DOCTOR WHO-THE DAEMONS

 

DOCTOR WHO-COLONY IN SPACE episodes 3 to 6, THE DAEMONS episode 1

COLONY IN SPACE is addictive. You can’t just watch one. From the start of this story, with its vast opening in space, one wonders if you’ll hear or see William Shatner at any moment but it’s really more LOST IN SPACE and EARTH 2 than anything else. I am also quite impressed that they held the Master back until episode 4, where it is a real surprise as opposed to the DAEMONS where a poor, cute dog is killed off (off screen and hard to notice but there's the book...) in the first minute (mind the old man too). There’s also a horror feeling for the first time in the series…at least as a horror story through and through, though we’ve had horrific moments in many Troughton stories and a few Hartnell stories, this seems to be steeped more in the traditions of horror (rat, cat, frog, lightning storm and rain, an old village…all in the first minute!) and almost resembles a Hammer movie, sort of. I don’t know what Benton means in ep1 when he talks of his night being put off. Back to COLONY: there’s plenty of action to go around, if it’s not the Doctor kicking a remote that will kill Jo out of the Master’s hands or the colonists have a huge gun fight with the IMC mining murderers (mind Caldwell, though, and I’m glad when Norton gets shot by Winton; ahh yes Winton, man of action and slim!), there’s the exploding doomsday weapon inside the ancient city and the tall green alien primitives attacking the miner who holds Jo (good on them!) prisoner or Jo and the Doctor gassed in the well-dressed Master’s well-dressed TARDIS interior, which I think we might see here for the first time. It looks great. I’m sure ABOUT TIME has a huge section on both COLONY IN SPACE and THE DAEMONS but…I don’t care about the flaws, I love them both!

In DAEMONS, which stands out, part 1: the Doctor is cranky and nasty to the bar men and this time, I see it as rightfully so because they’re being deliberately silly and one of them seems to be working with the Master, who’s infuriation over not being able to stop the local white witch, Miss Hawthorne (a terrific character) with hypnosis is fun to watch. Delgado, as ever, is a joy to watch. I feared for her life when he sent a man after her.

As ever in DW, Ash has to sacrifice himself to save his colonists; the Master gets away in his TARDIS, the machine disguised as a traditional rocket ship. The cliffhangers in COLONY are wonderful, especially the cliffhanger that has a build up to there’s some creature in the cave bit of discussion…to have the tall green savages herd Jo into the cave in the dark and closing, the stone wall entrance to their built in the mountain city, Jo is almost in the dark, totally…and hears a sound. It’s terrifying to NOT see the monster. I like the three races in this. The little priests are hilarious enough but when we see the Doomsday Weapon’s guardian, the leader, the highest evolved one and the one who seems to talk telepathically, it’s downright laugh out loud and sort of horrific at the same time. He’s kind of cute. He’s kind of terrifying. Of course, BLAKE’S SEVEN would use this same puppet thing to a more horrific tone.

Jo’s one huge mistake here is to walk into the beam she and the Doctor just crawled under and she gets herself and the Doctor gassed as her action lead to the Master being alerted that they were in his TARDIS. There’s a bit of continuity in that Jo recalls the Master’s TARDIS being a horse box (BUT she must have seen it in THE CLAWS OF AXOS as not) and that the Doctor has the Master’s key. He takes quite a chance dropping it in front of the TARDIS where the evil Morgan finds it but gives it to Caldwell, who’s the one good IMC guy. Morgan is happily also shot in the last shootout with the rebels. The one who gets away with life is the evil Captain Dent, who is as bad as the Master with is evil plotting. He knows the colonists’ spaceship will blow up on lift off but continues to fake that it will not, planning to kill them off with cold efficiency. He’s a horrible man. I wonder if there are any returns for this character in novels or audios.

Of course, that the IMC evil men can use that robot to fool anyone is silly but you take it as given.

Which is what DOCTOR WHO and many other shows were about in the 1960s and 70s. You took what was given and usually the outcome was fun, imaginative, and stimulating. These days there are so many impatient for fantastic special effects, quick pay offs, and long winded realistic story arcs that many of the styles of the 60s and 70s are long gone. It could be that it is just there are so many available movies and shows now…no one seems to want to sample anything that doesn’t grab them right away and it is understandable.

The truth is COLONY IN SPACE, launching the Doctor back into space (yes, by the Time Lords but he didn’t know that, the smug ()*&AR^ that he is…yet he himself tells Jo that the Brig wouldn’t understand that to him, he and Jo were only gone for a few seconds instead of many days) and THE DAEMONS featuring horror decorations out and out for the first time (unless you count THE CHASE’s Drac and Frank robots) are two of the best stories of DOCTOR WHO from ANY era.

Love Pertwee and his mannerisms. BUT WHY does he put a hand on the Master’s shoulder as if they’re old friends taking a walk in one scene? Love when he touches his own face, has Jo hugging him, and rubs the back of his neck! One thing: if Earth’s government in the future has good records, they must know the Doctor, from 3 onward, has saved Earth a billion times…would the Doc really need credentials in this time zone? Of course, much of that hasn’t happened yet.

DOCTOR WHO-THE DAEMONS ep 2

Classic! Love this story! Love this episode! The Doctor’s frozen and looks dead! Dr. Reeves examines him though and thinks he hears two hearts. Benton and Yates fly the Brig’s helicopter (he gets word of this while in bed!) to Devil’s End (one of the other towns on the sign reads Satan something or other) and see huge hoof prints (something like this happened in 1885---in Devonshire; lots of hoof prints found in places unusual—many are convinced it was a hoax) from the copter in impressive sequences. A policeman is killed (I believe the same one that was taken over briefly in ep1 to try to kill Olive Hawthorne). The Master does masterly things and honestly, Delgado commands attention in every scene he’s in. As if the show can do no wrong in this story (and it can’t!), the Doctor recovers (“He doesn’t look all that tough.”) and he and Jo go to the dig site and the Doctor explains in a wonderful scene. He believes and Jo are next to an alien spaceship but another miniature ship in the dirt below them is also extra-terrestrial. As he talks, in full daylight morning, BOK, the wonderful and horrible creature rises from a hill side and stalks across the grass and enters the dig to confront the pair, roaring at them both into the cliffhanger ending theme music. Just marvelous scene! It’s what DW is all about really. I suppose, to some, the scene in execution might look silly but in the context of the rest of the story, it works. It always worked for me.

 

There are also many, many wonderful lines here:

BRIGADIER: I see, Yates. So, the Doctor was frozen stiff at the barrow and was then revived by a freak heat wave. Benton was beaten up by invisible forces and the local white witch claims she's seen the Devil.

 

DOCTOR: If my theory's right, we're all in mortal danger.

 JO: Everyone in the village?

 DOCTOR: Everyone in the whole world. Ah. (He sees something on the floor and brushes the soil away.)

 JO: What is it?

 DOCTOR: Metal.

 JO: It looks like a model spaceship.

 DOCTOR: That's right. Except that it isn't a model.

 JO: What is it then?

 DOCTOR: Jo, look at the shape of this tomb.

 JO: Well, it looks like that spaceship.

 DOCTOR: A different size, that's all. Now you try picking it up.

 JO: I can't. It's fixed down.

 DOCTOR: The reason why you can't pick it up is that is weighs about seven hundred and fifty tons, at a rough guess.

 JO: Oh, come on, be serious.

 DOCTOR: Be serious. All right. About a hundred thousand years ago

 

 (Meanwhile, the gargoyle - whose name is Bok, apparently - enters the barrow and goes down to terrorise the Doctor and Jo in the chamber.)

 

The mix of horror, location work, the copter, the village itself, the relationship between Benton (“He’s a very heavy young man.”) and Olive, and the sets all work together to be a fascinating moment in DW history. There’s nothing quite like THE DAEMONS.

 

 

DOCTOR WHO-THE DAEMONS episode 3

 

BRIGADIER: We've no idea what you're talking about, Doctor. Over.

 

Another classic episode. The Doctor seems hard on Jo but obviously loves her anyway. And yes, it is obvious. Their rapport right after the cliffhanger is resolved and the Doctor repels Bok with an old Venusian lullaby and Bok’s belief in magic is…in itself, well, magic. I love how Jo laughs at the Doctor’s translation of the lullaby (DOCTOR: No, it's the first line of an old Venusian lullaby, as a matter of fact. Roughly translated it goes, 'Close your eyes, my darling. Well, three of them, at least'.)

 

Then in the face of some of the current Doctors (11 and 12), the Doctor admits to a fault: (DOCTOR: I must admit, that thing took me completely by surprise.) In fact, if you don’t like this story, you probably really don’t like DW but are in heat for David Tennant or Matt Smith, which is understandable, I suppose.

 

Some classic lines again including, “Stow your stumps, Jo,” and this from Yates: (YATES: I see, so all we've got to deal with is something which is either too small to see or thirty feet tall, can incinerate you or freeze you to death, turns stone images into homicidal monsters and looks like the very devil. DOCTOR: Exactly.)

 

Fans or so called fans of the modern series who criticize the Classic Series for being too slow, have never compared this story to some slow moving, morbid trash like THE SNOWMEN. This story, and this episode, move fast. The pace is almost unbelievable and there’s hardly a moment that’s not interesting, funny, or exciting. Bok’s destruction of Winstanley could have been better executed but it gets the message across. AND the Master’s turn from a charming promising the world Vicar to threatening menace at the townspeople (are they all in on the cult?) is a bit too fast.

 

There’s also the UNIT call names such as Greyhound Two or Trap Two.

 

ABOUT TIME tells us all that is wrong about this story and this episode’s helicopter chase, which to me is well realized and quite exciting. I also LOVE the Doctor’s explanations to the gang (Jo, Yates, Benton, Olive) in the pub. As only Pertwee can do without sounding too patronizing, too menacing, too scary, and too much of anything: yet he’s all of those things and comforting as well. The sound of his voice just tells us we should be worried about the whole world but also that he will probably have this! Love HIM!

 

A Sergeant Osgood appears in this episode and while he doesn’t do much here, he will in the next episode, trying to follow the Doctor’s instructions to get through the heat barrier. While on that, the Doctor derides the Brig a lot but when Jo does the same he derides HER! There’s just no pleasing some people!

 

(JO: Of all the idiotic plans. As if blowing things up solves anything.

DOCTOR: 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. Coming?)

 

Love him sticking up for the Brig but poor Jo.

 

There are those who ponder the Master in trouble in the cliffhanger but the point is: the whole world is in trouble as Ms. Hawthrone incorrectly states, “The demon! If he comes out, we shall all die!”

 

I might be partial to this story and this episode but…there’s few episodes in ANY era to challenge or better it. Yes, there might be better stories (TALONS, DOOMSDAY, CHRISTMAS INVASION, EARTHSHOCK) but few are more chilling, entertaining, fun, and exciting, sometimes in the same scene. THE DAEMONS is probably my favorite Pertwee story and one of my top five DW stories overall. For me, it all works. I love the atmosphere and the back drop of this village (love Yates fight against the seemingly super strong Girton, who tries to fly into Bessie or herd it into the heat barrier!).

 

 

DOCTOR WHO-THE DAEMONS episodes 4 and 5

Everyone’s in their top game in these two episodes. Let’s get this out of the way first: Jo in the TV version tries to stop the Master sacrificing a chicken and the Master claims she’s too late. We sort of see it lying on the tablet and it looks dead but there’s really no blood and no blood on the knife. But Azal appears. So did the chicken die? We never saw the knife descend. In the novelization, Jo grabs the chicken and it struggles free “to safety.” Also, it appears that the young man who held Jo but tried to protest that “this is not right,” is named Jones by TARDISWIKIA but in the novel, he is named Stan Wilkins. In fact, in the novel, a few other townspeople are renamed or named and given last names. Also: when the Doctor pleads for Azal to let Jo go, he does by zapping the young man holding her. Does this man die, even after protesting? In the novel, he is in the epilogue. I’m not sure in the TV show we see him again and he is NOT the guard zapped, who is only zapped but not killed. For a long time, I wondered if Osgood was killed when the machine (the Doc’s heat exchanger) he made from the Doctor’s orders blew up. It would have helped to have seen him again after the scene but we do not.

 

Of note: Steven Moffat wrote the new series Petronella Osgood (the awful character) as the daughter of Sergeant Tom Osgood, a UNIT Technical Officer who appeared on screen in the Jon Pertwee era, in a story called "The Daemons" though their relationship has never been confirmed on screen. Tom Osgood sported glasses much like hers and he accompanied Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart for the story, who is the father of Kate Stewart, Petronella Osgood's boss and the character she is paired with in all her appearances.

 

Tom Osgood (as he’s called) has a future and more adventures in the short stories and audios, it would seem:

 

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Tom_Osgood

 

In any case, The Doctor gets to order Osgood around a bit; the Brig gets some great scenes (Nick is just wonderful and in this he’s beyond wonderful) and lines such as:

 

BRIGADIER: Just do as you're told, Sergeant. The Doctor knows what he's doing.

OSGOOD: Right, sir. Right, Jenkins, have you got that junction box lined up?

BRIGADIER: Do you know what you're doing?

DOCTOR: My dear chap, I can't wait to find out.

 

And the famous, “Chap with wings there, five rounds rapid.”

 

The Doctor gets menaced by maypole dancers. Benton gets to fight several times and step-jump off Bessie to tackle the Master, who’s, surprisingly, captured at the end of this. Delgado shines, again! Benton also gets to pull off some shots to make the Doctor look like a wizard. The Doctor trusts the villagers and tells them the truth anyway later on. Miss Hawthorne makes a great companion. Jo goes and does what Jo does, including, impressively climbing off a roof down a well-placed ladder (mike in her bedroom maybe seen) IN HIGH HEELS! I sometimes get the novel mixed up with this version because I read that first. They’re pretty close though the vines that grabbed Jo in the book seem more menacing and alive; in the TV version they seem as if they’re just vines. One gets the feeling that some stuff was toned down to not scare the audience too much!

 

Yates does what Yates does; follows Jo, calls her an idiot, once to her face, and gets captured and tied up again (though not sure why Bok didn’t kill him). Bok kills at least one UNIT man and two villagers and yet he seems much more evil and insidious. Even Bessie shines in some of her greatest moments, running over the Master!

 

The obvious flaws and ones not so obvious do not detract from this story and these two episodes in particular. Everything looks great. The village back drop looks great (I noticed a car driving behind UNIT though) and again, everyone’s doing what they do best and upping it.

 

THE DAEMONS is not perfect but it’s as close to it as DOCTOR WHO gets. It is highly entertaining.