Imperial Moon

The TARDIS arrives in 1878, just as three spaceships set off from England to the moon. Knowing that no suche events ever took place, the Doctor is determined to find out what is going on, and together with Turlough and Kamelion journeys to the moon to find a sustained biosphere in one of the craters - and all of the plant and animal life is hostile. British explorers are no strangers to such environments, nor are the Doctor and his companions, but the presence of a race of brutal killers stacks the odds against them.

Okay I am including this BBC novel for the sheer sake of giving Kamelion some more material. I hate it when characters with potential get chucked away before they can be properly explored. It is remarked by Turlough that Kamelion just sits in his room for days on end not actually doing anything but listening to the TARDIS systems, which is more or less what is said of him in the televised series. What I find a bit odd though is Turlough once more feeling lonely without Tegan on board (this happens a bit too often now; Lords of the Storm was written in 1995, Imperial Moon in 2000, so you'd think that there would be some kind of acknowledgement of other stories, that Tegan's absence would not hang so heavily in the TARDIS. Still, here it serves as a clumsy plot device for Turlough to confide his lonliness and lack of purpose to Kamelion; not something anyone normally does in someone they do not exactly trust. Kamelion does his best to be companionable, but in the end he's no K9 and he only serves the Doctor because he will obey the strongest will present. But fair dues to him, he does get to do things and actually take part in the adventure, even if the energy field maintaining an atmosphere over the moon traps him inside the TARDIS for most of the story. The Doctor is kinder to Kamelion than one might expect; he's more or less left the android in the closet all this time but when Turlough comments that they should make use of him the Doctor stands up for Kamelion's rights as an individual not to be used. Look back at some of the stuff K9 had to do, though. Apparantly robot rights are one of those things that are only acknowledged in the best of times.

Onwards.

NEXT EPISODE : LOUPS~GAROUX