Today was a light workout day for me, with only one episode to watch and an early appointment. I took it easy and only spent half the usual time on the treadmill. That's ok, though, in the next few weeks I will be getting in more than enough walking on top of the normal treadmill time, so it's all good. As for today's viewing, I finished up The Dæmons, including the single most iconic line from the Brigadier ever.

Let's talk about that.

The Dæmons - Episode 5

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The big finish was mostly what I expected, with one nice swerve. Above ground UNIT finally makes it through the heat shield but is completely stymied by Bok the gargoyle. Upon arrival, the Brigadier takes one look at Bok and then orders a soldier to take him out, saying simply "Chap with wings, five rounds rapid..." Unfortunately the bullets have no effect. Even a direct hit from a bazooka is not enough to permanently destroy Bok. Also, the device that got the UNIT soldiers through the heat barrier (and which was presumably going to be used to defeat Azal, the main Dæmon), instead overloads and blows up. The Doctor is left without any effective weapon.

Below ground, the Master manages to convince Azal to kill the Doctor, but at the last moment Jo steps in the way and begs Azal to kill her instead and spare the Doctor. This act of pure platonic love and self-sacrifice confuses Azal and pretty much causes him to self-destruct. The Master tries to escape in the ensuing chaos, but is quickly captured and taken into custody. And so, the season of the Master comes to an end.

A couple of interesting things about this story:

The writing credit goes to "Guy Leopold", which is actually a pen name for the combined work of Robert Sloman and producer Barry Letts. Sloman would go on to have sole writing credit for three other stories.

The title of the story is only one in Doctor Who television history to use a typographic ligature, with the 'a' and the 'e' joined as the individual glyph 'æ'. Personally, as a software developer I am a big fan of fonts with typographic ligatures when writing code, I think they are both visually appealing and clearer to read in the cases where they apply. Given the nature of the ancient demonic force represented in this story it was a lovely inspired choice to use here.

This story also has a few elements that play very differently to my eyes in 2017 than they would have when it was originally broadcast. The setup of the story involves a live broadcast on BBC3 -- which didn't exist at the time, and was used as a way to imply that the UNIT-era stories were set just slightly in the future. Of course today BBC3 has both come and gone as a broadcast channel, and now exist as a streaming service. Another element that has aged differently is the fact that the Doctor manages to turn his car Bessie into a self-driving vehicle. Forty years ago that must have been amazing to see, but which has become if not a common sight these days it is at least not astounding to see a self-driving car anymore.

One last notable thing - part two of this story was the 300th episode of Doctor Who. On the one hand it is hard to believe I am that far in, and yet at the same time it feels like much more. Huh.

Tomorrow:  Well crap, the Daleks are finally back again. I hope it turns out to be a good one. At least it's only a four-parter....

STATS:

Doctor(s): Third
Companion(s): Jo Grant, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Episode(s): The Dæmons - Episode 5
Steps Walked: 3,202 today, 1,038,723 total
Distance Walked: 1.70 miles today, 508.98 miles total
Weight: 267.65 lbs (five day moving average), net change -39.65 lbs