The Daemons

Dear Gary—

“It really is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” And The Daemons really is the perfect story for this time of year. “That means the occult . . . well, you know . . . the supernatural and all that magic bit.”

The Doctor, however, will have none of it. The Age of Aquarius, the occult, the supernatural, witches, the devil, magic . . . “Everything that happens in life must have a scientific explanation . . . if you know how to look for it that is.”

“How infuriating can you get,” Jo says of the debunking Doctor.

But it’s all great fun, debunking myths and while doing so creating new ones. And it’s all rather paradoxical, a science fiction show, a show full of gods and monsters, a show of the fantastic and unreal refuting the fiction with faux facts.

It’s rather like the Doctor scoffing, “A rationalist existentialist priest indeed.”

Doctor Who embraces this irony, and never more so than in The Daemons.

We start with an archaeological dig excavating an ancient burial mound called the Devil’s Hump near a village called Devil’s End on the eve of Beltane. Professor Horner derides the local white witch’s warnings as mere superstition, but the Doctor rushes in with warnings of his own. He is too late, however, and as the mound is opened an icy blast of wind kills the professor and freezes the Doctor.

It is not the devil that is unleashed, however, and this is not Hell freezing over. This is the Master, posing as the local vicar, calling forth an alien being who has been using the Earth as a laboratory. This alien being, a Daemon named Azal, has been aiding and influencing Mankind down through the ages as a scientific experiment.

The Daemons, the thawed out Doctor (who apparently has “the constitution of an ox”) explains, are an amoral race of beings, and “all the magical traditions are just remnants of their advanced science.”

This is where I have to agree with Jo—how infuriating can you get? The entirety of Human history trivialized as an alien science project.

“I sometimes wish I worked in a bank.” Leave it to the Brigadier to interject a much needed dose of reality into the proceedings. Whether it is the devil or a Daemon, black magic or science, just take care of business . . . “five rounds rapid.”

Azal is nearing the end of his experiment and ready to decide if it has been worthwhile or if Earth is a failure ready for the rubbish bin.

“This planet smells to me of failure.” Doesn’t sound very promising for Earth’s future.

But a giant Azal and his gargoyle minion Bok, aided by the Master and his troop of mesmerized villagers, is no match for the Doctor, Jo, the Brigadier, Captain Yates, Sergeant Benton, and the white witch Olive Hawthorne.

Everyone gets in the game on this one, even Bessie, and it is all quite fun. What with the wind whipping, living gargoyles, costumed revelers, great horned beasts, satanic rituals, maypole dances, human sacrifices, traditional folk music, and a burning at the stake, who wouldn’t get caught up in the magic? (Or “psychokinetic energy” as the Doctor would term it.)

The Brigadier is briefly locked out of the action by a heat barrier that has been placed around the village, but some tense motorcycle chases and equipment rigging moments with the Doctor effectively breaks through in a typical Doctor Who conjuring trick, and the Brigadier advances on this enchanting circle of Hell with nonplussed bravado.

And I have to give a great deal of credit to the Doctor on this one, Gary. For all of his insolence, when Jo unexpectedly lays into the Brigadier the Doctor comes to his defense: “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.” Amen. Now if the Doctor would only take a little of his own advice once in a while . . .

Let’s not forget the Master in all of this. The Master is trying to convince Azal to transfer his daemonic power to him so that he can take over control of the planet. Azal briefly considers the Doctor for this role but in the end rejects him in favor of the Master and marks the Doctor for death.

In steps Jo. Jo stands in the way of Azal’s bolt of electricity; Azal is dazed by this baffling display of self-sacrifice, and his confused rage literally consumes him.

Love has saved the day. “It really is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” as Jo says.

“Science, not sorcery,” says the Doctor. But is it science or is it fiction? Is it magic or is it psychokinetic energy? Is it the devil or is it a Daemon?

All I know, Gary, is that The Daemons is Doctor Who magic; both science and sorcery.