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BBC4 repeats The Daemons - 26 October 2007 |
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Patrick Mulkern recalls the fascinating history of a classic sci-fi story.
"As part of BBC4's Archaeology Night (21 October), a classic five-part Doctor Who serial has been unearthed from the archive. In its day (1971) The Daemons was a startling piece of television, terrifying for nippers, as it pitted the Doctor against the occult for the first time.
It comes from the period when the third Doctor (charismatic Jon Pertwee at the height of his powers) was marooned on Earth and acting as scientific adviser to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Other UNIT personnel were the redoubtable Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) and the Doc's courageous if ditzy PA Jo Grant (Katy Manning).
The original Master (played with effortless menace by Roger Delgado) is at his most satanic here, posing as a village vicar but really in charge of a black magic coven summoning up ancient, demonic forces. Another character to watch out for is the hilarious Olive Hawthorne, a dotty "white witch", played by Damaris Hayman.
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The Daemons fits neatly into the Archaeology Night for two reasons. One: the first episode revolves around the live televising (on BBC3, long before it existed) of the excavation of an ancient barrow in Wiltshire. The archaeologist doesn't realise the appalling forces he's about to unleash on the local village and the world.
And two: the episodes themselves are something of a treasured relic. Shortly after transmission, four of the original five colour videotapes were wiped.
Luckily, BBC Enterprises had made a black-and-white film copy and a colour version (also now lost) for overseas sales. In the 1990s, boffins at the Beeb painstakingly produced a watchable colour restoration using the black-and-white film and the colour signal from a fan's home-recording made in the US.
Nowadays, The Daemons comes in for some stick from revisionists, who dislike Pertwee's arrogant air, the occasional clumsiness of the production and the somewhat simplistic dénouement, but for the uninitiated there's much to enjoy. Plenty of fun, action and chills - all in a Wiltshire village setting. And see if you can spot the surviving original colour episode: there's a noticeable jump in quality."
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Now take a look at our full Doctor Who guide.
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