An English Gentleman: Tegan and Turlough are sceptical about the Doctor’s promise to take Kamelion home, because he promised both of them that he would do exactly that soon after they joined him on his adventures. This time he hits the bullseye first time. The Doctor argues for self-determinism and yet his argument is thrown in his face when it is pointed out that he involves himself in the affairs of others if he feels that things aren’t how they should be. He tries to counter argue that he gets out as soon as possible and leaves people to decide their own fate but the point is a convincing one on the part of Kamelion. Does he think he has the right to decide what is best for other races. As soon as he learns that he was a weapon of war the Doctor ends his friendship with Kamelion. Does the Doctor know his way around his own Ship? When questioned on the subject he tries to excuse the fact that he is lost by unleashing some dreadful technobabble hokum. You’re not fooling anyone, Doctor.
Mouth on Legs: Tegan, ever honest, thinks the sooner they see the back of Kamelion, the better. Or rather good riddance to bad rubbish. I really do relate to her these days. Turlough suggests that she once thought that way about him and she retorts that she still does. Miaow. We’ve not seen this shrieking harridan version of Tegan for quite some time, probably since Cobwebs.
Over the Shoulder: Tegan is pissed (how unusual) that everywhere they go reminds her of somewhere he has been before, only better. The old show off. One person’s morbid curiosity is another person’s keen sense of self preservation. If his life depended on it he would attempt to sell ice to Eskimos. Turlough is completely unsure about sacrificing himself for his fellow companions and gets on with it before he changes his mind. Maybe he does have hidden depths. At least when Turlough appears to bat for the other team we know that he is smart enough to not really mean what he is saying. That was never the case with Adric.
Kamelion: Kamelion would like to return to his home planet and the Doctor seems only too happy to oblige. It’s all done in the spirit of friendship but the Doctor is probably hoping that he will decide to stay given the amount of trouble he has been for them recently. He thinks Tegan and Turlough will not be sad to see him depart. Does he have dreams? You can always rely on Jonathan Morris to take a more intriguing angle than anyone and whilst the other writers of this trilogy have focussed on how he can be used in plot terms, Morris tackles him as a character. Some of the discussion in episode one about the nature of this creature, what he thinks and feels is thoughtful in the same way that Star Trek tackles this sort of stuff on a regular basis. He offers the answer that he was a soldier obeying orders not as an excuse but as an explanation. Kamelion using Tegan’s mind without her consent is a form of abuse, a rape of the mind. If there was ever a moment where he didn’t deserve to be a member of the TARDIS crew, this was it. Let alone stealing the TARDIS, threatening to kill them and being revealed as a soldier in a vast intergalactic colonisation. Kamelion is happy to deactivate himself and the Doctor isn’t going to stop, only provide him with a second option. He offers Kamelion the spare storeroom and will configure it as a zero room so he is free of all outside influence.
Standout Performance: Despite my reservations about how he has been treated as a character, I cannot fault John Culshaw’s portrayal of Kamelion. It reaches its height in this story, where he is forced to confront all manner of unpleasant truths and does so with calm, almost serene disinterest. There is something chilling about his sing-song voice, never wavering, always so calm.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Another Earth-type planet’ ‘Yes, they’re more common than you might think.’
‘It doesn’t matter how benevolent a dictator is. They’re still a dictator!’
‘An Empire that spanned galaxies and lasted a thousand years and it all ended in a matter of hours?’
'A civil war in more ways than one.’
Great Ideas: The Kamille once created Kamelion and his kind. Kamelion was sent to Xeraphis to serve as an ambassador of the Kamille. His function is diplomatic, which is why he can manipulate his form. The command signal from his home planet ended and he was stranded. Without a directing intelligence he entered a dormant state, until the Master came along. There were over 10,000 Kamelion ambassadors created. The Kamelion’s have built in weaponry. The green disc on their stomachs are a laser gun. The Kamille charted the entire landscape of this world, building great cities and founding colonies. They lived in peace for a 1000 years. There was a drop in solar luminosity and so they designed the locust, a device to house their minds without the need for their physical bodies. They built s vast fleet and sent the Kamelion’s out to discover other worlds. They took command of worlds driven by war and gave them peace and took people who would have destroyed themselves and saved them. As a last resort they neutralised species that threatened universal harmony: that’s genocide by another name. Kamelion was sent to Xeraphis as part of a Kamelion invasion force.
Isn’t it Odd: If the Kamelion Empire extended across the galaxy and ruled for a 1000 years then why has the Doctor never heard of it before? He’s travelled fairly extensively.
Standout Scene: Is this the first species on Doctor Who where their language is largely a form of profanity? Thank goodness that the TARDIS translation circuits can’t interpret. The end of part features the Doctor threatening to blow up the TARDIS with all of them on board rather than unleash chaos into the universe. I wish it had been directed more like the end of The Caves of Androzani episode three.
Result: ‘Witness the combined might of the Kamelion army!’ Why oh why do Big Finish keep leaning on the same writers to produce their scripts? Jonathan Morris, John Dorney, Matt Fitton, Guy Adams, etc. One extremely good reason is that they are proven assets and nine times out of ten they can deliver the goods. Jonathan Morris has been writing Doctor Who Big Finish scripts for over a decade now and as The Kamelion Empire attests, he hasn’t lost any of his aptitude for strong characterisation, an engaging dialogue style and plotting that refuses to go down the obvious route. He’s one of the few writers that you could give any set of regulars to and he will not only get their voices right (seriously, check out his resume) but use the time to explore a little more about them than the TV series usually afforded. He’s even managed to drag some interest out of Kamelion here, for goodness sakes and that is an impressive feat in itself as it has pretty much eluded everybody else. This is much less ‘how can Kamelion be a spanner in the works?’ and far more ‘where did this guy come from and how to did he end up where he was when we first met him?’ which is a much more fascinating approach. There’s a lot of discussion about whether he fits in in the TARDIS crew and definitive conclusion drawn about that. I could have told you that that was a foregone conclusion before this trilogy began (and because we never saw him again in the TV aside from his leaving story) which renders it pretty pointless but at least with The Kamelion Empire we have learnt about his origins. It wasn’t an entirely futile exercise. Kamelion once again proves to be far more trouble than he is worth but a ton of context and backstory is given this time which makes it much more satisfying. Morris gets Tegan and Turlough spot on; cutting with each other, smart enough to drive the plot and investigate and very observant when doing so. He always gets Davison’s Doctor bang on; more than older Professor of Frontios than the young whippersnapper of season 19. There’s also some shrewd direction from Ken Bentley (speaking of prolific contributors) and a dazzlingly authentic score (it sounds like Paddy Kingsland was involved). I mention all of these positives because the plot goes completely off the rails in episodes three and four. The second half of the story leaps back in time to the time of the Kamelion civil war and the last episode is set almost entirely in the TARDIS, allowing this story to be practically carried by the regulars alone. Unfortunately, I lost interest, the narrative was far more suspenseful when the regulars were exploring the aftermath of the events on Mekalion rather than when they were participating in it. For once Morris’ use of timey-wimeyness confuses rather than enhances the action and I’m not sure that Chaos was ever particularly convincing as a villain (just a ranting power crazed madman in the Eldrad vein). Even if the plot stutters and fails there is still a great deal to enjoy here; especially the intelligent discussion about self-determinism, the fine characterisation and the solid production: 6/10
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