The Dæmons
review

Holistic Review: Doctor Who's first foray into folk horror kicks off with a spooky, atmospheric, engaging first episode, and boasts a tantalizing setup juxtaposing science and magic... but then rather falls apart into a story that's all talk and zero plot, which barely gives any of the characters anything to do.

Folk horror — a subgenre which leverages pagan rituals, remote villages, and often the awakening of ancient powers — is said to have kicked off with three otherwise unrelated films, Witchfinder General in 1968, Blood on Satan's Claw (starring Wendy Padbury and Anthony Ainley) in 1971, and cult favorite The Wicker Man in 1973. So, airing in 1971, The Dæmons was riding the zeitgeist, notching Doctor Who's first story based around folk-horror themes just as the genre was in its first flush. Given my absolute love of folk-horror films, it's a little odd, I thought, that I wasn't a bigger fan of this story when I was younger. It never fell into the swath of Pertwee stories that I found relatively boring, but conversely, it never enthralled me the way I would've expected of a story with folk-horror stylings. Perhaps, I rationalized, it's because I didn't consciously become a folk-horror fan until adulthood, and viewing The Dæmons now, with a fuller understanding of the context and a greater appreciation of the style it was trying to evoke, would convert me into a die-hard fan like 90% of the rest of fandom already is.

Turns out, that wasn't the problem.

Episode 1 is the standout here. The story starts out brilliantly, absolutely capitalizing on folk horror's sense of eerie spookiness and terrors lurking just out of sight. It opens with a panning shot through the night-shrouded village of Devil's End in the midst of a wild thunderstorm, as gales of wind buffet the empty village green. The fright factor amps up as a dog runs barking into the church graveyard, only for its pained whimper to be suddenly cut off... and when its owner follows in pursuit, he drops dead of a heart attack... or of fright? It's a potent beginning, and really grabs the viewer's interest.

The rest of the story continues to incorporate folk-horror tropes: demonic forces appear to be rising, half the villagers are secretly complicit in dark rituals conducted in an unholy crypt, and a young woman is dressed in a white tabard to be sacrificed to an evil power. The incorporation of a joyful pagan maypole ceremony featuring Morris dancers is a clever (and thematically appropriate) addition to the plot, given a wonderfully creepy twist when the maypole ribbons, along with a threatening deployment of the dancers' traditional sticks, are used to restrain the Doctor.

In Doctor Who stories about magic and the supernatural, I absolutely love when the scientific explanation doesn't rob the story's atmosphere of its indefinable dread — think especially the Great Vampires, or the Malus and its ghostly projections. The Dæmons sets out to do exactly that, asserting that what we think of as magic is actually a remnant of the Dæmons' advanced science. I absolutely love that, because it allows 'magic' (or something indistinguishable from magic) to coexist side-by-side with science.

In particular, the sigil-painted stone slab in the cavern is one of the story's few elements that never loses its magical aura. We never learn exactly what it is, but the Master treats it like a summoning charm, which he's infused with spells that draw Azal irresistibly to it. (Obviously there must be an actual scientific explanation, but we're never made privy to it!) It is a bit weird to think that, for the remainder of the story, Azal is just hanging out there in microscopic form, still roiling with immense power — when Garvin launches Benton onto the stone, it's a great way to illustrate its danger even before Azal has occupied it, as is the shot of the poor book erupting into a geyser of loose pages when it touches the stone — but evidently uninterested in interacting with any of the human beings who keep stepping on him.

One thing I really love about The Dæmons, aside from its at-times superb atmosphere, is that it immediately sets out to establish a debate about magic versus science, a theme which recurs throughout the story's runtime. Azal's spaceship (and indeed Azal himself) is a superb example of this. Among Earthbound humans, the ability to shrink to a microscopic size or grow to giant proportions seems like nothing short of magic (or superpowers), as does his power to kill through blasts of freezing cold or searing heat. But The Dæmons points out that these can be two sides of the same scientific coin, specifically, a predictable reaction in physics of the heatwave and the freeze-up accompanying his change in size. (Plus, Azal's miniaturized spaceship looks cool, and makes for a budget-saving effect to boot.)

In terms of background, too, the story sketches some intriguing details that start the ice water dripping down the viewers' spines. The village of Devil's End is apparently well-known for ghosts, witches, and an infamous curse. The church cellar, where some of this activity occurred, has become a popular enough attraction that they've outfitted it with little dioramas. And the barrow at the center of the controversy, known as the Devil's Hump, is no stranger to excavations: previous attempts to dig into it have sent the archaeology teams fleeing, never to return. So there's a very strong sense that the area around Devil's End is a genuine locus for paranormal, even demonic, activity.

The use of a BBC news broadcast to bring both the viewers and the characters into the action is a clever one. I've criticized the modern series for its overuse of news reports as an exposition shortcut, but here it really works, partly because Jo, Yates, and Benton are all eager to watch the report, and largely because we the viewers get to go behind the scenes. There's a nice bit of realism as Professor Horner browbeats Alastair Fergus, the flustered newsanchor, both off- and on-camera, leading to a sense that Horner is a blowhard know-it-all who maybe isn't treating the Devil's Hump with as much caution as he should... and because we witness his cavalier attitude, we're just waiting for his arrogance to become his downfall.

The issue, however, is that after this really cracking start — once Azal settles into the cavern, 40 minutes into the story's runtime — the plot just grinds to a halt. (At the end of part 2, sensing the first creeping tendrils of disappointment, I wrote in my notes, "One downside: the plot is slow to build." That is, evidently, because there was no more plot left.) Thereafter, very little of what happens meaningfully advances the storyline; in lieu of development, the Doctor provides strings of exposition.

We learn, eventually, that Azal is bound by ritual to appear two more times. So obviously nothing important is really going to happen until Azal's third manifestation, which is clearly destined for the story's climax. Unfortunately, no plot point hinges on Azal's second manifestation. Therefore, everything in between is just marking time, or as we know it best during the Pertwee years, padding.

Sure, it's relatively entertaining padding, which almost manages to disguise the fact that nothing is actually happening. But we can uncover the truth by looking at two facets of the story: first, what plot points drive the story toward its conclusion, and second, what meaningful actions each of the story's characters takes.

The important plotlines are as such: Somehow possessing foreknowledge that a dig at the Devil's Hump will shortly unleash an ancient Dæmon upon the Earth, the Master dispatches the previous vicar of nearby village Devil's End and assumes his position, giving him access to the church crypt where he plans to harness Azal and his power. When the barrow is opened, Azal is released. Growing to gigantic form, he stomps toward the village, then shrinks himself to microscopic size to inhabit the consecrated stone that the Master has prepared for him. From that point onward, Azal is mainly concerned with preventing anyone who wishes to stop him — primarily Miss Hawthorne and the Doctor — from interfering in the Master's proceedings. Otherwise, Azal's appearances are more or less random, though he chooses to appear when the Master summons him. On his third appearance, he decides to bequeath his power to the Doctor; when the Doctor refuses, Azal chooses the Master as an alternate, and decides to eliminate the Doctor for being irrational and disruptive. It's only Jo's noble attempt to save the Doctor's life that causes Azal to self-destruct. You'll notice that these plot elements are pretty much confined to parts 1, 2, and 5. The other episodes largely consist of a series of runtime-filling set-pieces in which various regulars are placed in jeopardy of one form or another, some of which are more successful than others.

In parts 3 and 4, a major arc is the Doctor's attempt to build a diothermic energy exchanger, which is intended to serve a dual purpose: first, to breach Azal's invisible-but-deadly heat barrier, enabling UNIT to reach the village, and second, to drain Azal's energy, rendering him powerless. On one hand, this is a super extension of the story's magic-vs-science plot, especially since the technical solution that the Doctor suggests is so far beyond Osgood's understanding — to the point, in fact, that Osgood believes the Doctor's machine should have the opposite effect — that it might as well be magic too. It's also a great excuse to introduce one of the UNIT scientists, who can talk with the Doctor more on his level, and assist him in lashing together monster-defeating contraptions much like Liz once did. (In fact, it's a bit of a surprise that the Doctor doesn't have a team of scientists like Osgood working under him!) But, you see, I have this conviction that every plotline in a story should, ideally, contribute to advancing the plot in some way. Even just illustrating the adversary's menace is an absolutely valid use of a story's runtime. On the flipside, I don't appreciate dead-end plotlines that go nowhere, and that's exactly what this energy-exchanger strand is. Yes, it enables a cadre of UNIT soldiers to finally join the action in part 5, but their futile fight with Bok doesn't even affect Bok himself, much less meaningfully impact the story's outcome. (Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh on it, because the energy exchanger does disorient Bok just long enough for the Doctor to dash past him — which enables him to reach the cavern and confront Azal — but I'm sure he could've found a way to get past Bok without the energy exchanger's help. In short, I was expecting a lot more out of this plot strand.)

As for the characters, well, very few of them push the story toward its conclusion in any demonstrable way.

The Doctor's role in this story is that of Exposition Machine. Without a shred of evidence beyond four vague clues — Devil's End and the Devil's Hump barrow (perhaps an ancient hint at the resting place of a Dæmon), Beltane (an irrelevant detail, as Azal would be released from the barrow no matter when it was opened), and Jo's musings about the Age of Aquarius (which seems to have little relation even to actual astrological theories) — the Doctor races to Devil's End to prevent the barrow from being opened, unsuccessfully. He already knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that they're facing down a Dæmon, so there's no bothersome investigation necessary. But there's nothing that the Doctor can do to stop Azal until his third manifestation, so in the meantime, he explains to everyone what a Dæmon is (because of course he already knows), and oversees the construction of the diothermic energy exchanger (which is necessary only to enable the Brigadier to join the plot at the last second; the machine blows itself up moments thereafter, rendering it useless for its secondary purpose, that of draining Azal's power).

Jo closes out her début season with yet another story in which the character is all but surplus to requirements. To be fair, Jo does accomplish one thing in The Dæmons, at the very conclusion of part 5, and it's a doozy: she volunteers herself to be sacrificed in the Doctor's place ("No! No, he's a good man! Kill me, not him!"), thus accomplishing the very most noble act possible for a companion. Truly, it's a shining moment that places her among the very best of the Doctor's friends.

But for the first 116 minutes? Diddly squat.

Making this underuse even worse, The Dæmons commits the cardinal sin of writing Jo out of the last third of episode 3, for no good reason. I'll talk a bit more below about the implausibility of the helicopter storyline that causes all this nonsense, but it's frankly shocking that the Doctor drives Bessie so recklessly that he nearly flings Jo right into the heat barrier! Thankfully she (narrowly) avoids getting vaporized, but she does wind up with a bump on the head and probably a concussion, which could've been easily avoided if the Doctor had been more cautious or given her more warning about what exactly he was planning to do. ("Hang tight, Jo!" was apparently insufficient.) It's just bad scripting all the way around.

Literally adding insult to injury, writers Barry Letts and Robert Sloman apparently had no goal in mind (plot-centric or otherwise) when they decided to knock Jo unconscious. Katy Manning is only written out for part of an episode, so she can't go on holiday. And when Jo finally wakes up, what does she do? Well, she escapes under her own steam, which seems like a promising start. But then she (1) fights with some ivy (!) while gasping in horror, (2) falls unconscious yet again, (3) wanders down a random alley for no apparent reason, (4) turns around all mad, like she's gonna give the ivy what for, and then (5) it turns out that the only point to the plot thread of Jo getting knocked out and escaping was so that she could become a sacrificial prisoner in the cavern. Cue massive eyeroll. This whole chain of events is nonsensically motivated, and robs Jo of agency. The script could've thrust Jo into the role of sacrificial victim much more efficiently by simply having her proactively decide to poke her nose around after Azal's second manifestation, while the Doctor was away.

Of all the story's characters, Benton drew the longest stick. Not only does he get a whole three fight sequences — a well-choreographed struggle with Garvin in the church cavern, featuring a skillful disarming move; a tussle with a Morris dancer in the pub; and an impressive parkour move to take Bert down, bouncing off Bessie to tackle the landlord as he flees — he also rescues Miss Hawthorne from her imprisonment in the church; he demonstrates some truly remarkable sharpshooting which helps to 'prove' the Doctor's wizard powers, saving him from death at the villagers' hands; and he gets to hold a gun on the Master at the story's end. So the character gets some great moments, personally, although none of them actually advance the overall plot.

Yates, in contrast, gets all of one fight sequence — as he tries (unsuccessfully, but bravely and determinedly) to prevent Girton from stealing the UNIT helicopter — followed by a rather nice though ultimately fruitless chase scene, as Yates goes in hot pursuit of the stolen helicopter on a motorcycle. Not that he stood any chance of catching it, because it is in the sky and he is not. In terms of plot impact, this is pure runaround, action sequences meant to distract us from the lack of forward momentum.

Miss Olive Hawthorne is given a strong start in the story, immediately informing us that she's a white witch ("The signs are there for all to see! I cast the runes only this morning!") and crucially, though nobody takes her warnings seriously, she's not implied to be a lunatic or an idiot. It's nice to see a pagan character portrayed not only sympathetically, but as an expert and a vital ally. (Though perhaps that's less uncommon in folk-horror tales, where the protagonists must rely on characters who understand the perils of the supernatural world, if they want to survive.) An early scene illustrates both the danger of the force being awoken in the barrow, and Miss Hawthorne's power: when a gale-force wind whips up — as, unbeknownst to her, a hexed PC Groom prepares to bash in her head with a rock — Miss Hawthorne braces herself and chants into the wind, calming it and lifting the spell from PC Groom just in time to save her own life. It's quite a powerful scene, and immediately demonstrates that Miss Hawthorne truly is an expert with genuine magical ability, strong enough even to counter Azal's abilities. She's also shown to have incredible mental resilience, as her response to the Master's attempt to hypnotize her is to shake it off and declare "Why should I believe you? A rationalist existentialist priest, indeed!" Transcendent.

However, as lovely of a character as she is, her expertise never really comes in handy, beyond her unheeded warnings of doom should the barrow be opened. She even gets to see the Master's black altar firsthand, which I expected would help her figure out his plan or a defense strategy or something, but instead that inside knowledge comes to naught. Once Azal has been released, she becomes rather superfluous to proceedings, reduced to fetching books and serving tea. Her one other moment of greatness, thankfully, is when she comes up with a rather ingenious plan to rescue the Doctor from the murderous villagers — while appealing to their better natures — with Benton's help. ("You would dare to harm the great wizard Quiquaequod?" she challenges the villagers, imperiously.) Otherwise, her white-witch powers (such as they might be) never again meaningfully affect the plot, because of course once the Doctor has proven that Azal's abilities are based in science rather than magic, we can't be allowed to think that Miss Hawthorne's incantations might actually do anything. Which is stupid, not only because we've already seen them work, but also because The Dæmons outlines the very way that apparent magical abilities could be rooted in an extremely alien form of science, just like the Carrionites would later be. Miss Hawthorne even makes it explicit, when she asserts that black magic is precisely the same thing as the psionic force control that the Dæmons wield.

Oh well. At least Miss Hawthorne gets to return the favor after Benton rescues her, not once but twice: when she carries an injured Benton out of the cavern and back to safety in the pub, and later when she rescues him during a fight by walloping his attacker over the head with her crystal ball. The alliance between the two of them, forged in a friendship built on mutual respect and mutual life-saving, is quite sweet!

The Brigadier may as well not even have been in this story. He spends practically its entire duration ironically cooling his heels by the heat barrier, unable to even interact with the story's events, much less affect them. When he's finally able to get through the heat barrier, he's again sidelined from the 'battle' (of words) with Azal; he spends his time uselessly firing bullets at a stone gargoyle who's impervious to them. And then the story is over.

The Master seems to play a somewhat more active part in the plot, but I think it's a bit of a smokescreen. Granted, The Dæmons gives him quite an interesting role, posing as a village vicar who secretly leads a black-mass coven in the church basement. And the scene in which he blackmails all the villagers into helping him, leveraging secrets about their personal lives, feels very true to the character's manipulative nature.

The trouble is, Azal seems to be perfectly fine manifesting on his own and making his own decisions without the Master's help. Sure, the Master directs Azal to the stone in the cavern. But everything else that the Master does seems to be only for appearances, or for atmosphere. His assembled coven of villagers is evidently entirely surplus to requirements; though the Master believes their presence will amplify his control over Azal, he in fact has zero control over Azal at all. Nor does he seem to need the coven's help in summoning Azal, who — at best — is humoring the Master by appearing at his command, despite being perfectly capable of deciding when he wants to manifest. Likewise, Azal intends to make his own decision regarding to whom his powers are bequeathed; neither the Master's animal sacrifice nor his human sacrifice seems to interest him or sway his decision, if indeed that was even the purpose of the sacrifices.

The story's climax does pose an intriguing quandary, as Azal thinks — despite the Master's claims — that the Doctor would be just as worthy a leader for the humans as the Master. This both pits the two Time Lords against one another (because the Master's greatest fear would be seeing the power he covets being gifted to the Doctor instead) and also aligns them (because the Doctor is in full agreement with the Master that he shouldn't receive Azal's powers). It must absolutely crush the Master that Azal would prefer to pass his power to the Doctor, who doesn't even want them. And even though this part of the story is all talk and very little plot-propelling action, it's nice to see the Master and the Doctor arguing their opposing viewpoints to Azal.

It's interesting, too, that — in only his fifth story, no less! — the episode-3 cliffhanger is structured around a threat to the Master's life. (Fine, Azal, kill him!)

As for Azal himself, nothing about the Dæmons really makes sense. The Doctor says that they're not evil, just amoral scientists. They experiment on planets, spending millennia directing the development of the native species, until they judge that the experiment has either succeeded (technically, Azal says "concluded") or failed. And if they decide the experiment has failed... they destroy the planet and everything on it.

Problem is, we never get a sense of what the Dæmons consider to constitute a success or a failure, what exactly is their ultimate goal in helping to inspire these civilizations, what would complete the experiment, or really what happens if the experiment is deemed a success. Azal claims that he must either bequeath his power or destroy everything, but surely those aren't the only two possible options for concluding the experiment. The Doctor seems to be convinced from the outset that Azal is going to condemn the Earth as a failed experiment and destroy it, so the possibility that he might be happy with the Earth's development is never really under consideration.

Yet in the end, that seems to be exactly the conclusion Azal reaches. Aside from his early warning that "this planet smells to me of failure", after his second manifestation, he never talks about destroying the Earth, only about bestowing his powers on someone else. The Master appears to have been anticipating this very outcome, which is why he took up the vicar's post in the first place, hoping to manipulate Azal into choosing him as the recipient for his immense power. So is that what happens when the experiment is deemed successful? The local Dæmon magistrate appoints a successor, bestows them with Dæmon-level powers, and scarpers off to let their successor take over running the experiment? I mean, that seems a little bizarre — why bother transferring their power when they could either continue running the experiment themselves, or just leave their successful experiment to get on with itself — but okay.

If that is the case, then I can see why, from the Doctor's perspective, there might not be any good outcome. Either the Earth is scorched to a cinder, or some random potential megalomaniac is chosen by an amoral alien scientist to have total power over everyone on the planet. But it would've been awfully helpful to have those options spelled out to us at the beginning, so that we understood the actual stakes.

Also confusingly, Azal initially seems to be your standard godlike being who operates according to his whims, swayed only (potentially) by a strong argument. So, fine, he's grounded in logic, but this gets taken to a wild extreme when Jo proposes self-sacrifice. Suddenly, Azal turns into a classic 1960s computer that self-destructs when presented with a simple logical conundrum: "This action does not relate! There is no data. It does not relate!" Boom!

At least I can say that Azal's (and the Master's) hench-gargoyle, Bok, is a pretty unalloyed success. The idea of a stone gargoyle brought to life, with glowing red eyes and the power to vaporize its enemies, is quite a fearsome one. (This is all the more impressive given that the gargoyle's expression is perpetually frozen with his tongue sticking out.)

For me, this is far from Pertwee's best outing as the third Doctor. In fact, aside from a few rare glimmers of humor, I find the Doctor nearly intolerable in The Dæmons. He spends the entire story in a bad-tempered, supercilious huff, and takes most of his annoyance out on poor sweet Jo. The chemistry between Pertwee and Manning is legendary, but despite Manning's heroic efforts, there's not an ounce of it visible here. In fact, Manning's determination to showcase Jo's unfailing fondness for the Doctor only serves to make Jo look like a pushover, constantly rolling over and taking the Doctor's verbal abuse. Let's take a look at the evidence:

  1. The Doctor goes out of his way to be hurtful to Jo, and her shame-faced look when the Doctor insults her is just heartbreaking.

    Doctor: "Miss Hawthorne, who is the leader of this cult?"
    Miss Hawthorne: "The new vicar. He calls himself Magister."
    Doctor: "Magister. Yes, of course, I should have known."
    Jo: "What?"
    Doctor: "Jo, did you fail Latin as well as science? Magister is the Latin word for Master!"

    (Incidentally, why does Miss Hawthorne say that he 'calls himself' Magister? Given that everyone addresses him as Mr Magister, it would appear to be his genuine last name, as far as anybody knows!)

  2. Even when they've just discovered Groom's corpse, the Doctor can't resist a dig at Jo, despite her concern, just because she was inclined to believe Miss Hawthorne's story about a satanic sabbath:

    Doctor: "That poor fellow."
    Jo: "You know what killed him?"
    Doctor: (snidely) "Well, it certainly wasn't the Devil."

  3. After the Doctor tells Lethbridge-Stewart that his plan to blast through the heat barrier is an "idiotic suggestion", Jo dares to agree with him:

    Jo: "Of all the idiotic plans! As if blowing things up solves anything."
    Doctor: (frostily) "Jo, the Brigadier is doing his best to cope with an almost impossible situation. And since he is your superior officer, you might at least show him a little respect."

    Benton seems to find this dressing-down amusing, but since Jo literally repeated what the Doctor himself said to the Brigadier's face, I find it hypocritical in the extreme. It's like the Doctor enjoys making her feel bad about herself.

  4. Infuriatingly, the Doctor can't even manage to be grateful without repeatedly belittling Jo.

    Doctor: "Well, by a ridiculous and foolhardy act of self-sacrifice... Jo here has managed to save us."
    Jo: "I did?"
    Doctor: "You did. You see, Azal couldn't face a fact as irrational and as illogical as her being prepared to give up her life for me. Look Jo, why don't you go and get out of that ridiculous garb?"
    Jo: (sunnily) "Okay."

At least he finally gets around to complimenting Jo (once!) in part 3. And gadget-loving Jon Pertwee gets to ride a motorcycle, albeit without a helmet!

For as little as Katy Manning gets to do, her emotions blaze through every one of Jo's lines. Manning gives a disarming delivery to lines like "I suppose you did it", and "No thanks! I've had enough of your knavish tricks." In contrast to the Doctor's arrogance, Jo manages to get what they need by being kind, when the villagers fail to respond positively to the Doctor's blunt request for directions to the dig. One of the main blessings of The Dæmons being restored to color is Jo's outfit: her purple blouse has interesting sleeves, and I love her purple beret.

Although Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is practically written out of the script, Nicholas Courtney has a couple of nice moments, including his delivery of "My helicopter?!" The Brigadier gets to show off a rather fetching dress uniform at the story's start, with a flatteringly-cut red jacket.

Richard Franklin only gets marginally more to do, thanks to Captain Mike Yates actually being stuck inside the village rather than out. Still, it's nice to see him and Benton in civvies for a change, and his red flight jacket is sleek and bold. Yates is also remarkably lucky not to be killed when he and Jo gatecrash the Master's black mass. Miraculously, Bok doesn't vaporize him, even after Yates fires several bullets at the living gargoyle; next, the Master's acolytes merely knock him unconscious and bind his wrists (but, in a shockingly incompetent turn of affairs, not his legs, which enables Mike to up and flee the very moment he rouses back to wakefulness beside the exit next to which they've conveniently dumped him).

Franklin and John Levene are great during the scene of Benton and Yates both arguing on the telephone, overlapping just enough to make the dialogue sound natural without obscuring what each other is saying. So many characters in this story are doing well out of red clothing; I love Benton's stylish red trousers!

It's a real shame that Sgt Osgood (Alec Linstead) was never brought back after this story. It makes a nice change to get to know one of the UNIT scientists. Still, I love the theory (yet to be confirmed onscreen, at time of writing) that new-series stalwart Petronella is his daughter. Linstead gives quite a likeable performance of a scientist who's despairingly in over his head but determined to soldier on.

Roger Delgado gives a compelling performance, as the Master — largely staying out of the Doctor's way, and pulling strings behind the scenes — rules his village roost with quiet confidence rather than triumphant menace. He's magnificent throughout: I particularly enjoyed his smug, amused reaction as the Master senses Azal arising; the way he fully commits to the scene of the Master silently summoning Bok; and the way he stands calmly as a spectral wind rushes through the vicarage. Rounding out our red-outfitted characters, the Master looks great in his dramatic blood-red cloak embossed with gold sigils, surrounded by a cadre of black-robed acolytes.

Stephen Thorne is superb as the booming voice of Azal. His deep gravelly tones imbue Azal's voice with menace, which is vital as — aside from his calves and a hairy shoulder — our only exposure to Azal in part 4 is his angry bellowing at the Master. Loved his delivery of "No! He lives!"

Stanley Mason inhabits Bok completely, giving the gargoyle a distinctive walk and striking dramatic poses as he blasts people into nonexistence. He gives an especially fun performance in the scene of Bok stumbling around drunkenly, after the energy exchanger has drained some of Azal's energy. No wonder Bok became such a celebrated monster.

For her memorable performance as kind-but-determined Miss Hawthorne, Damaris Hayman is rightfully hailed as one of Doctor Who's untouchable legends, and one of the most beloved guest actors in the history of the series. Her performance is top-notch across the board, but I particularly enjoyed her delivery of "Keep away!" I adore Miss Hawthorne's fashion sense. Costume designer Barbara Lane and makeup artist Jan Harrison deserved awards not just for the story in general, but especially for so capturing Miss Hawthorne's personality with her comfortable-looking blue cardigan/cloak (warm and matronly, yet slightly magical), her beaded necklaces and chunky bracelets (a free spirit), and her green eye shadow (quirky and attuned to nature).

Archaeologist Professor Gilbert Horner (Robin Wentworth) is a great character, cantankerous and a bit cruel, concerned mainly with earning himself a quick buck. He's also entirely full of himself, heckling Alastair and barging into the reporter's broadcast to take it over himself, and entirely uncooperative with Fergus' attempts to follow broadcasting conventions.

I really enjoyed David Simeon (and his very 70s hairdo) as BBC reporter Alastair Fergus, covering the Devil's Hump barrow excavation for Passing Parade and making a valiant attempt to rein in his irritation at the irascible Horner. ("For the viewers, Professor." is a particular delight; you can practically hear Fergus gritting his teeth.) His delivery is pitch-perfect, both in his newcaster persona and his offscreen moments, and he gives sublime 'on-camera' reactions to what the other characters are saying, particularly when Horner drags him into the barrow too early, and when he has to contend with Miss Hawthorne's claims of being a (white) witch. In fact, I think he's one of my favorite guest characters, so it's rather a shame he didn't get stuck in the action along with the other good guys. (Not that there would've been anything for him to do.) I enjoyed Simeon's delivery of "What?!" when he thinks Horner might have left before his interview, and the way he responds to Horner's off-camera crack with a cutting "...or will the professor be proved disastrously wrong?"

Likewise, James Snell — playing Harry, evidently Alastair's assistant — gives an understated, naturalistic performance.

Christopher Wray only gets six lines as PC Groom, only a couple of which are both substantive and while he's in his right mind, but he comes across as likeable and jolly, certainly the sort of officer you'd want to have protecting your village (at least when he's not trying to bash random things with big rocks).

Eric Hillyard is perfectly exasperated as pragmatic Dr Reeves, who's the very model of an old-fashioned, closed-minded authority figure. Thankfully he doesn't have any real power over the situation, but Reeves still refuses to consider any of the supernatural explanations that Miss Hawthorne is convinced to be associated with Jim's death-by-fright, and only reluctantly begins to realize that the Doctor's constitution might not be entirely human.

The villagers are well characterized as a group, particularly in the early scene of them poking gentle fun at Miss Hawthorne in the pub. They certainly don't believe her, but they also don't disrespect her.

Among the villagers, squire Winstanley (Rollo Gamble) makes the biggest impression. He seems to be a reasonable fellow, which is borne out when he becomes the first to attempt to buck the Master's control (and the first to be publicly killed by his hench-gargoyle Bok). Gamble gives a great performance as Winstanley cowers, terrified, right before Bok vaporizes him. Sure, he stumbles a bit on the line "Strange sudden noises, and er, gas— er, gusts of wind" but the rest of his performance is so naturalistic and memorable that we can forgive him a tiny flub.

My other favorite performance comes from John Owens, who's fully committed as Thorpe, the grocer who's been padding the bills of the gentry. Thorpe seems like he might nevertheless be a likeable fellow, but then he's the first to zealously join in the cries for the Doctor to be burned at the stake. Mind you, he's also the first to tell Bert to shut up, so maybe my first impression wasn't entirely wrong.

Don McKillop initially plays Bert the Landlord as a somewhat broad caricature, delivering all his comic lines — and even some lines that seem scripted to be serious, like his borderline-saucy "Yeah, Frank was telling me his cows have gone dry, and my wife's hens have stopped laying." — with a wry smile and a knowing wink, which makes his performance feel a bit over-the-top and therefore less believable. However, he's considerably better opposite Delgado, as a cowed, intimidated Bert brings out McKillop's serious side. And in his unexpectedly menacing shredded-newspaper rag jacket, levelling a gun at the Doctor, he's downright terrifying. Bert becomes an object lesson in the dangers of mob mentality, as he convinces the villagers first to tie up the Doctor so that he can be held for a meeting with the vicar, but then gradually convinces them that the Doctor is a witch who must be burned at the stake.

Similarly, John Joyce gives a smarmy performance as Garvin, the verger. His every line drips with barely-concealed dismissiveness, if not outright menace, which makes it hard to believe that anyone in the village actually takes him seriously. Plus, when he lopes off in pursuit of Miss Hawthorne, his gait is reminiscent of Renfield, so all in all, Joyce's performance was a bit unsubtle for my taste. It's rather a shame for poor Garvin that after all his devoted service to the Master and Azal, it's Azal himself who kills him, vaporizing him in a blaze of heat for daring to fire a bullet in fear. I suppose Azal would consider it a fair punishment, but you'd think he'd take loyalty into some account!

Jon Croft is given so few lines as Tom Girton — plus, Croft does a rather overexaggerated spit-take into his beer when Winstanley admits that he's not totally discounting Miss Hawthorne's views — that the character's memorability is mainly thanks to his dramatic fight scene and helicopter chase.

Jones, the acolyte who protests Jo's sacrifice, provides refreshing and well-timed proof that not all the members of the Master's coven are willing to follow him to immoral extremes. Though brief, it's a nice performance by Matthew Corbett, apparently one of Katy Manning's friends.

The effects in The Dæmons split pretty evenly down CSO and non-CSO lines. Granted, the effects team have clearly learned from their CSO mistakes in Terror of the Autons, but still, I've always felt that Azal was one of the less successful examples of CSO in the series. The effect of Azal growing and walking around the cavern is poorly realized, but it is at least a shrewd leverage of CSO's ability to achieve effects that would otherwise be extremely challenging, and it accomplishes the goal of effectively illustrating Azal's gigantism. Likewise, despite the wrinkles in his furry stockings, the shot of his ankles towering over the Master genuinely helps to sell his enormous size. But I must give them credit for their clever, and unobtrusive, use of a CSO rockface (which probably helps to hide the studio ceiling and lighting rigs) to frame wide shots in episodes 1 and 4 of the Master conducting a black mass in the smoky crypt, creating the illusion that the camera is positioned inside a cavern alcove.

Otherwise, the effects in this story are kept simple and maximally effective. There's a simple but really effective shot of Winstanley vanishing amid a shower of sparks, a nice shot of Bok's energy blast bouncing off the church door as the Doctor slams it shut, and a great effect of Bok exploding and re-forming. The roadsign whirling to misdirect the Doctor is also brilliantly simple, and well-used for dramatic effect.

The explosion of the church is such a legendarily famous effect — with at least one viewer reportedly believing, and writing in to her local paper to complain, that the actual church had genuinely been blown up — that it deserves special mention. Truly, it's a stunning model that looks entirely convincing, and in terms of story consistency, I'm impressed that the explosion does indeed seem to originate from the crypt.

Along with the then-current trendy folk-horror influence, The Dæmons also bears an influence from a couple of decades earlier: the cozy-invasion novels of John Wyndham. In particular, the concept of a dome which seals off the village from outside contact seems to be a direct lift from 1957's The Midwich Cuckoos, in which the barrier around the village made people (and animals) fall asleep before they could reach it. Azal's deadlier heat barrier is realized through a myriad of effects, some straightforward and some quite impressive, but all contributing to the sense that it poses a significant danger. On the simpler side, I absolutely love the charred-earth effect used to indicate where the barrier passes over grass, roads, and buildings. It's a simple enough paint job but it must have been a pain to execute so precisely, and it packs a narrative wallop, instantly conveying the idea of an invisible wall too deadly to cross. Likewise, director Christopher Barry often films characters from the opposite side of the barrier, with heat haze rippling in between, which is an extremely convincing detail. Along similar lines, though accomplished through VFX, the shimmering blur of an arch in the heat barrier looks deceptively simple for how challenging it must have been to achieve in 1971. On the more elaborate side, numerous things come into contact with the barrier and either burst into flames — like the Brigadier's baton, and the really impressive explosion of the delivery van — or vaporize altogether — like the stick the Brigadier throws into the barrier, and a rock flung by the Doctor. I can't imagine how they achieved that effect so seamlessly, but it looks great.

The makeup team does a noticeably spectacular job this week. First and foremost, that ice makeup on the Doctor is flawless; he genuinely looks like he's spent months in a chest freezer. The injury makeup on Benton, following his fight in the pub, is very convincing. Azal is, regrettably, perhaps the one exception; his costume and makeup are decent, though his brow (with an obvious join around the cheeks) doesn't look the slightest bit real. But I really like his furry satyr legs.

Of course, we also have to talk about the helicopter, which surely must have been quite a splashy expense for the series. But it does pay at least some visual dividends, particularly in the scene where Benton spots Azal's hoofprints burned into the grass. That scene could've easily been rewritten to take place at ground level — indeed, moments afterward, Yates and Benton trot across the grass to confirm the hoofprints up-close — but having that perspective shot really helps to sell what an impressively large beast Azal must be, and visually it's very impressive. (Granted, the hoofprints don't look anywhere near as big up close as they did from the air, but we'll let that little detail slide.)

Mind you, the helicopter is slightly less effective once Girton takes over piloting it. While the sequence is impressively filmed, it's not exactly believable. For one thing, we have absolutely no idea why Girton wanted the helicopter specifically, or what he was intending to do with it. He seems to just steal it because it's there, though we can infer he wants to (somehow) stop the Doctor from building the machine that could defeat Azal. For another, it's frankly ridiculous that Jo thinks Girton is trying to kill them, just because he's flown over their heads twice. Girton doesn't even have a gun; the worst he can do is buzz Bessie, but the helicopter doesn't get anywhere near close enough to do them any damage, or to force them into the heat barrier as the Doctor assumes is his intent. All the Doctor had to do was park Bessie, and they'd have been fine.

The incidental score by Dudley Simpson is certainly interesting, but it wouldn't be among my favorites. It has some really nice moments, like the music as Azal takes his preordained place on the stone. At times it strongly evokes other 1970s children's programs, as when the Doctor and Jo go back to investigate the barrow. And at times it's almost atonal, grating slightly on the ears but in an admittedly memorable way.

The story's sets are uniformly wonderful. As one of the story's main settings, the Cloven Hoof pub interior sets are a highlight. The downstairs, with its imposing wooden bar and broad seating area, provides lots of room for kinetic shots, helped by details like the liftable bar flap and the second-floor staircase. Between the dark wood fixtures, the stone fireplace, and the ancient wooden beams, the set gives off an appropriate vibe for an old building in a village with dark secrets. The bedroom upstairs is nice too, with an interesting lower landing for the door, a sloped roof, and a quaint design of green-patterned wallpaper over bright-white wainscoting, with antique furnishings dotting the room. I particularly like the detail that it's a long room with windows on both ends, which gives the set yet more character.

The Master's vicarage is a great set too, with a broad open foyer (suitable for things to blow around in whenever a demonic wind whips up) and a wooden staircase with a landing, which helps break up the frame vertically. Entrances on two adjacent walls provide further variety when characters enter and exit scenes. In contrast to the green of the pub bedroom, the vicarage is decorated in various shades of scarlet, broken up by the black-and-white tiled floor and pops of green from a couple of plants in elevated planters.

The story's most impactful set, though, may be the cavern, where the Master conducts his dark rituals to summon Azal. Here again, there's a staircase leading down into the cavern, and lots of stone columns — along with the iron wheel resembling a torture device behind which Mike and Jo 'hide' — which help to break up the space into darkened alcoves which provide depth of field. The lighting team, too, does a great job of illuminating the set in interesting ways, while maintaining the illusion of gloom. The floors and walls of dingy stone help to sell the aura of an ancient underground crypt, and impressively, the colorfully-lit dioramas in the background never detract from the set's eerieness; they're set far enough back that we don't really notice them unless the camera moves in more closely.

And of course the village of Aldbourne makes for a fantastic filming location. Between the imposing church with its mossy graveyard, and the broad village green which provides a memorable setting for scenes like the helicopter fight and the maypole dance, it's no wonder that Aldbourne has become one of the most recognizable and beloved filming locations of the entire series.

Christopher Barry's direction has its highs and lows. He scores a couple of really incredible shots: the angled zoom-out of the Master cackling in the cavern as he summons Azal, and a really well-framed shot of Yates falling to the grass in the foreground as Girton runs to the helicopter. I also really liked the shot of Mike and Jo 'hiding' behind some sort of spoked wheel in the crypt, the funny shot of the two women peeking around the corner as the church explodes, and a lovely aerial zoom-out of the village at the story's close, as the Doctor and Jo join in the maypole dance. It's no wonder, too, that the earlier maypole scene is so vividly remembered among fandom. Even aside from its memorable setup and dramatic imagery, Barry heightens these scenes with some great directorial choices, like the woman whisking her daughter inside as the maypole dancers arrive (I don't know why she'd be scared of them, but it does amp up the unsettling nature of the scene), the first-person POV as a disoriented Doctor is steered toward the maypole, the various dramatic shots of Bert holding a gun to the Doctor's head, and the clever cut from the villagers shouting "Burn him!" to the Master's brazier flaring up in the crypt.

On the downside, there are a few blurry out-of-focus shots: the red eyes glaring out from the burrow in part 2, Jo saying "But it was alive.", and when the camera pans over to Mr Grenville at the vicarage. Barry really misses a trick at the end of part 4, when Azal breaks into an evil fanged smile just before the cliffhanger; unfortunately, the camera zooms in so close to Azal's face that his mouth is nearly out of frame, which blunts the spine-chilling impact of his fang reveal. And some of the outdoor shots are rather grainier than I'd have liked, but I guess that's the peril of night filming on videotape.

There are a couple of really peculiar editing moments, too. First, just after the start of part two, a couple words of dialogue overlap the cut when Mike says, "And in the meantime, what's happening to Jo and [the Doctor?]" If the entire phrase had overlapped, that would have been a fairly common technique to provide a stronger sense of connection between the scenes, and Mike's line is indeed perfect for just such a moment... but because it's only the last two words that get dubbed over, it looks like an accident. That impression is only strengthened by the fact that the exact same thing happens again in the recap at the start of episode four, as the Master's dialogue continues to overlap the Doctor's lines after the cut: "No! No, stop!" cries the Master, "Go back to the mark! [Go back!]"

As a child, of course, The Dæmons was one of the few stories that I was scared to watch in the presence of my family, lest they decide after years of me safely watching it that Doctor Who was satanic. (They really would've hated the Doctor's description of the Devil as "mythical"!) Fortunately I wasn't much in the habit of watching Pertwee stories anyway!

Minor points:

The Dæmons is a story that's heavy on creepy atmosphere, whimsy, and solid character acting. Unfortunately, despite some engaging scenes that help disguise this deficiency, it's not quite so strong on plot. While that latter fault prevents me from being an exuberant fan, I can see why the rest of fandom is so enamored of it, and its strengths are still probably enough to vault it into my second tier of Pertwee stories.

posted: 24 November 2023

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