Dæmos Rising

We near the end of Doctor Who’s wilderness / theme park era with a chamber piece bringing back Kate Stewart (in both a straightforward and an awkward seductress mode) and the big bad from Pertwee's The Dæmons.

It starts small with Kate offering help to a lonely ex-UNIT officer Cavendish who seems to have had a complete mental breakdown in a secluded English cottage due to a magical, satanic book. There are several one on one scenes with a lovely, spooky atmosphere - much like the quieter, mythical moments from shows such as Jonathan Creek or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This slowly builds to an impressive CGI devil set piece (very reminiscent of what would come later in The Satan Pit). Once they have a massive devil in the story though they run out of things to do. As with a lot of mid-par Doctor Who it ends with our hero defeating the enemy with the power of love. The CGI dæmon decides that it wont be bossed around by the saucy, evil version of Kate Stewart, so the good version in spared.

Its been fun seeing what Doctor Who might looked a bit like had it been around in the early 2000s, but I'm definitely glad the official show came back in its place!