June 1: The Dæmons Episodes Four & Five

Episode four exists in its original 2" video format (the other four episodes are color-restored from NTSC off-air copies), and the difference in picture quality is palpable.

The Doctor on a motorbike. (The Dæmons Episode Four) ©BBC

So Jo's off to the cavern for some unclear reason (mind, she is suffering from a concussion at this point), while the Master manages to convince Azal not to step on him.  Then we finally get to see Azal for ourselves and learn some backstory about him, such that he's the last of the Dæmons and that Earth (or possibly humanity) is an experiment being run by the Dæmons, and that they destroy their experiments ("Remember Atlantis," Azal cautions, which nevertheless just about allows for the possibility of life continuing afterwards, as seen in The Underwater Menace -- even if it does weaken Azal's argument slightly).  So it's more that the Doctor's explanation last episode is confirmed here.  Azal agrees to consider giving the Master his power, and that he will appear once more and decide then, thus setting the stage for the final confrontation.  Then later, Jo enters the cavern and finds Yates there looking for her -- but when someone else comes in they duck down behind the world's worst hiding spot: a thin wagon wheel that couldn't hide a mouse.  Yet, incredibly, this appears to shield them from the view of all the coven members (and the Master!) standing ten feet away.

There's also some stuff with the Doctor trying to explain to Sergeant Osgood how to break through the heat barrier, and an attempt to shoot the Doctor by Bert the landlord as he's returning to Devil's End, but the really memorable part of this episode is the Maypole/Morris Dance sequence -- which starts idyllically, even if, amusingly, people keep shutting their windows and pulling their young children inside as if this was some great horror, but then actually does turn sinister when they trap the Doctor and then threaten to burn him as a witch.  It's only Miss Hawthorne's quick thinking (along with Benton's help -- who's really a crack shot, it must be said) that saves the Doctor, by declaring him to be the wizard Quiquaequod (geddit?) who's there to help them all.  But then they're all distracted by the Master's summoning of Azal for the third and final time (by using, as is well-documented, the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb", only backwards).

Azal prepares to kill the Doctor. (The Dæmons Episode Five) ©BBC

Episode five isn't all that exciting, to be honest.  Once Azal is back he spends his time standing around waiting for the Master to sacrifice Jo to him, for some reason (it's not like they need to sacrifice someone to summon Azal, and later events (seem to) make it clear that a sacrifice isn't necessary to transfer power, so it's not clear what the Master is playing at here), while Bok stops anyone from entering the church.  Still, at least the Brigadier manages to get through the heat barrier, even if the machine that the Doctor was going to use to defeat Azal blows itself up.  But at least UNIT is there to try and fight Bok -- which leads to possibly the Brigadier's most famous line, as he orders a soldier to shoot at Bok: "Chap with the wings there... five rounds rapid."  The Doctor meanwhile makes his way past Bok and into the cavern, where he tries to convince Azal to leave peacefully.  That fails, and then the Doctor refuses to accept Azal's powers -- so Azal decides to destroy the Doctor.  But when Jo offers to be killed instead of the Doctor, Azal suddenly goes into computer meltdown mode ("This action does not relate.  There is no data.") and blows himself up, along with the church (a famous model shot at the time, but a bit ropey-looking these days).  The Master is captured (for real this time!) and everyone lives happily ever after, as evidenced by all the dancing and the long pull-back from the maypole to the entire village green.

At one point in time The Dæmons was said to be the greatest Doctor Who story ever.  Then once people saw it again its reputation took a tumble, and many declared it to be the worst story ever.  The truth lies somewhere in the middle.  There's nothing really wrong with this story (other than the ending) beyond being self-indulgent -- it does look like the cast and crew enjoyed themselves while making this, and some of that happiness comes across on screen, making things a lot more entertaining to watch than, say, The Web Planet.  Really, the main issue, such as it is, is that Barry Letts (who cowrote this with Robert Sloman under the pseudonym "Guy Leopold") has decided that the third Doctor is first and foremost a man of science, but then he's tried to put him inside a story about magic -- with some gestures towards saying, "No, it's science, really" but not really following through on them.  The result is that there's an odd tension going on in The Dæmons between these two schools of thought, and although Letts and Sloman try to come down on the side of science, they don't do a very good job of it.  Still, there are some good performances and it's paced well, and while that aforementioned self-indulgence can grow a little tiresome at times, in general they keep things watchable.  And it's not like the audience knew ahead of time how abrupt and perfunctory the resolution of the serial would be⁶³.  So it's not the best thing ever, but it also hasn't aged quite as badly as is sometimes said.  Really, with hindsight it just looks like typical Pertwee fare.

So season 8 ends on a bit of a duff note, but for the most part they've done a reasonable (though not outstanding) job with this batch of stories.  You can tell that Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks are getting more comfortable with the show, even if they're starting to chafe at the "exile" format (a format, remember, which they inherited from outgoing producer Derrick Sherwin).  The introduction of the Master gives them a reason for alien invasions and such to keep affecting 1970s Earth without stretching credibility too far (you know what I mean), even if he's really overused by appearing in every story of the season.  But it's hard to gripe too much, since Roger Delgado is so magnificent in the role.  It's not a groundbreaking season and there's no major shift of emphasis -- unlike before, this season feels essentially the same as the last, only with extra bits added to change things around a little.  Even the trip to an alien planet has a feel of being more of the same, just in a different location.  But the ratings (which have been starting to go up again) suggest that that's what the audience wants, and there's enough here that's "new" to make it still worth doing.  Season 8 is a bit of a qualified success, but it's a success nevertheless.

So things are working out for the show again; now, can they keep it up?







⁶³ It's so abrupt, in fact, that one of fandom's more successful April Fool's jokes involved the "reveal" that there had been a sixth episode filmed but which hadn't aired because it was too controversial -- a story which more than a few fans swallowed.