Moderator's Note: This is Mike's original Kamelion summary:

Not much to say about this. I had read about Kamelion before I saw "The King's Demons", and the reports were it was an amazing bit of SFX. Imagine my disappointment when I saw this pathetic attempt at an animatronic dummy. With no personality.



I quite liked Kamelion, to be honest. It just never realised its potential and wasn't thought through properly behind the scenes.
I felt it did have a personality in Planet Of Fire especially. Something about its voice. You weren't quite sure if you could trust it but you wanted to. Pity advanced CGI was around then - you could do so much more with Kamelion now.

Apparently Kamelion was supposed to be more of a proper Companion post-King's Demons, but its inventor dropped dead, not leaving many notes on how to operate the thing. Hence it only re-appeared to get killed off. I wonder what happened to it when the TARDIS was fragmented in Frontios.

Here in America, Who fans often ask if Kamelion ever found his dream job with the robots at the Wisconsin Dells.

Some have theorised the hatstand is Kamelion in Frontios but I don't buy it. Maybe he was just buried like the rest of the TARDIS?

The HATSTAND??? Well, that's original, at least.

It was suggested in the DIScontinuity Guide. I don't buy it, either (the theory that is; I bought the book).

Anyone know what happened to the robot itself? Did it make it to Longleat?

A robot like Kamelion appeared in Star Trek Voyager once (Don't know which episode) & was called Unit 3451 or something.

If the Kamelion prop had worked properly, what impact do you think it would have made on the series?

How many of the original novels have used Kamelion? The Crystal Buchepalus springs to mind but that's all.

There's also

SPOILER for some book I can't mention or it'll give the game away, not that anyone'll care, as I'm the only one reading these things:
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The Ultimate Treasure. Kamelion's appearance was obviously supposed to elicit gasps of amazement, given that it's set after Planet of Fire and he's ostensibly dead. Well, if he wasn't before, he is now.

I don't know what impact keeping Kamelion would have had on the series...after K9, any mechanical Companion who doesn't wriggle his ears would be a bit of a let-down...and I'd get tired of him changing his appearance every two minutes (though I suppose that wouldn't happen if his original body worked). But how can you tell what someone would do when the only hint of personality they've given is when begging to be killed?

By the way, why is Kamelion never listed with those Companions who died whilst with the Doctor? And why isn't more fuss made of the fact that the Doctor (and the NICEST Doctor, at that) killed him?

Hopefully it'll mean Chris Bulis gets struck down by a thunderbolt or something though, so it isn't all bad...

;-)

Hopefully it'll mean Chris Bulis gets struck down by a thunderbolt or something though, so it isn't all bad...

;-)

Hey! I'm now *gulp* a Chris Bulis fan. *Shudder*...it seems to be taking me a while to get used to my metamorphosis. Read City At World's End, and tell me I'm not going mad...

i dunno, 'The Ultimate Treasure' is pretty bad.

Does anyone know if the scenes with Kamelion in 'The Awakening' were filmed or not? I was led to believe that he featured in a scene at the story's beginning but that it was cut because of time constraints.

PS. Chris Bulis seems determined to inflict as much Kamelion as possible upon us, look at his new book 'Imperial Moon'.

Yup, The Ultimate Treasure is pretty bad. As are virtually all his other books. It's just that when you start off with Vanderdeken's Children, anything is an improvement.

I believe The Awakening scene was filmed but it had to be cut at the last minute due to timing restraints.

Kamelion would have been good if he'd taken on a different persona each episode. We would'nt have to have seen too many shots of the android itself just him walking into the console room as a stranger and the Dr or Turlough saying 'oh you changed again Kamelion'. Might have been interesting.

Also as far as i'm concerned Planet of Fire is a criminally under-rated story. there are some great ideas going on and the location work is fantastic.

I used to hate PoF, but yeah, I love it now and there are a number of great moments in it. Of all the foreign location work EVER used in the entire run of the series, the location work in this story IS the best used - I mean, steam coming off rocky dunes! Wow! If I remember rightly, the film crew trespassed onto a volcanic area off the beaten track, and managed not to get caught!

I love the shrunken Master operating from a box in his TARDIS - that was surreal!

That was hysterical, you mean. I half-expected the Doctor to bust out laughing when he saw him (I did).

As for Kamelion, well, the android summed it up quite nicely himself: "Kamelion... no... good. Destroy... me." And thank you very much, the Doctor did.

You know, it wasn't Kamelion's brief appearances or lack of any real motion that made him so awful. It was him: his voice, his weakness, his lack of any real personality. There was just something so pathetic about a creature that couldn't fight back even a little against not just the Master, but even the Doctor taking over his mind. He didn't even seem to care! That's so un-Doctor Who. This series rides on indignation.

If he'd just been in King's Demons he'd have been fine. His lack of personality wouldn't have mattered in the least. And I for one thought it was a great moment when you heard King John singing and strumming the lute, and then discover it's this robot.

Well-since someone just posted in the Jamie section--I must strike out for balance.

Emily:If he'd just been in King's Demons he'd have been fine. His lack of personality wouldn't have mattered in the least. And I for one thought it was a great moment when you heard King John singing and strumming the lute, and then discover it's this robot.

Hey this was Old Who--as a companion he'd have fit right in. ;)

On the other hand--the technology really wasn't ready for him at the time--he could have been fun.

I've got a great idea!!!

Now that technology has caught up, and the companions role improved--lets bring this one back.

The Doctor could find him in a Tardis room we've never seen before(an excuse to see something other than the control room)-repair and rebuild him(he is a robot, and some upgrades might not hurt), and he's ready for action,at long last.

If anyone with connections with New Who likes this idea--you can have it for free-all I'd ask would be a mention.

Now that technology has caught up, and the companions role improved--lets bring this one back.

Or, better still...let's not.

Kamelion can be knocked unconscious? (Planet of Fire) HOW? He's made of metal, for gods' sakes.

Short circuit?

Mark Strickson: 'We'd go over to a Kamelion scene and there would be a couple of legs there with wires hanging out. So we'd cancel that, and go onto another scene, and then we'd go back and they'd have managed to get half the body on, but by that time a leg had fallen off... It was a complete disaster. Laughable. Hysterical' - RIP, Kammy.

Kamelion instilled in me a deeper respect for Terence Dudley than I thought imaginable. He seems to have been the only one to have asked questions like "how disruptive will this be in studio?", "what happens if it breaks down?" and "is this actually a good idea?"

I had a weird thought the other night: was Kamelion an attempt to do Adric again, but get him right this time?

In what way does Kamelion bear any resemblance to Adders whatsoever?

'Before Kamelion had even clambered aboard the TARDIS we had already decided to hide it on board wherever possible, and to commission a story to get rid of it' - JNT. Why the HELL didn't you just...NOT have it clamber aboard in the first place?

Planet of Fire:

'I apologise for that hysterical display, Doctor' - Kamelion is obviously No True Companion. They NEVER apologise for their hysterical displays.

You'll note the Doctor doesn't bother to respond to the apology - if this was New Who they'd be emotionally hugging and probably thinking about having sex...

'Contact has been made' - who d'you think you ARE, the Nucleus of the Swarm?

'You are no more than the sum of your parts, a mass of printed circuits...a heap of spare parts. You're on your own, Kamelion. Your power is weakening, turning to silver. A silver puppet jumping on a string...Servile. Slave! ' - *wince* look, I don't mind the Doc bullying the hell outta his Companions a la Curse of Fenric if he apologises and explains why it was necessary afterwards, but given that he actually KILLS this particular Companion afterwards...

I Am The Master short story collection: 'The miniaturised biomechanoid. Compression meant that the organic elements could not survive at that scale, but its mechanical components would be perfectly miniaturised...and perhaps still functioning' - hang on, does that mean the Doctor didn't actually kill Kamelion when he TCE-ed him...?

I could never understand how Kamelian can be considered a Companion. In both of his TV appearances, he is working against the Doctor. Not exactly Companion material.

Hear hear.

And based on those two appearances, it's pretty clear he's the Master's companion.