‘we see now that kemel is no slave’ coolio now give him some lines, quick, before they junk the epis--
in all seriousness, what a loss. I know this is just the beginning of it, but ‘67 had quite the habit of introducing side characters of color that were frankly really consistently interesting but unfortunately just as consistently killed off, and typically marginalized onscreen before they died too. but even bearing that pattern in mind, it’s hard not to be especially upset about Kemel, who’s around for so much of the story, whose help allows our main characters not only to rescue the new companion in this serial, but also do to so in a collaborative effort that specifically highlights the best of humanity, and who’s already an important person with an existing relationship to said new companion, who’ll go on to become a series regular that never quite gets over her father’s death, which happened at virtually the same time as she was witnessing Kemel’s.
Like, it was all right there! We were even in Victorian England, and he was working for the evil rich guy - it’s not as if he couldn’t’ve been believably stoic and kind of quiet in that context without having to’ve been literally mute, with no lines at all! And then to have all his episodes lost on top of that! And if you listen to any interview with Sonny Caldinez, it’s immediately very clear just how much thought & consideration he put into his work, and wasn’t afraid to speak up on set about how scenes he was involved in were played - so even though he mostly did stunt/monster/extra work on Doctor Who, I’m sure his Kemel was played as much more than a blank-faced background character - which in no way rectifies the pointless lack of dialogue, but absolutely makes it that much more depressing that such a character was relegated solely to visuals, and that those visuals no longer exist.