The Daemons

I first watched The Daemons in when it was repeated on the BBC in 1992. I was eleven years old at the time. I remember my parents being a little concerned about whether it was morally wholesome, with its depictions of Satanism. I remember sharing their concern. Even though I was keen on Doctor Who at that time, I don't remember enjoying it all that much.

The Daemons has a reputation of being a classic, a pinnacle of Seventies Doctor Who. While the story benefits from its beautiful location filming, I really don't see what is so amazing about it. Phil Sandifer has claimed that the New Series has far superior writing and direction than anything in the Classic Series. I don't feel able to dispute the point; I haven't taken a course in media studies and I don't watch television. I don't even own a television. I have absolutely no idea what makes good television. But I think it is fair to say that a lot of classic Doctor Who has been vastly overrated by fans and when held up to scrutiny often shows glaring failings.


To a large extent, The Daemons is Quatermass and the Pit relocated to an English village. I vastly prefer the Quatermass story to this. That story felt eerie and disturbing. The Daemons fails completely to generate the menacing atmosphere of Quatermass and the Pit. The Daemons feels far too cosy. I also prefer the choice of the Quatermass story to give the ancient aliens an insectoid appearance. Making Azal look exactly like a traditional image of Satan is the kind of crass literalism that treats the viewer like an idiot. It's the same crass literalism that requires the Kaleds to look like Nazis and wear Iron Crosses in Genesis of the Daleks.

In Quatermass and the Pit, the ancient aliens are long dead. They are kept at a distance from the viewer, which adds to the sense of eerie mystery and avoids the difficulty of portraying terrifying cosmic evil on the screen. In contrast, in The Daemons, the devil makes a personal appearance and what a letdown he is! Satan turns out to be just another alien. Dr. Who facing the devil ought to be a glorious moment, but we've seen alien races before, but this one is defeated without any effort. There is something utterly soul crushing about the lazy and stupid resolution to this story that matches even the banality of reducing Satan to just another lame monster.


As mentioned above, one of the great strengths of the story is its delightful use of an English village as a location. Unfortunately, the script gives us an appalling set of stereotyped yokels. There are no real a characters among them. They are just a mob. They can be inspired to burn witches simply by the quotation of Scripture. Seriously, how often did witches get burned in Twentieth Century English villages?

Miss Hawthorne is the only real character, other than the regulars. Given her obsession with the Devil and her cosy relationship with the previous vicar, one might have expected her to be an eccentric and over-zealous Christian rather than a witch. She certainly comes across more like a middle-class High Anglican spinster. I suppose having a character with a real Christian faith would raise too many awkward questions about religion.


Although this serial is uniquely a five-part story, it has all the padding of a six-parter. The story is basically gearing up for the big confrontation at the end, but it takes a very long time to get there, with all the nonsense about the heat barrier and the repeated attempts to kill Dr Who. The story feels just too elongated to be really enjoyable.


I don't care much for Jon Pertwee's version of Dr Who, but in this story he is especially annoying. He is so rude, arrogant and patronizing! I want to scream when he tells Jo off for being rude about the Brigadier! And then when Jo saves his life, he does not even bother to thank her. Fans endlessly quote the Brigadier's line about five rounds rapid, but this rather obscures the fact that for most of The Daemons, the character is left standing around.

We do get a lovely performance from Delgado. He never let us down. That said, as a mastermind manipulator, he falls rather short in this. He gathers together the locals to persuade them to join his side. How does he do this? He accuses them of various misdeeds, than insults them and then starts telling them to obey him or he will destroy them. Don't bother running for the local council, Master.


Perhaps I am a bit harsh in my judgement of this story, but it does seem to get a lot of undeserved praise from fans. I do think the production team deserve praise for their ability to come up with Earthbound stories like this one, without ending up with variations on mad scientists and alien invasions. This may not be the most original story, but it does make creative use of the Doctor's exile on Earth.

Terror of the Autons

"I refuse to be worried by a renegade like the Master. He's an unimaginative plodder."

It is unfortunate that script editors in various eras of the show did not share the opinion expressed above. If they had, we would have been spared endless tedious stories about the Master coming up with yet more ludicrous and uninteresting schemes. As I have said before, giving the Doctor an evil opposite number was an all-round bad idea. It made for lazy script writing, it gave us really uninteresting stories like Time Flight and it removed any ambiguity from the Doctor's character by making him into the knight in shining armour.

While the Master is deeply enjoyable in Terror of the Autons, the problem with this character is apparent. He lacks any convincing motivation for his actions and his scheme seems half-thought out. The Doctor points out the flaw in his scheme at the end and he immediately changes sides. A lot more of this sort of thing was on its way.

This story marks big changes to the UNIT format- the change of the uniforms, the introduction of the hopelessly drippy Captain Yates and the transition of the Brigadier to comic opera buffoon. These changes were very much for the worse. The harsh and bleak realist vibe of Season Seven was squeezed out in favour of a much lighter tone, but without any reduction in the horribly high body counts. It began to look like Dad's Army, except with people actually getting killed.

The departure of Liz Shaw and her replacement by Jo Grant was also one of the changes introduced in this story. Liz Shaw was never well developed as a character and the miniskirts she was dressed in did not serve her well, nevertheless her departure is saddening. I am one of those that despise Jo Grant;s character. The way she comes across as so child-like is incredibly annoying.

The Third Doctor was arrogant in Season 7, but in this story he becomes particularly obnoxious. Particularly, as he is given a stupid young woman that he can constantly patronise. It also turns out that the Doctor is a patrician who attends private clubs with government ministers. I'm a Tory myself, but I don't particularly care for the Doctor being an establishment figure, regardless of my own politics. It has been suggested that Holmes did not really intend this to be the case; the Doctor was supposed to be making up that nonsense about knowing the minister, but Pertwee misunderstood this and played it as sincere.

Terror of the Autons is not blessed with a strong plot. It feels like a move from one set piece to another. The way it delights in one clever form of killing after another feels gimmicky. It is unfortunate that the creators of the BBC Wales series felt this was the way to do Doctor Who, hence such absurdities as robot Santas and Sat-Navs that kill people. It has been argued that there is a form of satire going on in Terror of the Autons, with the tastelessness of plastic consumer products being shown up. This would be rather more meaningful if it were people that bought plastic products being killed by them, but the plastic chair kills a man who thinks it looks tacky and the troll doll kills a man who thinks it looks hideous.

I'm not sure the Nestenes needed a return after Spearhead from Space. As I argued with regard to that story, the Nestenes don't quite feel believable. Everything about them seems tailored for invading Twentieth Century Britain. It is impossible to imagine the Nestenes having an existence independently of a UNIT story. They are a plot device for writing gimmicky stories.

On the positive side, Michael Wisher gives an impressive performance as the young factory director. His relationship with the charismatic Master is very well accomplished.

A lot of fans regard Terror of the Autons very highly, but I'm afraid it's really not my cup of tea.

Season 8

Despite disliking Pertwee, I quite like Season 7. That had been a very experimental period in the history of the show in which a rather gritty realistic approach had been taken. Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks felt that this approach would not chime well with the viewers and so quite a number of changes were introduced. UNIT were given a new set of uniforms and were changed from being a serious military unit into a sort of Dad's Army. The Brigadier was increasingly used for comic relief. The Doctor became increasingly chummy with him, yet also became even more arrogant and obnoxious.

Liz Shaw had been a bit boring, but she was intelligent and independent minded. This was not to the taste of Letts and Dicks, who decided to replace her with a companion who was rather less intelligent. Thus, we see the arrival in this season of Jo Grant, who is in my opinion the worst of all Doctor Who companions. Yes, Adric was annoying but teenagers often are. In Jo Grant we see the spectacle of a grown woman who talks and acts like a thirteen year old girl. She was an infantilised companion to accompany the infantilising of the show.

Season 8 also introduced Roger Delgado's Master. Letts and Dicks liked him so much that they stuck him in every story of this season. You might think even the Master deserved some annual leave. To be fair, Roger Delgado gave us some brilliant performances and few Whovians can fail to enjoy the camp fun he brought. However, in my judgment, the introduction of the Master was a bad move. In this season it lead to some rather lazy storywriting and with every appearance, his schemes became ever more ridiculous. Another problem of the Master was that he in effect acted as the Doctor's evil alter ego and this forced the Doctor to become a less ambiguous, more saintly figure. Thus, we had the Pertwee Doctor always moralizing and acting as a white knight in shining armour. The Third Doctor could never bring himself to find a final solution to the Master problem. We can well imagine that the First and Second Doctor would have made sure the Master died a violent death.

This season had some reasonable stories, but on the whole was rather lacking the inspired quality of the previous season:

Terror of the Autons- 6/10
Arguably it has a tighter plot than Spearhead from Space, but lacks the impact of the first Auton story. It also introduced an element of gimmickiness, with everyday objects becameing killing machines. RT Davies unfortunately had the idea that this was the way to do Doctor Who and gave us too many of such gimmicks in the BBC Wales series.

Mind of Evil- 5/10
This has something of the gritty realism of Season 7 and has UNIT acting as an effective military unit. However, it has an absurdly complex plot that makes little sense. The Doctor is incredibly unpleasent in this story, his worst moment being when he completely humiliates the Brigadier and boasts of being a friend of Mao Tse-Tung.

Claws of Axos- 7/10
The plot is a little silly, but it is a pretty decent production. The Axons are a well-conceived alien menace and their ship is one of the finest sets in the history of the show.

Colony in Space- 1/10
Oh dear. This has got to be the most boring story in Doctor Who ever.

The Daemons- 6/10
This story has some good ideas that were very suited to the earthbound setting, but it lacks the vital capacity to terrify. The ending is really stupid.

The Claws of Axos

The Third Doctor and Jo help UNIT deal with alien invaders, but the Master gets involved (again..).

As I have said before, I hold a generally low opinion of the Pertwee era after Season 7. I hate Pertwee's interpretation of the Doctor. I hate Jo Grant with a passion. I hate the way that the Brigadier and UNIT became really lame and I think the Master is a silly villain. However, despite my dislike of this period of Doctor Who, I very much enjoy Claws of Axos, even though fans with a higher regard for the Pertwee era have harsh things to say about it.

There is plenty of silly science in Claws of Axos. UNIT are starting to decline. The Master turns up yet again, a sign that the writers were running out of ideas. Jo is as irritating as ever and she is paired up with a bloke with an appalling American accent. Yet despite the tendency to slip into silliness, the Claws of Axos avoids much of the gimmickery of this era. Terror of the Autons oversold the idea of everyday objects being alien weapons; Invasion of the Dinosaurs thought it was clever to stick Dinosaurs in London and Green Death gave us horrible maggots in a Welsh coal mine. Claws of Axos just gives us a straight and simple alien invasion (with some infiltration tactics). Surprisingly very few of the UNIT era stories actually concerned alien invasions.

The Axons are a pretty inspired alien menace. I love the way they appear to be golden, angelic beings, yet are really evil, tentacled spaghetti monsters. They have a slightly Lovecraftian feel about them. As a Christian I also believe in angelic beings that are evil, Satan and the heavenly powers that follow him.

The Axon spaceship is an incredible creation. It is fascinating to look at. It looks so unusual in its organic structure. It is arguably one of the best sets ever used in Doctor Who. Some of the CSO used in the Axon spaceship is also very effective. Sometimes the Pertwee era production team went a bit too town on CSO, but in this colourful story it works rather well.

Although the overuse of the Master in Season 8 is an irritation, Roger Delgado puts in a great performance. His role in getting the TARDIS working is interesting. The Brigadier has not yet morphed into a complete buffoon, and although he is more chummy with the Doctor, he still manages a certain tension with the Doctor through his shoot-first methods.

Pertwee's performance is uneven in this. He manages some very convincing suspicion when dealing with the Axons, but he lacks conviction when pretending to abandon the earth and Jo.

As with every UNIT story, there is a dreadful civil servant type, this time in the shape of Chin. He is wonderful creation, gobbling a chicken leg and scared witless by the merciless minister he serves under. I love the bit where the minister pulls out Chin's pre-written letter of resignation, just awaiting his signature.

In short, Claws of Axos is a textbook Pertwee era story with lots of silliness, but its a visual feast with an excellent alien monster. You could do a lot worse and watch the appallingly boring Colony in Space.

Mind of Evil

The Master is up to no good with experiments on prisoners and messing about with missiles.

This story feels a lot like a season 7 story and not just because it is filmed in black and white. Its sci-fi elements are not that overt and there is a strong sense of realism. The prison setting gives it a very gritty feel. What reminds us that it is in season 8 is the presence of the Master and that awful young woman, Jo Grant. I always found Liz Shaw a bit boring, but I simply cannot stand Jo; she is just awful.

I did not like John Pertwee's Doctor before watching this story and once I saw it, I hate him. He is so arrogant. The way he demands for the Keller machine to be stopped. He expects heaven and earth to bow to his wisdom. The way he shows off his knowledge of Chinese and humiliates the Brigadier. Then his final comment to the Brigadier "and I am stuck with you" was unbelievably rude. I really cannot stand the Third Doctor. And to top it all, he is a personal friend of Communist dictator and instigator of the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao. I wonder what the Brigadier makes of that?

The plot is overly long and complicated. The Cold War. stuff is exciting, but it does not gel well with the prison narrative.

The Brigadier plays an effective role in the story, successfully disguising himself as a delivery driver and leading the raid on the prison. Unfortunately, in one or two moments, we see the trend towards using him as comic relief.

The Master comes across fairly well in this story. He looks cool in his sharp suit and cigar. The problem is that his plans do not make any sense. What does he need the Keller Machine for? Why take over a prison (can he not get some hired muscle if he is so in with the London underworld?).

It would have been nice to have learnt a bit more about the creature inhabiting the Keller machine.