2. The Daemons (1971)
Greg: Oh, The Daemons is another with a special resonance. It’s like a Hammer Horror movie. It too aired on the BBC in that divine year of 1993. And added to all the nostalgia.
Sam: Not quite. I think it was 1992, albeit at the end of the year, on BBC 2. I remember watching that first episode after all the fanfare on Tomorrow’s World – those boffins at the BBC had somehow managed to electronically bring back the colour to the old black and white film prints.
Greg: Although I still think the colours run horribly. It has never looked like, say, Death to the Daleks to me. Ho-hum. But I can’t watch it now without thinking of us all there for my stag do in 2015: gathered at the war memorial, retracing the steps of Bok at the church, or raising hell in the Cloven Hoof. We had to walk off a hangover to see the Devil’s Hump.
Sam: Oh well, where to start. This is the only one in our list which features the first, and definitive Master as played by Roger Delgado. He has some scheme going on in a Tory village where he’s attempting to raise hell by summoning an ancient Daemon from his slumber at an archaeological dig. It’s all terribly Quatermass and the Pit meets The Wicker Man – as the Doctor races to the site to stop the great re-opening but all hell, quite literally, breaks loose.
Greg: Did you remember filming there as Alistair Fergus in 1971?
Sam: Yes I know I look like David Simeon, who plays a rather cocky TV presenter for – wait for it – BBC Three!
Greg: So prophetic. Doctor Who invented BBC Three in 1971…
Sam: It seemed a ludicrous possibility, even in 1992, that the Beeb could scrape up enough licence money for another channel. A savvy prediction from the writer, producer Barry Letts.
Greg: I understand BBC Three is just for young people or the unemployed. I don’t watch it.
Sam: Funnily enough, I’d expect a live outside broadcast of an archaeological dig to be on BBC Four now, or more likely Radio 4.
Greg: Is nobody interested in history?
Sam: Not one line, no. So, the Doctor basically gets trapped in a village for five episodes and has a to-do with the local vicar – The Master – whilst fending off all sorts of spectres and demons. We have Bok, for instance, the animated gargoyle. Then there’s the giant Daemon himself…
Greg: In a very shouty performance from Stephen Thorne, who would pop up later as Omega and Eldred.
Sam: He’s supposed to be the devil, I guess. And he is a giant, so I feel he’s allowed to shout a bit. Has a nice beard. Looks a bit like a Shoreditch hipster.
Greg: He looks good in those hairy tights though. Bok the gargoyle is pretty effective, because of the postures and movements the actor gives him.
Sam: I’d love to have Bok in my garden. Pertwee kept the statue for years, apparently… a memorable little character.
Greg: But really Roger Delgado and Jon Pertwee are just so cool, that’s what’s selling it. Everyone’s having a blast. And the village doctor looks uncannily like Dirk Bogarde! You can’t trust Morris Dancers though – I bet that upset Mrs Whitehouse!
Sam: Oh indeed, it’s all dastardly evil stuff – not sympathetic to god-fearing Songs of Praise viewers – but to us Catholic-raised heathens, it certainly raises some old fears. The character I always remember from this tale is Miss Hawthorne, the local white witch – she’s ridiculed from the outset, yet you know she’s talking some sort of sense. After all, the Doctor has a lot of time for her. It’s an open-minded story…
Greg: True, but Dr. Who demonstrates the difference between magic and science to Jo Grant in the first episode, and insists that everything must have a rational explanation. The story offers a rational theory for the sightings of the Devil throughout human history and across civilisations, but not the association with evil. But that’s not territory a family show can go down, I suppose.
Sam: Again, it helps that much of it is shot on location and everyone is taking it seriously. I remember being very worried at the cliff hanger of episode one – when the Doctor fails to prevent the re-opening of the ancient burial site and gets “killed” in a shockwave of snow and ice. It’s a perfect kick-off to a story.
Greg: Chilling. Quite literally.
Sam: And the way the story is told partially through the medium of a live TV broadcast is very forward thinking. The next time the BBC would do such a thing would be Ghostwatch (1992) and that ended pretty badly on Points of View.
Greg: Ghostwatch was terrifying! Nobody needs to see a possessed Parkie. Barry Letts did a really good job on this one, and his Target novelisation is another stonewall classic from that range.
Sam: The fact the books from this whole era are so good says something about how lean and well-plotted the stories are, even if the production values occasionally let the side down. Before we move on to the greatest Pertwee adventure of them all, let’s just touch on a few of those stories that just missed the gold standard…
