The Dæmons Episode Three

The one where the Master bends an entire village to his will (so mote it be)...

The Doctor fends off the savage living gargoyle (named Bok) by wielding an iron trowel and reciting a line from an old Venusian lullaby: "Klokleda partha menin klatch." Which apparently translates as: "Close your eyes, my darling (well three of them at least)"! What a gorgeous little exchange this is between the Doctor and Jo (of course, the lullaby will be used again to placate another roaring nasty in the very next season...).

Bok is actually rather sweet. I love how, just before he flees by wing back to his Master, he has one last little snarl at the Doctor and Jo, by way of a parting fright. He may be compact, but Bok's got plenty of fire in him, as we shall see!

At Squire Winstanley's house, the Master decides to hold a village meeting in order to get the people of Devil's End on his side. He first convinces Winstanley to stand by his side by telling him he can manipulate the forces which have awakened at the dig to control the world. The Master offers Winstanley to "share his triumph", and spouts a lot of fascist propaganda (denouncing freedom and democracy) which appears to appeal to the Squire rather too easily.

The Master's meeting with the villagers goes equally as smoothly, somehow managing to convince them all that they can rule the world if they obey his will completely. The people of Devil's End strike me as a) gullible, and b) preternaturally power-hungry, because it takes very little persuasion for them to believe that their new vicar is essentially a new messiah. Mind you, the Master does use a rather clever method of persuasion to convince a few of the villagers, namely gossip! Yes, the Master seems to have dirt on all of them, whether it be Mr Thorpe "padding the grocery bills of the local gentry", or Charlie cooking the books at the Post Office. Most sinister of all is Mr Grenville: "Has your wife come back from her sister's yet? Will she ever come back, do you suppose?" Has Grenville's wife left him, and if so, what did he do wrong? Or perhaps he's bumped her off and buried her in the garden? There's definitely a lot more to Mr Grenville than meets the eye...

The Master eventually decides that blackmail isn't enough, and turns to Bok for help in scaring them witless (and, in Winstanley's case, total destruction). His patience with these people wears thin very quickly, describing them as "less than dust beneath my feet" at one point!

Meanwhile, the Doctor's in info-dump mode, using Miss Hawthorne's prized collection of occult books to illustrate his theory about what's going on. The Doctor says the folkloric image of the Horned Beast has been translated into myth all through time, whether it be in Ancient Egypt or in the Hindu religion. Creatures with horns all derive from an alien race called the Daemons ("day-mons"), from the planet Daemos ("day-moss"), who have been visiting Earth for almost 100,000 years and influencing our evolution, helping Homo Sapiens to "take out" Neanderthal man.

They travel in 200ft x 30ft spaceships which then shrink down to the size of a model, and have continued to revisit Earth to affect their will at key moments in history, including in Greek times, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution. Now the Master wants to harness the power of the Daemons to rule Earth himself. Why, I have no idea, but the Master doesn't seem to need a reason to do what he does. To the Daemons, Earth and its humans are a mere laboratory experiment.

The Doctor knew this all along. It seems he's always known about the Daemons and their frequent visits to Earth, that humanity is just a lab rat, but he's never thought that it might be wrong, or something that needs sorting out. He's been perfectly fine with the Daemons exerting their influence on the human race. He's just none too pleased about the Master getting in on the act.

There's a lot of information imparted in this episode, not all of which makes sense, but it's a good start. The Doctor says Azal will appear three times, so does that mean he's already appeared once? Was that what all of the POV camera stuff was in episode 2? But all of that was from the perspective of a very tall (or airborne) creature, so why does the Doctor say that the Daemon cannot be found as it is currently so small it's "practically invisible"?

The cliffhanger - which unusually involves the Master, rather than a goodie, being in danger - would appear to be the second of Azal's three appearances, but I'm still not sure why he keeps appearing and disappearing. Why does Azal's power turn a stone gargoyle into a living creature? What's Bok for? And why is the decorated tile on the cavern floor deadly (the Doctor refers to it as a "psionic force field")?

The action scenes with the UNIT helicopter chasing the Doctor and Jo in Bessie, and Mike Yates on a bike, are impressively staged, and the chopper's demise when it hits the heat barrier is a spectacular stunt. The Master spies a plume of billowing black smoke from the destruction of the helicopter from his vantage point in the churchyard, a scene almost identical to one in Battlefield 18 years later when Morgaine sees the smoke left by the crashed UNIT helicopter from Carbury's graveyard. Both choppers are the Brigadier's...

First broadcast: June 5th, 1971

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The helicopter chase is a welcome slice of action, including the tussle between Girton and Yates, who fires on the chopper as it swoops away.
The Bad: The Doctor's appallingly insensitive drubbing of poor Jo when he remonstrates with her for disrespecting the Brigadier. The girl is thoroughly humiliated in front of everybody for the second time in as many episodes. The Doctor is just a total bastard here and I momentarily hated him for it.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 13
Neck-rub tally: 5

NEXT TIME: Episode Four...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Four; Episode Five

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-dmons.html

The Dæmons is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-D%C3%A6mons-Jon-Pertwee/dp/B006LI50HI