Doctor Who: The Daemons

Classic Who story #59 is finally being released and, quite rightly, is being offered up with more than a few bangs and whistles on its two disks, incl an audio commentary track with Katy Manning ("Jo Grant"), Richard Franklin ("UNIT Captain Mike Yates"), Damaris Hayman ("Olive Hawthorne"), and director Christopher Barry, and a "making of" doc entitled "The Devil Rides Out", featuring the above plus script editor Terrance Dicks and an archival interview with the late producer Barry Letts, who was at the helm during Jon Pertwee's years as the (third) Doctor. Speaking of, the dvd extras include a "tribute doc" called "Remembering Barry Letts". Sadly, contrary to what I and, no doubt, many others were hoping, the extras do NOT include the straight-to-video documentary RETURN TO DEVIL'S END (in which Pertwee, who passed away in 1996, talks about the story that he deemed his personal fav - the doc/dvd is, however, available on sites such as timesforgottendvd).

As for the story ... well, let me just state for Who fans who haven't had the opportunity to see this five episode 1971 story that it features "the Master" (gloriously portrayed by Roger Delgado) once again stirring up trouble, this time at a prehistoric barrow near the village of Devil's End, in Wiltshire, in a quest to attain the power of Azal (played by the excellent Stephen Thorne, though in this appearance as an alien, he's sporting cloven hooves rather than Wellies), the last of the Daemons, a race of powerful beings who have helped shape the course of human history. If that's not enuf, there's also the involvement of the Brig (Nicholas Courtney), Capt. Yates, Sgt. Benton (John Levene), and UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Task force), but, as it turns out, it's Jo, the Doctor's assistant/"companion" (no, not in THAT sense), who is of most help to the Time Lord.

And, as one of several great Doctor Who stories wherein supernatural occurrences are "explained away" with science, it's fitting that THE DAEMONS should feature an indestructible stone gargoyle - named "Bok" (played by Stanley Mason) - that's brought to life in the service of Azal, a demonic-looking creature. Taken together, it's not surprising that this story consistently gets voted among "classic" Who's all-time top 25.

Enjoy.

* UPDATE *

According to the website, dvdactive, episodes 1 & 2 supposedly look almost as good as the original Quad master tapes, ep 5 isn't far behind, but ep 3 looks "soft" by comparison. They didn't mention how well ep 4 turned out, but I wd assume that it must look very good becuz it was the only one that still existed in (colour) PAL format (for the 1993 VHS release of THE DAEMONS, the monochrome film of the other four ep's was overlaid onto the NTCS colour signal from an "off air" VCR recording of them). The site also noted that the video sequences looked better than the scenes shot on film. Hope that they're right and that this helps.

* UPDATE #2 *

Have since received the dvd and, yes, the Who restoration team did a bang up job considering how bad the "masters" that they were using were and that this story, again, was from 1971. The sound quality is also better than on the VHS offering, but that's not saying a whole lot since the story was recorded in mono. For fans of Barry Letts - of which I am one - this dvd is worth purchasing just for the featurette on his career.

"The Daemons" is commonly regarded as one of the best Doctor Who serials of all time ... yet it's also one of the last serials to be released on DVD. Was the long wait worth it?

My answer to that question is "sort of." Compared to other 2-disc Doctor Who DVDs, "The Daemons" gets merely an average presentation. The print quality on most of the episodes is rather soft and muted, improving only slightly on the old VHS print. (This is due to a preservation issue, by the way; I believe the BBC wiped the original videotapes of The Daemons, with the exception of episode four, so the remaining episodes are inferior second-generation copies.) The mandatory "making of" special feature is included, but it's a little disappointing because it lacks archival footage of Jon Pertwee, who really loved this serial. I think the second featurette, which covers the career of the late producer Barry Letts, is much stronger; it includes genuinely moving tributes to Letts by his children, and his good friend Terrance Dicks.

The other special features consist of dull technical stuff. While the overall DVD package is mildly impressive, I'd say that some of the older 2-disc Doctor Who releases (e.g. Day of the Daleks, Survival) are much better, in that they include more (and more diverse) bonus materials.

As for the serial itself ... I'm afraid I've always found it to be a bit overrated. True, "The Daemons" does have some unique strengths - including extensive location filming, some great guest characters (I particularly like Ms. Hawthorne and Professor Horner), and a clever set-up in episode one. But in my view, the plot is somewhat half-baked (what exactly is Azal trying to achieve by interfering with humanity?), and the director's attempts to create a creepy atmosphere are often undermined by the ridiculous dinky soundtrack. So, with its frustrating mixture of high points and lows, I think "The Daemons" is ultimately little better than average Doctor Who, and far from the show at its best.

This is not to say that "The Daemons" isn't cool. I enjoy it, and I like this DVD release ... sort of. I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could, but minus that option, I settled on 3.

"The Daemons" tells a so-so story with an unimaginative premise and a flimsy plot resolution, but its strong sense of characterization, smart use of location filming and masterful special effects on a shoestring budget made it an effective finale to Jon Pertwee's second season as the Doctor.

A nationally televised archeological dig at an ancient burial mound outside the sleepy English village of Devil's End worries the Doctor, so he and Jo set off in Bessie to investigate. The Master is posing as the town vicar and using black magic to conjure Azal, a dead ringer for Satan who is actually the last of the Daemons, miniature aliens from the planet Daemos who have been visiting Earth for centuries, directing mankind along the generally self-destructive path it has followed throughout history.

Damaris Hayman steals the show as the town's resident white witch, Miss Hawthorne. Director Christopher Barry had originally visualized her character as a tweedy, dithering dabbler in the dark arts, but Hayman, who enjoyed some personal knowledge of the occult, refused to allow her character to be used merely for comic relief and made her a linchpin of the story. Although Miss Hawthorne mistakenly attributes the power of black magic to supernatural forces rather than to rational scientific phenomena as explained by the Doctor, she nevertheless understands how it works, if not exactly why, and therefore knows how to combat it. "The Daemons" also brings out the personal sides of the otherwise cardboard-cutout UNIT characters, such as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Sgt. Benton. When Capt. Mike Yates asks Lethbridge-Stewart if he'd like to dance in the May Day revels at the end of the story, for instance, the Brigadier thanks him but says he would prefer a pint and heads off to the town pub.

"The Daemons" is almost a master class in the clever use of low-budget special effects, which are key to the nostalgic appeal of Doctor Who as a sci-fi series. By miniaturizing the Daemons' spaceship and burying it in the ground, for instance, the show's producers were able to build the model spaceship required for about one-fourth of the budgeted cost. The micro-sized Daemon, which viewers otherwise never see, is then enlarged to its full 20-foot height by the use of colour separation overlay (or the "psychokinetic energy" of human fear unleashed by the Master's incantations, as the Doctor explains). A shimmering hole made in the story's "heat barrier" is produced by filming a simple metal frame festooned with tinsel through a filter smeared with petroleum jelly. Small explosive charges in objects, such as sticks, thrown at the heat barrier are detonated by an invisible nylon line attached to the actor. "The Daemons" also made substantial use of "mirrorlon," a flexible reflective material that allowed the crew to "shake" or otherwise manipulate a scene's image as it was being shot and then reverse the image electronically to disguise the fact it was mirrored.

Tapes of this story, like many featuring the first three doctors, were wiped in the mid-'70s as part of the BBC's infamous purge of its archives, so this DVD restores the episodes from black-and-white film of the original video and color from a video copy made by a viewer. The results vary: colors sometimes seem washed out and the picture fuzzy; other times the picture is sharp and the colors vivid. Not the best of all possible worlds, but better than the alternatives: black-and-white only or no record of the story at all.

The chief weakness of "The Daemons" as a story, besides the fact that much of it was lifted from "Quatermass and the Pit," is its lame plot resolution. Without giving away the ending, let it suffice to say that Azal is defeated by a psychological (some might even say spiritual) rather than physical or scientific means that even script editor Terrance Dicks found deeply unconvincing. This two-disc set comes with a wealth of Special Features not to be missed, however, including an informative making-of documentary and a moving, 33-minute tribute to producer Barry Letts, who enjoyed a lifelong career in acting, writing and directing at the BBC before succumbing to a three-year battle with cancer in October 2009. Before passing, he contributed hours of invaluable interviews about the making of Doctor Who for various features in the DVD series. It's easy to forget that producing Doctor Who was only one facet of his wide-ranging career.

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