Product reviewsDoctor Who - Kamelion Collection (DVD, 2010)

Stories good, Kamelion arrives (boo) and departs (hurrah!)

Kamelion is one of Doctor Who's failures - the supplementary stuff on the discs about it's problems is entertaining! The stories are better than average, once you accept the madness of a shape-changing thingy.Read full review...

fun, camp and silly.

I have to say that both these stories are definitely not top of fans favourite stories but for all there flaws i rather enjoy them in a camp sort of way.

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Dr who.

Son is very happy with purchase

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Average 1980's "Who" - nothing special

When "The King's Demons" was originally released on VHS, it came as a bonus episode tagged alongside "The Five Doctors", almost as if the BBC knew that no-one would buy the serial by itself. Fast-forward ten years or so and 2Entertain are now trying exactly the same trick, this time releasing it alongside "Planet of Fire", a loosly themed set of two stories that feature the short-lived robotic companion Kamelion.

Dealing with the positives first, there is nothing wrong with the production values on "The King's Demons" - the BBC have always been strong when it comes to historical costume dramas, and the location filming for the medieval jousting scenes is good too. What's not so good is the Kamelion prop. Who knows what producer John Nathan Turner was thinking when he approved the idea. If someone came up to me now in 2010 and said they had an animatronic robot that could walk and talk, I'd be surprised. If someone came up to me in 1983 when this was made and said the same thing, I'd assume they were mad. The idea may sound good in theory, but surely no-one ever believed that "Doctor Who" would become world leaders in the field of robotics. There's a saying on "Top Gear" that sums up this kind of thinking best - "ambitious, but rubbish".

Moving along, we have next "Planet of Fire" which wrote out the character of Turlough, introduced new companion Peri (Nicola Bryant), killed off Kamelion (permanently) and also the Master (until next time) and was that years overseas story, filmed on the island of Lanzarote. It's all okay when Lanzarote is used to represent itself, but does fall apart somewhat when other bits of Lanzarote are used to represent the planet Sarn. Director Fiona Cumming attempts to compensate for this in the newly-made 'special edition' version with CGI flames over the location scenes so that it really does look like the 'Planet of Fire' that it should have been. I'm not quite sure why the whole thing has been edited down from 100 minutes to about 66 minutes, the equivalent of the original four-part story becoming a three part story - and it's not like it has been edited together that well either - frankly I prefer the original version. And the 'newly shot' prologue footage of the Trion ship crashing on Sarn "ten years earlier" just seems over-indulgant, just a couple of computer geeks sat in a room playing with CGI effects on a PC trying to say "look what we can do!" - it just seems so out of place with everything else in the story - just because we *can* improve old episodes like this, doesn't mean that we *should*. I don't know why they didn't leave well enough alone. They've taken something that was fair to middling originally, and somehow made it worse. It's almost worth the price of purchase just to see Nicola Bryant in a bikini. 7/10Read full review...

Doctor Who - Kamelion Collection

this is obviously 2 doctor who stories in one set. the first series, King's Demons is ok, very unexpected twist halfway through, which slowly unravels. best watched, if like myself, you know nothing about kamelion to start with. Planet of fire is fantastic, one of the best serials to far which introduces Peri into the storyline, most linked with Collin Baker's doctor, and the departure of turlough. i would highly reccomend this product.Read full review...

Doctor Who - Kamelon Tales Box Set

Two well written stories for Peter Davison as The Doctor during the early 1980's decade, I recommend this DVD Box Set for a avid fan or a Doctor Who Collector.

Kind Regards

poody_57_1953

Kamelion Collection

this is a great box set and two great classic stories, Full of dvd extras to pass your time with, some interesting things said.

Well recomended.

Great

Great value

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doc 5 and the master

good stories : a 2 and 4 episode set , the later viewable as a film

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