Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who 234 Kingdom Of Lies

On the planet Cicero Prime, the kingdom of Cardenas is divided, with the whole population forced to swear allegiance to either the effete Duke or the fiery, hard-edged Duchess. This is a situation both parties have grown tired of. What use is half a kingdom when, thanks to a carefully engineered murder, you could have it all?

Surely, neither of them would be rash enough to summon the deadly off-world assassin The Scorpion to help with their problem? And surely, this terrifying figure wouldn’t arrive wearing a long cream coat and striped trousers…?

Kingdom of Lies contains examples of:

• Anachronism Stew: In-universe. Cardenas has access to lasers and holo-tech, but its buildings, fashions and general culture are patterned after Earth's Middle Ages.
• Awful Wedded Life: The Duke and Duchess take it to extreme levels, up to and including ordering assassins on one another.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: It takes shockingly little work to convince the Duke and Duchess that the TARDIS team are hardened assassins and mercenaries.
• Black Comedy: Adric, surprisingly, when it seems the Duchess has been gunned down by laser fire. When Nyssa, unaware of this, asks what the Duchess is up to, Adric nonchalantly tells her "not a lot".
• Blood Knight: Pretending to be "The Destroyer", Nyssa paints herself as this, and gets frighteningly inventive with tales of past kills and threats to others, though she often sounds like she can't quite believe what she's saying.
  Nyssa: [The Doctor] kills for money. I murder because I like it. Now, let us out of this... rat-infested hell box or prepare to face... the most bloody consequences(?).
• Department of Redundancy Department: Nyssa the Destroyer asks for time to prepare her "Deadly Weapons of Death".
• Emergency Impersonation: All of the TARDIS team end up pretending to be assassins to prevent themselves from being kept prisoner.
• The End... Or Is It?: As the TARDIS is about to leave, Nyssa wonders if the Duke and Duchess will be able to make it work, with the Doctor declining to comment on matters of the heart, and a final scene shows them falling back into their old arguments about which of them is more beloved by the public.
• The Gambler: Lord Crozion puts money on everything, including the failure of his daughter's marriage.
• Gender Bender: Amelia/Tomek are the same person, thanks to holographic technology.
• Holographic Disguise: Used by Amelia/Tomek, and deployed to great effect in the climax by the Duke.
• Large Ham: The Duchess and especially her father are deliciously over the top. The Scorpion outdoes everybody.
• Malaproper: Being from another universe, Adric has a little trouble getting Earth colloquialisms down pat.
  Adric: For a moment there, I thought you'd lost your yo-yo.
  Tegan: Mojo, Adric. The word is mojo.
• Mistaken for Romance: The Duchess, believing Tegan and Adric to be mercenaries who travel the galaxy together, assumes they are also a couple. The very idea of it disgusts both of them.
• Not So Above It All: Nyssa the Destroyer seems to take an awful lot of pleasure in recounting the gory details of her supposed murders.
• Percussive Maintenance: Tegan has been travelling in the TARDIS long enough to know that this works, and her thumping the console is the only thing that helped them land.
• Purple Prose: Nyssa in her "Destroyer" guise positively delights in it.
  Nyssa: The Scorpion is referring to a massacre we carried out on one of the colonies of Old Earth. The sky raged death through the rangy screams of curdled star-rats.
• Skewed Priorities: The Duchess is so single-mindedly focused on improving her own public perception that she doesn't seem to notice or care that she might end up dead at any moment.
• Sour Supporter: At this point, even Tegan isn't sure if she actually wants to be a companion.
  Tegan: Do I enjoy what?
  Adric: Travelling. With the Doctor.
  Tegan: No! ...yes. It does have it's compensations, I suppose.
  Adric: Travelling with me, you mean?
  Tegan: Oh, yes, Adric! Travelling with you is a real highlight!
• There Is Only One Bed: For Tegan and Adric. They are both horrified and escape the room as quickly as they are able.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Both the Duke and Duchess. Most of their time is devoted to making sure that their own individual publicity is better than each other's.