The Daemons - Episode 3

As we approach the second half of the story we are starting to get to where all the plot threads start to make much more sense and take on more importance. At the end of the previous episode, the gargoyle was about to attack the Doctor and Jo but this obviously doesn’t happen. It’s weird that after the gargoyle has been sent packing the Doctor reveals that the words he had said were a funny rhyme. It was a good way that they solved this particular cliffhanger because it was essentially a battle between the Doctor and the Master but they weren’t even in the same room.

There is a nice bit with the Doctor and Miss Hawthorne and its very much the believers vs the non-believers. It’s an argument that is good at first but does seem to get in the way of the story. The slideshow that the Doctor presents to the others does seem like a throwback to when Patrick Troughton’s Doctor would do a demonstration to highlight a plot point. Here the Doctor uses it to show that they are dealing with aliens which is a relief after all the black magic nonsense. The Daemons are using the earth as a science experiment and the Master is trying to use this to his advantage. Speaking of the Master I think that he really has fun in this story. In particular when he’s talking to some of the locals and reveals some of their private secrets to the whole room and this does a good job of getting them to convince them of his point of view.

There is a nice action sequence with the Doctor driving Bessie and Yates riding a motorcycle. It’s over rather quickly but does end up with Jo being flung from the vehicle and being the one that gets to spend time in bed. It made me chuckle when the Doctor gives her something to make her sleep and it seems like he’s doing us as well as Jo a favour. The performances from everyone has been consistently good and in this episode I think that both Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado are the star turns. Nicholas Courtney appears in this episode but unfortunately is still outside of the action and apart from a brief scene with Jon Pertwee spends most of his time in the episode at the other end of a microphone. Shame really.

The cliffhanger is a rare thing indeed and it’s the Master in peril and its just brilliant to see someone else apart from the Doctor and Jo in the thick of the action. I think at this moment the Master is starting to realise that he doesn’t have quite the grip on things that he thought he had. You would have thought that by now he would have thought about his plan a bit more. The episode is the first one that I feel has some legs to it and it felt like every moment kept my attention and that’s the first time in this story that its really done this.