In the parlance of ‘Schoolhouse Rock,’ not to mention most of dramaturgy, 3 is a magic number. Oh yes it is. It’s a magic number. Unfortunately, ‘3’ in the context of classic Doctor Who isn’t loved so much. In terms of the size of the TARDIS team, the Doctor and two companions was not uncommon at all in the sixties back when seasons were 40 episodes long, but in the seventies when episode counts dropped to 26 the need to distribute story across more characters likewise dropped away. Stories which only ran three episodes were even rarer, and only an invention of convenience in the late 80’s when 14 episode seasons made them an answer to a season structure question.
But that’s not what is on offer today, well not exactly. 2-episode stories in classic Who, though not-as-rare, were still a distinct exception. and were often the answer to a larger production problem, right from the very first with The Edge of Destruction which provided a ‘breather’ while got Marco Polo up and running. Other times a two-part story would be piggy-backed along with a 4-parter using the same production team as happened with The Sontaran Experiment.
The two-parter found an unexpected friend in JN-T, who used Black Orchid as a change-of-pace throwback. The King’s Demons was not intended to ‘lead’ (generously put) into The Five Doctors, an industrial action pushed what would become Resurrection of the Daleks into Season 21 instead, but taken on it’s own, The King’s Demons has some nice things working for it. Peter Davison is completely at home here, almost relaxed. The location filming, though obviously freezing cold, was well used (although it is criminally underrepresented in the photos for the story) and the inclusion of the Master, though mostly a ho-hum, was low key enough not to be distracting.
The King’s Demons was not the last two-part story in the classic realm, The Awakening would be that. But future show runners, responding to production realities existing in the 2000’s, would also see the virtue of a tidy two-part story as it would become the basis for nu-Who which survives to this very day.
Images and new HD-caps for The King’s Demons are now online.
