The King's Demons [TV/1983.3.15 ~ 3.16]

★☆☆☆☆

  There are just some Doctor Who adventures that don't elicit any emotion out of you, except for a small sense of pity. The lingering thought of "well, that was unfortunate" — capping off the 20th anniversary season with this really was rather unfortunate.

  I don't think I've ever seen a season finale with this little drive and energy! The actors are practically reading off their script, and it doesn't help that the script is filled with these generic lines that fail to stimulate my senses in any way. If you're gonna make your serial wordy, it would do well to put effort into your script. That's the trouble with The King's Demons... I don't see effort. Mark Strickson tries to spruce up his dismal screentime, but he's let down by everyone around him. Even Peter Davison, usually quite engaged and, at the very least trying, seems to find this two-parter a lost cause as he walks around the same BBC Middle Age castle halls, engages in swordfights (while its choreography is a nonentity, it's perhaps the most entertaining thing in the serial) and doesn't even try to make his interactions with robot Kamelion any convincing. 

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  For what it's worth, I do like the ambition of bringing a giant lifesize automatron into the TARDIS. It's cool for a scene or two, you know? I'm scraping at the bottom of the barrel here, as you've doubtless figured out by now, and I'm about to come clean and say that the bits and pieces of praise I scattered throughout my review are about the only positive things about this absolute snoozer. It's such an inferior beast compared to its twin, Season 19's two-parter Black Orchid. One's a light-hearted pure historical where the cast and crew have some fun on the side, and the other's a filler piece with not a scrap of ambition in it.