5 episodes
Aired between 22nd May 1971 and 19th June 1971
Written by: Guy Leopold
Produced by: Barry Letts
Directed by: Christopher Barry
Synopsis
It was a dark and stormy night in the picturesque English village known as Devil's End, Jim, a local resident, makes his way out of the pub with his trusty dog and braves the storm. The dog goes banana's and slips its lead, running into the old church graveyard. Jim calls after the dog and grows increasingly frightened when he hears it yelp and go silent. He goes into the graveyard and becomes terrified at some sort of unseen horror he meets there.
What has all this got to do with anything? Well, elsewhere in the village is an ancient burial mound dating back to the Bronze Age, known as the Devil's hump. Lots of local suspicions and folklore surround the hump, but Professor Horner, a famous archaeologist, is willing to disregard all of that as he plans to open the tomb. BBC Three are covering the story and in an interview with him, the no nonsense Professor Horner explains that the tomb is believed to contain treasures buried with the body of a great warrior chieftan.
The Professor intends to open the tomb live on TV at midnight on April 30th, which just so happens to be the pinnacle of the pagan festival of Beltane.
Over at the UNIT garage, the Doctor argues with Jo about the nature of magic and the significance of the dawning of the age of Aquarius. By secretly controlling Bessie with a remote control, he proves to Jo that anything that looks like magic can be explained by science. Captain Yates calls and invites them to watch the televised interviews around Devil's End.
From the interviews, its clear that most of the locals are wary but don't honestly believe in all the stories. One who does however is Miss Hawthorne, a white witch who lives in the area. On air, she tells the BBC in no uncertain terms that opening the tomb could spell doom for them all as the Dark One is near. Needless to say, she's dismissed as a lunatic. Even the town doctor who tended to poor dead Jim denies her allegations that the man died of fright. He thinks its just your typical heart attack.
Seeing Miss Hawthorne on the TV, the Doctor grows very concerned and says that she's right, the dig has to be stopped! The Doctor and Jo set off for Devil's End straight away, leaving Captain Yates and Sgt. Benton to watch TV whilst the Brigadier is wining and dining with a night at the opera.
Miss Hawthorne returns to the village, where a strong gale blows out of nowhere. She raises her arms and begins to chant incantations, forcing the wind to die down just in time to relinquish the hold this powerful entity held over PC Groom who inexplicably picked up a rock and was about to beat her to death with it!
Perplexed with it all, Miss Hawthorne goes to see the new vicar in the village. She's blocked in the church yard by Garvin, the verger. She demands to speak to the old vicar, but Garvin is adamant that he left when he was taken ill. She doesn't like the idea, but she says she'll speak to Mister Magister, the new vicar. The new vicar turns up and it's revealed to actually be....the Master.
He tries to hypnotise Miss Hawthorne into believing nothing is wrong but she resists it, forcing him to kidnap her.
The day wanes and the Doctor and Jo are still driving around in Bessie trying to get to the village, no thanks to the mysterious wind that can change the direction of the signposts.
It's long after dark when they finally reach Devil's End. They stop off at the local pub, the Cloven Hoof. The Doctor short on temper and time, demands to know where the Devil's hump is. The locals are skeptical of him when he tells them of the danger they're all in, but they do give them directions. The Doctor thanks them and he and Jo rush off up to the dig. One of the locals slips out of the pub and goes to tell Mister Magister about the Doctor's presence. The vicar smiles and tells him to prepare for the ceremony.
The naughty wind plays another trick, blowing down an old tree on the road to the dig, forcing the Doctor and Jo to abandon Bessie and make their way to the Devils Hump on foot.
As the TV cameras begin rolling once more and the time of Beltane approaches, the Master enters an ancient crypt beneath his church and with a coven of thirteen cultists, he begins to chant an ancient ritual to summon Azal, the horned one.
The Doctor and Jo reach the tomb just as the ritual reaches the climax and Professor Horner breaks through into the Devil's hump. Icy gales of wind surge from the tomb and cover the Doctor and Professor Horner, whilst in the crypt, the Master laughs in triumph and the eyes of the stone gargoyle nearby begin to burn an intense red and it animates.
The TV crew and Jo pull the bodies of the Doctor and Professor Hawthorne from the tomb entrance. Both are presumed dead, frozen as solid as a block of ice.
Luckily, the whole thing is captured on camera, so Captain Yates and Sgt. Benton see it as they turn over from the Rugby. They begin to make calls, trying to reach the Brigadier and get in touch with the BBC.
They take the bodies down to the Cloven Hoof, where the local Doctor pronounces them both dead, only to be shocked to find the faintest of pulses in the Doctor. He's equally flabbergasted to discover that the man has two heartbeats. He orders that the Doctor is taken to one of the rooms upstairs and kept as warm as possible. Captain Yates finally gets hold of Jo, who tells him what's gone off. He promises that he and Sgt. Benton will travel down there at first light. Unbeknownst to the rest, the inn keeper contacts the Master and lets him know what's going on.
Back at the dig, the BBC pack up their equipment quickly and scarper, leaving the area in the capable hands of PC Groom who is shutting off the area with a wooden gate and a single keep out sign. Once alone, he takes out his home made sandwiches and begins to keep guard over the Devil's Hump, oblivious to the bright red eyes shining out from the tomb entrance.
Jo watches over the Doctor through the night and when morning finally comes, Captain Yates and Sgt. Benton arrive at the village in a helicopter. On their way, they discover large hoof marks burned into the ground. Concerned, they make their way to the Cloven Hoof where they liaise with Jo.
Whilst Yates tries to get hold of the Brigadier, Benton scouts the area. It's not long before he hears shouts from inside the church. Investigating, he finds Miss Hawthorne locked in a box. She tells him the vicar, Mister Magister is responsible but before they can escape, Garvin turns up and they're forced to hide in the old crypt beneath the church. As she explains more about the forces of darkness out to get them, Garvin finds them and holds them hostage with a shotgun. Benton quickly tackles the verger and puts up a good fight but the verger gets the gun back and forces them outside. Suddenly, a great heat wave engulfs the area and a hot gale blows towards them. Miss Hawthorne and Benton take the chance to make their escape, leaving Garvin at the mercy of some twenty foot monstrosity that zaps him, leaving nothing left but a smoldering ball of fire.
Luckily for him, the heatwave thaws out the Doctor and he jumps out of bed shouting Eureka! He gets dressed just in time to see Miss Hawthorne and Benton burst into the pub. They explain that they saw the beast which Miss Hawthrone is convinced is Satan. She said it was 30 foot tall with great powerful horns.
The Doctor doesn't believe it was Satan, and even less so when she tells him who's behind it - Mister Magister. Jo is puzzled and the Doctor explains that Magister is the Latin name for Master. He decides to take Jo back with him to the Devil's Hump and try to confirm his theory whilst the UNIT guys contact the Brigadier.
Sure enough, the Brigadier has already heard that Benton and Yates have commandeered one of his helicopters and he's on his way to Devil's End to give them a jolly good talking to. The problem is that the heat wave has resulted in some kind of heat force field that has surrounded the village, cutting it off from the outside. He can still contact them via radio however and gets a full update of the goings on in the village.
When they get to the mound, it's as the Doctor feared, PC Groom is dead and the hoof marks lead away from it. They enter the tomb and find a small spaceship on the ground which Jo is unable to move. The Doctor says its because it weighs 750 tons, a fact that Jo scoffs at. As he tries to explain why it weighs so much, they are suddenly attacked by the animated gargoyle from the church crypt.
Thinking quickly, the Doctor whips out an iron trowel and wards off the creature with a verse of a strange Venusian Lullaby.
The creature cowers and flees. The Doctor explains to the dumbfounded Jo that cold iron has been long held as a weakness of the supernatural. He doesn't believe that of course, but the creature did.
Thwarted by his attempt to use the gargoyle known as Bok, he is forced to rely on the townsfolk to gain his power. He goes to the village squire, Winstanley, and hypnotises him into calling a village meeting.
The Doctor and Jo head back to the cloven hoof where he begins to debate again with Miss Hawthorne whether the problem they're facing is supernatural or scientific in origin, the Doctor firmly believes the latter.
He calls the Brigadier who confirms that the heat shield is roughly dome shaped, roughly a mile high and ten miles across, with the village church at its centre.
Using a set of old slides, the Doctor demonstrates to Miss Hawthorne, Jo, Benton and Yates that the creature they saw is called a Dǣmon, an alien being that originates from the planet Dǣmos, but has visited the Earth for about 100,000 years. He shows that they have been influencing humanity throughout history and as a result have become a part of myth. The Minotaur, horned Egyptian gods, the devil, all are symbols of the Dǣmons. He then tells them that the spaceship in the crypt was hundreds of feet long, but it has the ability to shrink and grow, just like its pilot. When the ship shrank, there was a huge exchange of energy which had to be displaced, hence the heat barrier.
Miss Hawthorne is confused and wants clarification that the Doctor is suggesting that the Devil is an alien that has been guiding and influencing humanity. The Doctor says that the Dǣmon's are an uncaring race, seeing the Earth and humanity as little more than an experiment which they may well discard if they decide it's not working. He knows that the creature will show itself three times when summoned and at the end of that time, it can bestow great power on an individual. he believes that the Master is aiming to bring this about. Yates wants to storm the church, but the Dcotor says its useless as they have no weapons to deal with the thing and even if they did, it's no more than the size of a speck of dust at the moment.
Elsewhere in the village, the Master tries to convince the gathered residents to join him and share in his ultimate power by offering fealty to him. When they naturally resist, he becomes angry and summons Bok to threaten and terrify them into slavery.
The Brigadier radios Yates and tells him they've laid on an air strike of the dome. The Doctor says it'll do no good, and begins to ream off the instructions to make a diathermic energy exchanger instead. The Brigadier has no idea what that is and his UNIT Technician, Sgt. Osgood, is equally baffled. Frustrated, the Doctor agrees to drive out to the barrier and give them the instructions in person.
As he and Jo leave in Bessie, they are attacked by one of the residents who has been hypnotised to steal the UNIT helicopter and dispose of the Doctor by forcing him to drive into the heat shield.
Thanks to the Doctor's great driving skills, he swerves at the right time and saves the day. The helicopter isn't so maneuverable and smashes into the heat shield blowing up.
Unfortunately, Jo was thrown out of the car when it swerved and she is unconscious.
Mike Yates catches up with them on a motorbike and agrees to swap vehicles, taking Jo back to the Cloven Hoof to rest and recover whilst the Doctor uses the bike.
Sgt Osgood sheepishly listens as the Doctor tells him how to make the energy exchanger.
At that point, the Master uses his coven of disciples to once again summon the Dǣmon, the great Azal.
Unexpectedly, it turns on him and forces him to cower as it approaches. He grabs an iron candle holder and wards Azal off.
It doesn't quite work, but at least it stops the huge beast from destroying him. The Master tries to demand that Azal bestows power onto him in return for summoning him to the Earth, but Azal bellows that he does not take orders. He says he knows the Master is more powerful than the humans and will consider bestowing power upon him, but there is another like the Master. Azal says that he wants to speak to them both to determine who is the more worthy. He promises to return one more time and there the successor will be decided, or the world will be destroyed (just like they did with Atlantis). He then disappears with another wave of heat that rushes over the village.
At the Cloven Hoof, Jo wakes up and rushes off to confront the Master. Captain Yates discovers her intent shortly after and rushes to stop her.
Once the hapless Sgt Osgood has been drawn a diagram of the energy exchanger...
...the Doctor returns to the village, only to be cornered by a group of villagers sworn to the Master. The villagers masquerade as maypole dancers and tie the Doctor up in the village square with the coloured ribbons.
As everyone watches, Bert, the landlord of the Cloven Hoof decries that the Doctor is a witch and demands that he be burnt at the stake as such.
Miss Hawthorne and Benton realise what's going on and come up with a plan to help the Doctor without killing anyone. Miss Hawthrone goes out to face the mob, telling them that they are dealing with the great Quaquiquad, a powerful Wizard! She warns them that they'd better release him unless he gets angry. The confused Doctor plays along and upon Miss Hawthorne's suggestion, points towards a streetlamp that inexplicably shatters. He then points towards the church weathercock that begins to spin on its own. It turns out that Benton is using a silenced pistol to shoot at the objects the Doctor is pointing to.
The villagers are convinced and back off, but Bert is fanatical. He tells them that they're being tricked and they should follow the Master. He tries to ignite the bonfire at the Doctor's feet, but Benton shoots the torch out of Bert's hand. Bert pulls a gun of his own and prepares to shoot the Doctor, but the Doctor warns him that he will summon his magic car if he doesn't watch out.
Bert scoffs at this, only to get run over by Bessie.
At the church, Captain Yates catches up with Jo. Together, they investigate the crypt and are soon forced to hide as the Master and his Coven turn up and begin to summon Azal one last time.
Jo jumps out of hiding and tries to stop them but is caught along with Mike Yates. The Captain is tied up and left upstairs until the ritual is finished, whilst Jo is forced to dress in a white gown and become a sacrificial gift to the Dǣmon. The ritual is completed and Azal is summoned again.
In the Village square, the Doctor recognises the fact that Azal has been summoned once again, but tells Sgt. Benton that they're completely helpless until the Brigadier comes through the barrier with that energy exchanger. He takes the time to speak to the confused crowd, confessing that he isn't a powerful Wizard at all, and that all the stuff people label as magic is in fact just advanced science, that includes the Master's abilities too. Captain Yates makes it out of the church and warns the Doctor about the fate of Jo. The Doctor grabs the radio and tells the Brigadier to start the device, now!
Over at the barrier, Osgood switches on the energy exchanger.
It struggles to cope with the energy and he warns the Brigadier that it could blow at any moment. The Brigadier knows what's at stake and throws the power boost switch that opens a small hole in the barrier, allowing the UNIT troops to quickly pass through.
Despite Bok the gargoyle turning up to defend the church, things seem to be going well for once. Thanks to the energy exchanger draining the force field, both it and Azal begin to writhe in agony, allowing the Doctor to rush into the church crypt. Noone else can follow however as the exchanger overloads and blows up.
As the Brigadier gets to the village square, he sees Bok and orders Jenkins, one of his troops, to fire at the creature with "five rounds rapid".
The bullets just bounce off and UNIT begin a very protracted fight with the gargoyle.
Inside the crypt, the Master implores Azal to bestow his great power on him, saying that he will rule over and guide the humans just like the Dǣmons did. The Doctor counters this by asking Azal to leave them all alone and allow the humans a chance to develop and grow.
Azal thinks the matter over and sides with the Doctor, deciding to grant him the great power. The Doctor adamantly refuses that power, and Azal scorns him, choosing to then give it to the Master instead.
Because he refused the gift, Azal intends to destroy the Doctor but Jo jumps in the way, proclaiming that he's a good man and that the Dǣmon should kill her instead.
This act of selflessness befuddles Azal to a point where he self destructs. Everyone flees the crypt as he explodes, and Bok turns back into inanimate stone.
Everything is back to normal, and in all the merriment, the Master tries to make his escape. The drawback is that he chooses to steal Bessie and drive off. He is disappointed as the car turns itself around and brings him back to the armed UNIT guards. He is loaded onto an army truck and taken away to prison, leaving everyone else to finish the maypole dance. Captain Yates invites the Brigadier to join in with the dancing, but the Brigadier says he would much prefer a pint.
Trivia
- Guy Leopold is a fictional person. The story was actually conceived by Barry Letts as an expanded version of the audition piece he had Katy Manning perform at her interview (see the trivia section in Terror of the Autons). The difficulty he had was that Producers were not allowed to write for their own show, as they would effectively be paying themselves. To get around it, he approached Robert Sloman who agreed to work with him on the script.
- The village of Aldbourne in Wiltshire was used for Devil's End. The entire shoot was like a convention with the lucky kids of the village getting to spend time, and obtain autographs and pics with all the cast.
- Some of the effects were considered so good in the day, that many believed them to be real. For example, everyone thought that the helicopter was really blown up (and so did I to be honest) when it was really an unused piece of footage from the James Bond film From Russia With Love. The destruction of the church saw someone writing in and complaining that the production team should be chastised for damaging such a beautiful building. Barry Letts had to write a response telling them that it was only a model.
- Jon Pertwee began to get frustrated with Director, Christopher Barry as the shots were becoming very time consuming. The scene where he is drawing a diagram for Sgt Osgood became so delayed that he started up the bike and drove off into the sunset in a huff! Things between them became even more tense as Jon demanded a Sunday off to attend a cabaret related to his time in the navy lark. This wouldn't have been so bad, but Chris Barry had been forced to miss his own sisters wedding the day before due to timescales on filming
- It wasn't only Jon Pertwee that Christopher Barry wound up. He had an argument with the actress who played Miss Hawthorne because he thought she should be played older and crazier. She complained to Barry Letts who sided with her.
- At the point where they summon Azal for the final time, some of the incantations used are actually "Mary Had a Little Lamb" spoken backwards. They did originally use the Lords Prayer,but the high ups in the BBC thought this was going waaaay too far and forced them to change it
- Oh and you'd be forgiven for thinking that Sgt Osgood is played by none other than Adrian Edmonson a.k.a Vivian out of the Young Ones. He's not, but boy do they look identical
What worked
- The first episode is treated pretty seriously and sets everything up for a good dark story about satanic worship and ancient curses
- The effects are actually quite decent and for the most part stand up well. Ones of note are the helicopter explosion, the destruction of Garvin and the activation of Bok
- The look and sound of Azal is quite good too
- Its great to see good old Benton and Yates get a slice of the action too, although neither of them are particularly great at it - Benton even gets knocked over by the Master's cape!
- One of the things that only come across by watching the story is how much of a good vibe this has. It really is like reliving a party, where everyone is having a good time and reveling in their roles.
What didn't work
- Does anyone panic when the town is covered with a heat wave and they're confronted with a demon? No, they just go maypole dancing
- What exactly is the madman in the helicopter going to do besides kamikaze into Bessie?
- Why do none of the characters try to stop the Master as soon as they hear it's him. The Doctor says they can't stop Azal, true, but they can put a bullet in between the Master's eyes (and his cronies too) long before he can summon the thing.
- Why does everyone maypole dance at the end when there's a significant portion of the town just revealed to be satanic cultists?!
Overall Feelings
I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens over the Christmas holidays and frankly, whilst the vast majority of the collective society loved it, I was disappointed. What has this got to do with the Dǣmons? Not to spoil the Star Wars film, but it was a pure remake of an older film. I came away from that feeling that lots of people give extra special compensation to the film just because it's Star Wars. This is in essence what I also took away from the Dǣmons.
In a big way, both are good. Episode 1 and the establishing story I would even say is brilliant. Episode 2 with the satanic rituals is also pretty good, but from there, things start to get muddled and farcical to the point where I may as well be watching The Romans.
The show is presented as this dark look on rural life, and as such it feels like it's meant to be one of the more serious stories. But if that's the case, I would expect serious and logical reactions from the characters in the story. What we get are a lot of the details overlooked such as Miss Hawthorne being stuffed in a box right next to an unlocked door of the church where everyone can hear her scream. We get the villagers deciding to do a maypole dance as the world is quite literally going to hell and nobody notices. We get Bert the landlord telling people to burn the Doctor for being a witch whilst conversing with a White Witch and advocating reverence to the Master who has the power of the devil behind him. And then there's the death of Azal and the fact that everyone goes back to maypole dancing whilst there's a dozen cultists hanging around the village green...
Given the above, I should find it easy to mark this story well below five and be done with it, right? No. The problem is, this story comes as a high tide mark of UNIT involvement. We've had a full season where every episode was filled with the whole UNIT family and the dastardly schemes of the Master. Likewise, this story holds some of the most iconic quotable lines in the whole of Doctor Who history, and yes, apart from one or two dodgy ones, the effects
are good and Azal looks pretty damn great. This story is iconic in a lot of ways, and people who were lucky enough to see it the first time round remember it far and above others. They just remember the good bits and give it a lot of leeway just because it is so iconic.
Rating
7 out of 10
Iconic but illogical and at times, farcical
Rewatchability Factor
9 out of 10
Worth watching again and again for the iconic scenes
Watch this if you liked...
- The Satan Pit (Doctor Who Series 2)
- The classic version of the Omen (if you want to see other links between Doctor Who and the Devil)
Consulting the Matrix
Was I unduly harsh on this story?
