Listen to any interview or convention appearance by the 'UNIT Family' members and you'll hear how this was one of their favourite stories to make. Which is odd, as a few things went wrong behind the scenes.
Director Chris Barry had to miss his sisters' wedding, because Jon Pertwee wanted a day off following a cabaret appearance, and the star got into a bad mood when they were filming the scene where the Doctor has to explain the heat exchanger machine at the barrier. He rode off on the motorbike, and had to be calmed down by Nicholas Courtney.
Terrance Dicks tried to axe the Brigadier's most famous line.
The location shoot was also plagued with unpredictable weather, which is noticeable on screen (slushy snow in the background to some shots).
The Doctor is presented here at his most bad-tempered and irritable. He is rude and snappy with everyone, especially Jo. This is a little odd, when you consider that the story was co-written by the producer Barry Letts. Was this really how he saw the Doctor's personality?
Onto the story itself.
The one everyone notices is that the dimensions of the heat barrier don't add up. The Doctor claims that it is a dome ten miles in diameter, centred on the village - yet we see a road sign at the barrier stating that Devil's End is one mile away. Is the village 8 miles across?
One that is not so noticeable on screen, but obvious when you read the novelisation, is that the Master's incantations include the children's rhyme Mary Had A Little Lamb, recited backwards.
How does the Master bring Bok to life and control him? Is it through Azal's psionic powers? If so, why does he have to wake him up if he already has access to those powers?
How can he be using powers he hasn't got yet?
Related to this - who killed the man at the start of the story, and why?
After the Nestenes, Mind Parasites and Axos, the Master's latest ally is... the bloke who's fiddling the Post Office accounts.
One minute the Master is keen to have Miss Hawthorne killed (by the hypnotised policeman) but the next she's only tied up - in a place where people can hear her cries for help. The Master is fine with Jo getting sacrificed, but Yates is also only tied up and easily able to escape from the cavern.
Jo and Mike's ideal hiding place - behind some metal railings with nice big gaps through which to be spotted by your enemies.
Jo shouts out that the Master should be stopped as he is evil. She's telling this to a satanic coven...
Bert the Landlord tries to get the Doctor burnt as a witch, despite the fact that he is in league with someone who is trying to raise the Devil, and most of the villagers are aware of this.
Jo appears to stop and collect her clothes, despite the fact that the church is about to explode.
Then again, Yates and Benton are so concerned about Jo and the Doctor that they stop to change out of their uniforms into civvies before coming to save them.
Why change out of uniform? Landing a UNIT helicopter in the middle of the village green is hardly arriving unobtrusively.
Daemons can shrink their spaceships to a fraction of their original size. Why not just make them small, saving loads of power and resources, in the first place?
Both ship and barrow are seen to be round, yet the Doctor gives the spaceship's dimensions as an elongated craft (200 x 30 ft).
The hoof prints as seen from the air are about 20 feet long, but when seen up close are only about 3 feet long, and are much closer together.
The Daemon plan makes little sense. If you are intending that someone will pop up on the Earth who is suitable enough to gain your powers, then surely the planet deserves to continue even if there isn't such a person? What sort of a race is it that seems to exist for the sole purpose of giving its powers away to someone else? It is no wonder that Azal is the last of his people.
Azal's self-destruction just because of Jo's act of self-sacrifice also suggests a highly unstable race. If he's that touchy, why didn't he blow a fuse when the Doctor turned him down - which must have been just as illogical to him as Jo's actions.
Actually, everything about this final scene in the cavern suggests that Azal isn't an organic being at all, but some kind of projection / machine.
When Benton and Garvin the verger fight in the cavern, the shotgun breaks and actor John Joyce has to hold it together.
Later, Benton is attacked by a Morris dancer who rushes into the pub as though he was expecting to fight someone in there.
Another Benton fight scene sees him floored by a cloak thrown over his head. It actually causes him to fall to the ground, the big girl's blouse...
'Bessie' drives so slowly that the Master could easily jump out and run away when the Doctor uses his remote control.
"What a tale I'll have for them now..." says Miss Hawthorne. Who is she talking about?-
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