The Dæmons Episode Five

The one where Jo saves the day by offering to sacrifice herself...

It's an interesting idea that what we classify as magic is actually just a form of alien science that we don't understand. It sort of matches the belief that anything supernatural or paranormal is actually just the result of some kind of scientific discovery we have yet to make. It's an ingenious idea to have Azal awoken by psychokinetic power, the gathering of violent emotions such as greed and fear, which forms the basis of the Daemons' science. To us, psychokinesis is a paranormal mystery yet to be cracked, but to the Daemons, it's E=MC².

So you'd think that the Doctor might try and defeat Azal using the power of his own science, harnessing the collective psychokinetic energy of the villagers and UNIT personnel to fight back against him. But instead, he plans to use some dodgy gadget he's got Osgood to lash up, and which actually blows up before it can be of any use. The Doctor's very last resort is to just walk into the cavern and hope he can reason with Azal.

The Dæmons Episode Four

The one where the Doctor is attacked by Morris dancers...

"Eee-ooo-evaway! Eee-ooo-evaway, Azal!" intones the Master at the top of the episode, causing me to momentarily think I'd accidentally turned on a foreign language dub on the DVD. It's remarkable how the scenes with Roger Delgado in flowing Pagan robes, summoning the Daemon Azal in a cavern beneath the local church, could come straight out of a Dennis Wheatley novel. It's obvious the writers and director were influenced by Terence Fisher's Hammer adaptation of The Devil Rides Out three years previously.

The second coming of Azal causes more earth tremors and freak weather conditions, waking Jo from her unconscious slumber and somehow instilling in her a powerful need to go to the cavern. I'm not clear on why Jo has this sudden compulsion to go to the cavern, because when she was last conscious she was accompanying the Doctor to meet the Brigadier at the heat barrier. So obsessed is she with getting to the cavern that she decides to elude her colleagues downstairs in the bar and climb out of the bedroom window, using one of those Very Convenient Ladders you see about all the time.

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!

The Dæmons Episode Two

The one where the Doctor spends most of the episode in a refrigerated coma...

The Doctor and Professor Horner have been engulfed in a strange icy storm released when the first stone in the tomb is moved. While Jo goes to great lengths to make sure her Doctor is cared for properly, the fate of poor Professor Horner is sadly glossed over. Yes, he dies, but nobody seems very bothered. In fact, BBC crewman Harry is very laid back when it comes to health and safety, insisting that the Doctor's "had it" and that's that. No call to the emergency services, nothing.

Luckily, Devil's End has its own medical professional, and once the Doctor's been transferred to the Cloven Hoof pub, Dr Reeves gives him a thorough examination, identifying that he has two hearts along the way. After initially believing the Doctor to be dead ("very nearly a solid block of ice", in fact), Dr Reeves then believes there's life in the old Doc yet and calls for plenty of blankets to warm him up. And still nobody thinks to call an ambulance. Later we learn that Dr Reeves says it's best not to move the Doctor to hospital. But that's what ambulances are for - they have wheels and they can come to you, full of medicines and machinery which may be able to help! In their efforts to keep this story a "village under siege", writers Barry Letts and Robert Sloman are overlooking some pretty obvious plot holes.

The Dæmons Episode One

The one where the Horned Beast is woken from his slumber live on BBC Television...

The Dæmons opens like one of the best Hammer horror films. It's got rolling thunder and sheet lightning, torrential rain and howling wind, a churchyard, spewing gargoyles, toads, cats, owls and rats. As a mission statement for what's to come, you couldn't get more explicit.

And to top it all, a lonesome man and his dog tumble out of the local inn and fight their way through the driving wind and rain into the churchyard, where the poor dog is killed by something terrible off-screen, and we get a fantastic close-up of Jim's horrified face just before he is bumped off too. Now that would make a damn good cold open (I often wish some clever YouTuber would re-edit classic stories to give them New Series style cold opens).