Do you think he'll go tilting mathematical windmills?
A story for the Fifth Doctor, Adric, and Tegan Jovanka, and Nyssa. Written by Julian Richards, read by Matthew Waterhouse.
Sir Keeyoht of la Koura, and his loyal squire Adric, are on a quest. A great and noble quest to stop that most vile of Enchanters, the Doctor, from claiming the greatest treasure in the land. Along the way they intend to battle giants (or possibly windmills), inspire adventurers, rescue a princess and ultimately come face to face with that most terrifying of all monsters, the Dragon.
Except Adric knows there are no such thing as Dragons...
The Ingenious Gentleman Adric of Alzarius contains examples of:
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: It doesn't get explicitly touched upon, but given that most of the story is generated by Adric's subconscious and taking into account his usual relationship with Tegan, it's surprising that he would cast her as the fair princess captured by the Doctor and Nyssa as his vile henchwoman, rather than the other way around.
- Call-Back: All of Adric's adventures with the Fourth Doctor are given a brief, Fairy Tale-inspired retelling.
- Conflicting Loyalty: This story deals with Adric's conflicting loyalty to the same person. He doesn't dislike the Fifth Doctor, but he misses Four a great deal and had so much admiration for him that the MacGuffin took this up to eleven, creating a world where Four is a gallant knight and Five is an evil enchanter. Adric works through this by the story's end, and lets the old Doctor go at last.
- Cool Horse: A mighty hero like Sir Keeyoht naturally needs one of these to do his adventuring on, and he rides about on his trusty steed, Kay-Nin.
- Demoted to Extra: Despite being a Fifth Doctor story and Peter Davison's face on the cover, most of the story is about Adric going on adventures with Sir Keeyoht, his subconscious projection of the Fourth Doctor.
- Flanderization: In-universe; Sir Keeyoht is a heavily romanticized and exaggerated interpretation of Tom Baker's Doctor, taken directly from Adric's mind.
- Hero Worship: There was always a degree of this in Adric's relationship with Four, but here it becomes overt, with his subconscious projections literally turning the Doctor into a dashing, gallant knight dedicated to protecting the innocent and being generally impressive.
- Knight Errant: Sir Keeyoht is a self-described one, very much inspired by Adric's idealized memories of the Fourth Doctor.
- Our Dragons Are Different: They explicitly do not exist, for one thing. The dragon encountered here was conjured by the grey box, but has been in the world for so long that it doesn't seem to realize it shouldn't exist and so carries on living. Somehow.
- Taking Up the Mantle: The young girl Theresa is inspired by Adric and Sir Keeyoht, and once she grows up becomes a Knight Errant herself to protect her village.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Matthew Waterhouse does excellent impersonations of Tom Baker and Peter Davison, but in his hands, Tegan's dialogue sounds closer to Cockney than Australian.
- Your Heart's Desire: The MacGuffin of this story does this, and creates Sir Keeyoht from Adric's subconscious desire to have the Fourth Doctor back.
