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The Awakening was the second story of season 21 of Doctor Who. It was the third and final two-parter of the Peter Davison era. It was, indeed, the final two-parter in the traditional twenty-five-minute format. From this point forward in Doctor Who history, any two-parter would be at least forty-five minutes per episode.
Despite its brevity, the serial boasted a few milestones. It was the first (and only) contribution by its writer and director. It offered the first outing of the Fifth Doctor's second costume, most notably differentiated by an obviously altered cricketing jumper. It was the first time in the show's history that the Doctor set his TARDIS on course to meet a member of a companion's family — in this case, Tegan's grandfather. It was also the final story designed by Barry Newbery, one of Verity Lambert's original designers.
Unusually, this serial had a certain measure of infamy in Britain for one of its out-takes from part two, in which a horse-drawn carriage was seen to apparently destroy a lychgate. The scene became one of the few Doctor Who out-takes to actually be broadcast on the BBC, and was also seen internally on BBC safety videos as an example of how not to film scenes involving animals. (DCOM: The Awakening) Naturally, for the transmitted version of the episode the sequence cut before the disaster.
Synopsis
The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough arrive in Little Hodcombe, where the townspeople's re-enactments of English Civil War battles are causing a dormant entity, the Malus, to re-awaken.
Plot
Part one
On 13 July 1643, two forces came to the village of Little Hodcombe during the English Civil War and destroyed each other. As the story begins, Roundheads are riding horses in the village of Little Hodcombe with little regard to the villagers around them. It is not 1643, but 1984.
A schoolteacher, Jane Hampden, is convinced that her fellow villagers, led by the town's leader, Sir George Hutchinson, have taken their re-enactment of a series of battles too far. Hutchinson tries to assure her that the games are a harmless event to celebrate the war. When Hampden asks him to stop the games, Hutchinson ignores her.
The Doctor promises to take his companion, Tegan, to 1984 so she can spend some time with her grandfather, Andrew Verney. He sets the coordinates to Little Hodcombe, where Verney resides, but the TARDIS experiences some turbulence and lands in what appears to be a structurally unstable church. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough, watching on the scanner, see a man in 17th century clothing flee from the church. The Doctor dashes out to help him, but the man has vanished. Tegan is convinced that they have landed in the wrong time, but Turlough has checked the TARDIS co-ordinates and they are in 1984. As the Doctor and his companions pursue the man, smoke billows from a crack in the wall.
Eventually, the three travellers are captured by Captain Joseph Willow and taken before Hampden and Colonel Ben Wolsey, who apologise for the poor treatment. Hutchinson arrives and explains the town is celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Little Hodcombe. He urges him to join the celebration. Tegan is told her grandfather is missing, and runs outside. The Doctor follows but loses her. Tegan, upset, is crying when someone steals her purse. She tries to get it back and runs into a barn where she finds the ghost of an old man.
The Doctor returns to the church and meets a 17th century peasant, Will Chandler, who emerges from a wall. He has been hidden in a priest hole and believes the year to be 1643. Turlough rescues Tegan from the barn and they return to the TARDIS. There is a sparkly projection on one of the walls. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Will investigate the church. Tegan and Turlough leave the TARDIS and are re-captured. Turlough is locked in a building with Verney. Willow forces Tegan to change into a 17th century costume. She is to be Queen of the May.
The Doctor and Will find a secret passage to Ben Woolsey's living room under a slab marked with a picture of a creature that Will identifies as the Malus. Coming the other way through the passage, the Doctor and Will meet up with Hampden, who found the passage's other end after being locked in Colonel Wolsey's office. They avoid Hutchinson, who has followed Jane down the passage, and the Doctor finds a small ball of metal. The Doctor identifies the metal as tinclavic, a metal mined by the Terileptils on the planet Raaga for the almost exclusive use of the people of Hakol, a planet in the star system Rifta, where psychic energy is a force to be harnessed. Returning to the church, the Doctor and Hampden are astonished when a massive alien face pushes its way through the crack on the wall.
Part two
The creature roars and spews smoke. They escape from the psychic projection of a cavalier, and return to the house via the tunnel. The Doctor realises that the Malus in the church was discovered by Verney and Hutchinson. The latter tried to exploit the creature, but it used him by organising the war games. The psychic energy released by the war games has fed the Malus.
The Doctor and Jane again try to persuade Hutchinson to stop the games; the final battle will be for real. He refuses and orders Woolsey to kill the Doctor. Once Hutchinson leaves, Woolsey joins forces with the Doctor.
The Queen of the May is taken in a horse-drawn cart to the village green, where she is to be burned. Hutchinson suddenly notices that the Queen is not Tegan, but a straw dummy that has been put in her place by Woolsey. Hutchinson becomes angry and orders his men to kill Woolsey and the others. Will appears in the nick of time and uses a flame torch to cause a distraction. This allows the Doctor, Hampden, Woolsey and Tegan to escape to the TARDIS.
The Doctor locks the signal conversion unit on the frequency of the psychic energy feeding the Malus, hoping to direct it. Willow and a trooper try in vain to break their way into the TARDIS, and Turlough and Verney knock them unconscious with lumps of masonry. The Doctor blocks the energy, and the projection of the Malus in the TARDIS dies. The real Malus desperately tries to drain all the psychic energy from the villagers. He creates a corporeal projection of three Roundheads who try to kill the Doctor and his allies. However, the dazed and confused trooper stumbles from the TARDIS and into the main church area, becomes surrounded by the roundheads, who decapitate him, then vanish.
Hutchinson arrives and holds them all at gunpoint. When the Doctor tries to talk Hutchinson out of the thrall of the Malus, Willow attacks the group. In the scuffle, Will pushes Hutchinson into the mouth of the Malus, destroying its medium. Realising it has failed, the Malus prepares to destroy itself and everything around it. The church begins to collapse and the Doctor leads the others, including Willow, into the safety of the TARDIS.
Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor's companions are surprised to see Will still among them. The Doctor explains he must have been wrong in his assumption that Will was a psychic projection. The Malus must have created a temporal rift which allowed Will to slip into the future. The Doctor will take Will back to 1643. Tegan objects and ask the Doctor to allow her some time to visit her grandfather. The Doctor is disgruntled but is persuaded to stay in Little Hodcombe for a while for a rest.
Cast
- The Doctor - Peter Davison
- Tegan - Janet Fielding
- Turlough - Mark Strickson
- Jane Hampden - Polly James
- Sir George Hutchinson - Denis Lill
- Colonel Wolsey - Glyn Houston
- Joseph Willow - Jack Galloway
- Will Chandler - Keith Jayne
- Trooper - Christopher Saul
- Andrew Verney - Frederick Hall
Crew
- Assistant Floor Manager - Marcus D F White
- Costumes - Jackie Southern
- Designer - Barry Newbury
- Film Cameraman - Paul Wheeler
- Film Editor - M A C Adams
- Incidental Music - Peter Howell
- Make-Up - Ann Ailes
- Producer - John Nathan-Turner
- Production Assistant - Rosemary Parsons
- Production Associate - June Collins
- Script Editor - Eric Saward
- Special Sounds - Dick Mills
- Studio Lighting - Peter Catlett
- Studio Sound - Martin Ridout
- Theme Arrangement - Peter Howell
- Title Music - Ron Grainer
- Visual Effects - Tony Harding
References
- Tinclavic is mined by Terileptils on the planet Raaga for the almost exclusive use of the inhabitants of Hakol in the star system of Rifta.
- The Malus, the occupant of a Hakol computer-controlled reconnaissance probe, came to Earth in 1643 as the spearhead of an invasion fleet which never followed.
- The Doctor is fond of tea.
Story notes
- This story had the working titles of War Game and Poltergeist.
- A scene involving Tegan and the Doctor's robotic companion Kamelion in a corridor in the TARDIS was filmed for this serial, but cut before transmission. It would have been the character's first appearance since The King's Demons. The character would not appear again until Planet of Fire.
- Will Chandler was considered for a new companion, but Eric Saward and John Nathan-Turner felt viewers might become tired of him. [1] When directly questioned about this in about 2010, however, Saward remarked that he knew nothing of any plans to make Will a companion. (DCOM: The Awakening)
- Compared with his long odyssey to return Tegan to Heathrow Airport in the early 1980s, the Fifth Doctor is apparently much better at landing in her grandfather's village. Part one suggests he got it right on the first go.
- This story also exists in the BBC Archives as the 50-minute compilation repeat broadcast on Friday 20 July 1984. It is fortunate indeed that the compilation version was made and still exists on 625 line PAL colour videotape to this day, as the master 625 line PAL colour videotape of part one was accidentally badly scratched during a duplication session in 1987 and is now no longer broadcastable. No actual material has been lost; a completely new undamaged transmission master 625 line PAL colour videotape of part one has been made using the still existing 16mm colour film of the location sequences and the compilation repeat.
- Due to an oversight, Frederick Hall (Andrew Verney) was uncredited in Radio Times for the original transmission, but credited for the 50-minute compilation version.
- This story shares similarities with the first serial of Sapphire & Steel in that images of the past are projected forwards by a malevolent force and are capable of interacting with the present.
Ratings
- Part One - 7.9 million viewers
- Part Two - 6.6 million viewers
Filming locations
- Tarrant Monkton, Dorset
- Shapwick, Dorset
- Martin, Hampshire
- Damer's Farm, Martin Cross, Hampshire
- St Bartholomew's Church, Shapwick, Dorset
- Bishops Court Farm, Dorset
- Martin Down, Martin, Hampshire
- BBC Television Centre (TC6), Shepherd's Bush, London
Production errors
Continuity
- In the attempt to return Will to 1643, the TARDIS materialised on a planet of extremely intelligent, war-like walking reptilians, whose king wanted to execute the Doctor. (PROSE: The King of Terror)
- The Malus, and its companion probe craft hinted at in the dialogue of the story, are reintroduced later in PROSE: The Hollow Men and PROSE: Last of the Gaderene.
DVD and VHS Releases
VHS release
This story was released on video in episodic format alongside Frontios.
- Editing was completed by the Doctor Who Restoration Team.
UK VHS cover
Australian VHS cover
US VHS cover
DVD release
The Awakening was released in the Earth Story boxset alongside The Gunfighters. It was the last Fifth Doctor story to be released in the DVD format.
Released:
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by director Michael Owen Morris and script editor Eric Saward, moderated by Toby Hadoke.
- Return to Little Hodcombe - Making Of with Michael Owen Morris, actors Janet Fielding (Tegan) and Keith Jayne (Will Chandler) and script editor Eric Saward
- Making the Malus - Visual effects designer Tony Harding and model maker Richard Gregory are reunited with the Malus prop they built for the story
- Now and Then - Location report from the villages of Martin, Shapwick and Tarrant Monkton
- From the Cutting Room Floor - Deleted and Extended Scenes
- The Golden Egg Awards - Peter Davison is on hand to collect a trophy from host Noel Edmonds
- Photo Gallery
- Outtakes
- Production Subtitles
- PDF materials Radio Times Listings
DVD region 2 cover
Region 1 cover
Region 2 box set cover
Region 4 box set cover
Footnotes
External links
- The Awakening at the BBC's official site
- The Awakening at BroaDWcast
- The Awakening at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- The Awakening at Shannon Sullivan's A Brief History of Time (Travel)
- The Awakening at The Locations Guide
