10 Classic Doctor Who Absurdities New Fans Won’t Believe
4. Kamelion
K9 was gone, but producer Jonathan Nathan-Turner wanted a robotic replacement to join the Fifth Doctors ever-growing gang of companions. His hunt resulted in the creation of Kamelion, a shape-changing machine whose true form resembled the androids from the movie I, Robot. Unusually, this was an actual robot operated remotely, rather limited in its movements and not created by the BBC props department. Quite why the production team elected to use a robot for something that was basically humanoid isnt clear, given its obvious limitations and frequent malfunctions. After Kamelions first serial wherein the Master was using him to impersonate King John and prevent the signing of the Magna Carta the robot was already proving too impractical to work with. Sadly, Kamelions creator had passed away and left behind hardly any notes on how to work the robots controls, which meant just getting it to appear in scenes was difficult. The character was dumped without explanation immediately having been brought aboard the TARDIS, appearing just once more in Planet of Fire before being killed off (with some off-camera relish) by Peter Davisons Doctor. Its difficult to see how Kamelion could have worked as a companion its easy for the Doctor to get out of trouble when hes got a telepathic shapeshifter as his BFF, and this was an era where even the sonic screwdriver had been dumped as the writers considered it lazy storytelling. Still, Kamelion retains the dubious honour of being the only companion to have their life ended at the Doctors hands an award we all wish had gone to Adric instead.
