He assures them the Doctor is here to make disrepute of King John’s reputation, smear his good name and bring rebellion to the throne. Turlogh meekly tries to argue but he gets nowhere and remains chained to the wall. Up in the feasting room, the Doctor and Tegan are now clad in some heavy fur coats, the Doctor is brandishing a sword and he gets knighted by the Fake King. He them commences to command the Lord’s cousin to lead him to the dungeon so he can free the Lady. I don’t get why this makes everyone mad but it does and he heads off with Tegan and the cousin anyway.

In the dungeon, they free Turlough and the Doctor explains that the  Master is here to change history and interrupt the signing of the Magna Carta – I find this kind of odd since he normally wants to subjugate the entire human race or all of time itself – but OK. The Doctor does something with the TCE on the Master’s TARDIS and they all leave the dungeon to foil the Master’s plan once and for all, forever and ever and ever, amen. Upstairs, the Master has now conned the Lord into believing he’s here to rid the King of his demons and gets control of “all of his men”. Outside, the Doctor discovers that his TARDIS has gone missing. Tegan is bundled up like she’s freezing to death and Turlough lurks in the background like the possessed creature from the attic in the movie (REC). Anyway – in the throne room – the Lord is going on and on and on about the King’s Demons and the Master sends everyone out to “SEIZE” the Demons – which they do, as well as kill the Lord’s cousin with a crossbow.

Having been seized, the Doctor and Tegan are confronted by the Lord (conveniently in front of the TARDIS) and accused of being demons so Tegan slips into the “blue engine” (did they use the word engine back in the 13th century??) and heads out. During that distraction, the Doctor slips out himself, rids himself of his cumbersome jackets and accidentally runs across the King playing his lute in his room. Holy crap!! The King is a robot!! Holy crap!! The Master is in the room too!! “This robot helped me escape (his last dilemma)…” the Master purrs. “It is called Kamelion…” it seems Kamelion is controlled by the mind and the two time lords take turns making it change into facsimiles of each other. While they have a nice talk about changing the history of the world, I take time to notice that the robot Kamelion has nipples. Nice.

Elsewhere, Turlough has been captured (again) by the Lord’s son and is (again) being held at swordpoint and accused of shooting his cousin with the crossbow. The dead cousin has a little life in him so he whispers something about the Doctor and the King before he finally croaks and everyone heads to the King’s Chambers. There, of course, the Doctor and Master are having some serious words about his plan and the future and who will be dead and who won’t and they prepare to see whose brain is the strongest when it comes to controlling the robot. They both go about this by doing some face acting and nose breathing. Here we go – the Master explains that with Kamelion under his control he can undermine all of the great civilizations of the universe, chaos will reign and he will be the Universe’s emperor.

As the Doctor and the Master try and win control over Kamelion, with some seizure causing imagery, the Lord and his boys attempt to do in the Doctor with his sword. Luckily, Tegan and the pre-programmed coordinates of the TARDIS arrive and, yes, interrupt the Doctor’s murder – and – apparently the Master’s concentration. The Doctor turns Kamelion into Tegan, grabs her and runs into the TARDIS while Turlough holds everyone off with a sword. As the Doctor’s ship dematerializes, for real, the Master yells “Medieval Misfits!!!” and remarks that they haven’t seen the last of him -heheheheheh and runs off. In the TARDIS, Tegan doesn’t understand why there’s another Tegan in the room so the Doctor changes Kamelion back to his robot form and they bring him on as a colleague despite Tegan’s misgivings – to which he is very grateful.

These episodes weren’t too bad – nice and short and good fun. It was nice to see something I haven’t seen before, for sure. here’s some pix for posterity:

The Doctor, Kamelion and his lute:

The Doctor and the Master and swordplay:

Turlough….:

Joustus Interruptus:

The Doctor, the Master and Kamelion-play:

The flowery blouse:

Some 80’s fashion: