When it comes to a Jon Pertwee episode of "Doctor Who," one gets the feeling that they are watching an episode of something else.
That is one of the beautiful things about "Doctor Who." If you tire of one actor playing the role, you have at least six more choices. Tired of Tom Baker? Try Colin Baker's controversial turn at the role. Tired of that? Try Peter Davison's impersonation of William Hartnell for a couple of episodes. Want some Troughton episodes? Well, learn to love either multimedia presentations or incomplete stories. The whole point? The entire "Doctor Who" canon is quite versatile.
However, the Pertwee reign of the role (1970-1974) is one of the oddest. Not having the black and white charms of the Hartnell/Troughton eras or the fame of having missing episodes or the charm Tom Baker and the rest following his interpretation of the role, the Pertwee era is often overlooked. The fact that, in trying to keep the series out of 'children' territory by packing it full of action and stunt doubles surely doesn't help. It seems like those five years really don't exist for most Who fans. Sure, Tom Baker had action, but he was more erratic which is a trademark the series always seemed to have. You don't really see the other 'Doctors' running about in frilly costumes beating the hell out of rubber monsters.
But this is truly understated. Jon Pertwee had a flavor as the Doctor, one that was very different than the rest. And thanks to this, most of the stories are overlooked and never really touched upon. It wasn't really that much of a shock than when CBS/Fox gave up the American distrubution rights to Warner Brothers that the few Doctor Who releases being 'deleted' (as in, 'no longer being produced') were gems from the Pertwee Era: Curse of Peladon, Monster of Peladon, Claws of Axos, Carnival of Monsters, and the most frightening, The Green Death which is one of the best episodes ever made in the canon. The irony's even more bitter when you realize that Green Death was released in memory of Pertwee himself when he died in 1996.
But today's experiment is not The Green Death. Personally, at six episodes, it's quite a mouthful of bad special effects just to get to the excellent end of Episode 6, plus all the backstory that this episode would lead to which would eventually end the Pertwee Era in many ways and welcome in Tom Baker. So, we're stuck with The Daemons, a story which ends Season Eight, better known as "The Master Season."
The Master was introduced at the very beginning of Season Eight (Terror of the Autons) and became a recurring character until the end of Season Ten (Frontier in Space). Why? Well, the Pertwee Doctor was stranded on Earth after being caught and tried by his race, the Time Lords, for interfereing with time and space. So, the Doctor is forced to regenerate and is dumped on Earth with a dismantled TARDIS and his mind wiped of space/time mechanics. He's stuck with one of those fictional pseudo-army getups called UNIT and repay their 'generous' nature to fix his time/space vehicle by helping them out with odd situations. However, this could devolve into a cliche of the latest bad guy with the latest scheme that the Doctor would figure out. Solution? The Master (played by Roger Delgado), the Doctor's oldest foe, finds out he's stranded on Earth and comes to seek vengeance for a never-explained wrong. Hence, Season Eight's stories (all five) had the Doctor and the Master duking it out until the Doctor fixed the problem and/or the Master escapes to fight another day.
Here
you can see the special tag--"Reconstructed" is just a fancy way of saying
'color.'
However, in this episode (the final one of Season Eight), the Master is caught.
The story takes place in Devil's End, where an televised expedition to unearth a fabled 'evil place' is undergoing. The Doctor finds out and tries to stop it, all in vain. As the 'evil' is unearthed, the Doctor is frozen stiff. A few UNIT agents show up before the village is surrounded by an impenetrable heat dome which fries everything in it's path. Why? Because the hill contains the last of the Daemons, a race that inspired the human race in order to provide an experiment of some sort. And guess who is trying to harness this being to destroy the Doctor, perhaps the Earth?
If you guessed "The Daleks," you're already thinking ahead to Season Nine. But, good try.
Aside from the last line of the story which is just tacked on and sounds really odd, "The Daemons" is highly recommended viewing. Aside from starring the magnificent Roger Delgado (whose repartee with Jon Pertwee is one of the Pertwee Era's highlights) and the absolutely phony gargoyle which is supposed to be frightening (with it's tongue sticking out, no less), "The Daemons" is truly an odd and sometimes creepy Who. It's odd length of five episodes (the norm is only four) adds to this odd feeling, throwing the natural four-episode feeling of the story out the window and making nearly anything possible. Will the Doctor survive? Will the human race? It's all decided a few minutes before the end of Episode Five, really stretching the drama. Truly excellent.
One interesting tidbit of "The Daemons" is that the video release was an experiment itself: most of the Pertwee Era originally existed in either black and white duplicate prints (aside from their destroyed color versions) or their original color. Until 1999, the BBC was against releasing any serial (story) that existed in a mix of forms, meaning that every released story had to be COMPLETELY in color or COMPLETELY in black and white. "The Daemons" only existed in black and white until the Doctor Who Restoration Team found a good copy of "The Daemons" in color on VHS and superimposed it over the black and white negative, creating the impression of color. Result? Instant colorization.
Of course, at this point I should point out that colorization was considered, but the BBC are a governmental run agency and as a result didn't have enough money to colorize it properly. But thanks to this process, many Pertwee 'Whos' were able to be brought back to their original color. Many, however, like The Mind of Evil, The Ambassadors of Death, Planet of the Daleks (episode 3 only), and Invasion (of the Dinosaurs) (episode one only) have no color tapes and will stay in monochrome until either a tape is found or until someone ponys up the money to pay for it.
RATING: The Master is caught (only to return in The Sea Devils), the Pertwee Era is in it's prime, and despite all the cheesy effects and added episode length it all works and enhances with each viewing. Enjoy! Four Stars out of Four.
