The King's Demons
Aug. 15th, 2006 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraThe King’s Demons (PD, 129). Aha. This is more what I was worried about when I started re-watching Doctor Who – finding episodes with moments that make me close my eyes and slide ungracefully off the sofa in embarrassment.
Something about being in a medieval castle seems to affect almost everybody’s acting (the Doctor a noble exception, actually, with Teagan a close second for consistent whining in both settings minus points for looking like a walking furry Xmas pudding in her initial "I'm still cold, Doctor!" castle shots) – it’s almost disturbing how much worse Turlough gets as soon as there’re some nice stone walls around for him to chew on, rather than shiny bits of TARDIS. The one-off cast do, admittedly, have to deal with dialogue involving words like “betimes”, and can probably be afforded some sympathy.
And yet I still liked it. Minor league plotting for the Master, yes, and embarrassingly Anglo-centric, but there were some nice moments and, as mentioned, I did like the Doctor in this. Nice to see him sword-fight, as well, which gave me odd flash-forwards to The Christmas Invasion; fighting style seemed rather similar, although he’s more realistically choreographed in that. Kamelion would have been much more impressive twenty years ago (and in another reference reminded me of the clockwork aliens in The Girl in the Fireplace – which did not look twenty years of CGI further on) and I think I must have seen this ep in the original, or caught up with it somewhere, because the reveal was so unsurprising (no, not that one, the other one). I quite liked King John, too, mainly because I think all evil impersonating villains should be required to enter into the talent (lute-playing) and swimsuit categories.
This is timewise immediately after the Black Guardian trilogy (which I am still acquiring), which might explain why Turlough gets handcuffed, imprisoned or generally manhandled every time he gets more than five metres away from the Doctor. I was amused by how generally unconcerned the Doctor was by this.
I still have over half of the Five Doctors to watch, which is next in continuity (exhibit a – Teagan’s appalling furry coat thing. Hopefully this only shows up in these two eps). Might, however, dive back into TB for a bit (the Talons of Weng Chiang) to ration out my existing stock of Peter Davison more effectively.
Something about being in a medieval castle seems to affect almost everybody’s acting (the Doctor a noble exception, actually, with Teagan a close second for consistent whining in both settings minus points for looking like a walking furry Xmas pudding in her initial "I'm still cold, Doctor!" castle shots) – it’s almost disturbing how much worse Turlough gets as soon as there’re some nice stone walls around for him to chew on, rather than shiny bits of TARDIS. The one-off cast do, admittedly, have to deal with dialogue involving words like “betimes”, and can probably be afforded some sympathy.
And yet I still liked it. Minor league plotting for the Master, yes, and embarrassingly Anglo-centric, but there were some nice moments and, as mentioned, I did like the Doctor in this. Nice to see him sword-fight, as well, which gave me odd flash-forwards to The Christmas Invasion; fighting style seemed rather similar, although he’s more realistically choreographed in that. Kamelion would have been much more impressive twenty years ago (and in another reference reminded me of the clockwork aliens in The Girl in the Fireplace – which did not look twenty years of CGI further on) and I think I must have seen this ep in the original, or caught up with it somewhere, because the reveal was so unsurprising (no, not that one, the other one). I quite liked King John, too, mainly because I think all evil impersonating villains should be required to enter into the talent (lute-playing) and swimsuit categories.
This is timewise immediately after the Black Guardian trilogy (which I am still acquiring), which might explain why Turlough gets handcuffed, imprisoned or generally manhandled every time he gets more than five metres away from the Doctor. I was amused by how generally unconcerned the Doctor was by this.
I still have over half of the Five Doctors to watch, which is next in continuity (exhibit a – Teagan’s appalling furry coat thing. Hopefully this only shows up in these two eps). Might, however, dive back into TB for a bit (the Talons of Weng Chiang) to ration out my existing stock of Peter Davison more effectively.
