Once upon a time, a people of great artistry and great knowledge ruled the planet Mekalion: the Kamille. For a thousand years, they prospered peacefully.
Then came disaster, when their sun set forever. Facing extinction, the Kamille made the Locus, a device to sustain their minds; and fashioned shape-changing machines, to act out their wishes on the physical plane…
Servants they called the Kamelion.
The Kamelion Empire contains examples of:
- Actually a Doombot: The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough manage to pull this off to trick Chaos.
- And I Must Scream: After spending 10,000 years trapped in a void, Chaos is sent straight back there for all eternity.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: When their crops failed and no more children could be born, the Kamile created the Locus, a powerful device that would upload their minds into it, dispensing with the need for organic bodies.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: How the war between the four Kamile factions was waged, while their physical forms were preoccupied with dancing.
- Call-Back:
- The Doctor plans to convert an old storage room into a Zero Room for Kamelion.
- Tegan once again proves that she's capable of putting up a psychic block in her mind.
- After the destruction of the TARDIS console, Tegan and the Doctor access a secondary console room, one with wood paneling and a shaving mirror.
- Call-Forward:
- The final scene has the TARDIS arriving at the Eye of Orion, with Turlough so inspired by the views that he wants to get out his sketch book.
- In another tie-in for "The Five Doctors", this story features the destruction of the TARDIS console. The Doctor will have constructed a new one and is putting the finishing touches on it at the beginning of the TV special.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Chaos, who lives solely to spread his namesake, all while deploying an Evil Laugh.
- Characters as Device: This story is the culmination of a trilogy that ultimately shows why, regardless of whether or not the robot prop could ever be made to work properly, Kamelion would never have worked as a full-time Companion; each of the four stories features him being influenced or taken over by some outside force and turning against the TARDIS crew and, since this is part of his inherent nature, this would have only kept happening. Kamelion even initially wants to die rather than keep being forced to attack his friends. In the end, another solution is arranged.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Tegan is annoyed with Turlough for tackling her to the ground and grazing her knee. Turlough points out that he was getting her out of the way of a collapsing ceiling.
- Despair Event Horizon: After being taken over and used by an evil being for the umpteenth time, Kamelion initially decides that nobody can trust him, least of all himself, and he wants to join the rest of his people in death. The Doctor manages to talk him out of it, but Kamelion is still adamant that he not be allowed to jeopardize the others' safety again, and remains in the TARDIS in a converted storage room for the foreseeable future.
- Demonic Possession: Chaos taking control of Kamelion is explicitly compared to possession, as opposed to just an influence.
- Driving Question: In a meta sense, this entire trilogy has been building to answering: where the heck was Kamelion between "The King's Demons" and "Planet of Fire"?
- Economy Cast: Thanks to a lot of
Acting for Two by the regular players and the main monsters being represented by stock animal sounds, this story features only the four main actors and one guest actor. - Extremely Short Timespan: The great war of the Kamile lasted nearly a whole day.
- Fighting from the Inside: Kamelion, when he's being controlled by Chaos.
- Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The avatars for the four "facets" of the Kamile race: Authority, Liberty, Harmony and Chaos, described as being "four sides of the political compass".
- Heel–Face Turn: Turlough fakes one of these to get on Chaos' good side. Unfortunately, his reputation for deceit and cowardice works against him.
- Hidden Depths: Tegan considers Turlough to have these when she discovers his talent and passion for sketching.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Directly quoted by the Doctor, when Chaos's attempt to hide the control interface for the Kamelions in a redundant memory node fails after his past self destroys that node upon detecting the Doctor and Turlough in it.
- Just Following Orders: The Doctor is sick and tired of hearing this excuse. Kamelion claims it is not an excuse, merely the truth.
- Last of His Kind: Kamelion had been assumed to be this, but that turns out to have been a lie. By the end, however, it really is the truth.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The resolution of the plot comes this close to pulling the audio version of winking at the camera.Kamelion: I must be free from all mental distractions. I must not be subject to external thoughts.Tegan: What are you saying? That we can't even think about you?Kamelion: Yes. Do not think of me. Do not mention me.Turlough: You want us to act as though you're not here?
- "Not So Different" Remark: When the Doctor objects to the Kamile infiltrating other races with the shapeshifting Kamelions to take over, Kamelion points out that the Doctor himself often interferes with other races and prevents choices they would have otherwise made of their own free will, although the Doctor protests that he only steps in to help out and leaves the civilisations to rebuild on their own.
- Opinion Flip Flop: The last couple of stories have featured Tegan warming up to Kamelion, and the ending moments of the previous story, "Power Game", had her defending him. By the start of this story, taking place only a few minutes after the last one, she's reverted to dismissing him as just a machine and comments on the possibility of his leaving as being "good riddance to bad rubbish".
- Retcon: The very brief glimpse into Kamelion's history we are given by the Master in "The King's Demons" is almost entirely reworked here, as Kamelion and the rest of his people were sent out to various races to infiltrate them, and he was not captured by another invader. This is Hand Waved by noting that The Master is a notorious liar.
- Shout-Out to Shakespeare: The Doctor throws out "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale", as well as later using a variation on "the better part of valor".
- Translator Buddy: Turlough acts as this for the Groll, whom he is able to understand somehow despite the TARDIS' translator apparently glitching.
- Vitriolic Best Buds:Tegan: The sooner we see the back of [Kamelion], the better. Good riddance to bad rubbish.Turlough: You thought the same way about me, once.Tegan: Who's saying I still don't?
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Having your consciousness projected into the Locus is not a safety; Tegan is warned that if she dies in the dream world, she'll die for real.
