Day 154 — June 3rd 2021
The Dæmons Episode Five
The Dæmons — Episode Five
It’s a lovely idea that Jo is so willing to sacrifice her own life to save Doctor Who, but given that he’s been a total arsehole to her throughout this story I can’t help but wonder if she’d have done better to stand back and let Azal do his business…
Oh I’ve tried, I really have. I went into this final episode of the season hoping it’d be brilliant and that I’d find loads to love. I’m sad to say, therefore, that this is the weakest of the five instalments, and sinks right down to a 3/10 for me. I think I can pinpoint my issues fairly definitely, though.
Point One: Azal is a bit useless, isn’t he? He’s been making occasional appearances for a few episodes now, but all he really does in the climax is stand around and chat.
The idea of the Dæmons experiment is an interesting enough one, but I’m not sold that he’s come to hand his power over to the right person. I’m even less sold on it being given to a Time Lord rather than a human, which brings me to my next thing…
Point Two: I clearly don’t quite understand what’s happening here. I was under the impression that Azal had come to either hand his power over to the most competent human (thus making the experiment a success, as someone would have evolved enough to take that power) or to destroy the Earth as the experiment had failed, and no one was able to seize control.
So where do Doctor Who and the Master factor into this? They’re not part of the experiment — they’re outside elements — but Azal basically shrugs and prepares to hand over power. It also doesn’t help that, at the most basic level, this comes down to the same final act as Colony in Space — the Master tells a powerful alien being that he should take control of their powerful weapon, Doctor Who says that he shouldn’t, and the alien finds in favour of our hero. It’s all a bit ‘been there, done that’.
And although Jo being willing to give her life to save Doctor Who is a lovely notion, I’m really not sure how that saved the day. Doctor Who says ‘Azal couldn’t face an act as irrational and as illogical as her being prepared to give up her life for me’, but that doesn’t really fill in many blanks for me. Feels like a bit of a cop out.
Point Three: There’s not nearly enough Miss Hawthorne in this one. The things I loved about Episode One were the brilliant streak of humour — of which Miss Hawthorne was the heart — and the great spooky atmosphere. They both seem to be absent from this final instalment, but it’s the humour that I miss the most. She’s relegated to standing around gaping at things.
Point Four: The quality of the existing print isn’t great. That’s been par or the course across the Pertwee stories so far — Spearhead aside — but I think I’ve finally reached the point where it’s outright annoying me now.
It’s especially a shame here because The Dæmons has a higher than usual amount of location filming; they spent over a week on location and there’s almost an hour’s worth of film work across the whole serial.
This final episode suffers worse than most as it’s got one of the highest film-to-video ratios of the entire Old Testament. Almost 15 minutes of this episode was location filming, and I suspect it would look much better — and be far more enjoyable — if we could watch it in proper High Definition.
On the whole, I’m disappointed with The Dæmons. It’s got such a stellar reputation, and I was hoping that my newfound appreciation for this era would be solidified by this adventure — it’s sort of the quintessential Pertwee story. It ends up being the perfect metaphor for my experience of Season Eight as a whole; an uneven let down.
Today marks the last time I’ll be doing a single episode on a day for ages — I don’t go back to this until we reach Colin Baker’s era in the middle of November, which feels ages away from here…!
