The Awakening

A trip to the village of Little Hodcombe to visit Tegan's grandfather lands the TARDIS crew in peril. Local nobleman Sir George Hutchinson has started a re-enactment of the British Civil War, but the mayhem it causes reactivates a dormant alien mind that came to the village in 1643 when the fighting was at its worst. The Doctor recognizes the alien presence as the Malus, a being that came from the planet Hakol to pave the way for invasion, an invasion that may no longer be on the cards in 1984, but the Malus is still alive and kicking.

For a two part story, The Awakening really gets a lot achieved, largely due to the last minute rewrites from all accounts. The story is still credited to Eric Pringle but by and large the script was reworked extensively by script editor Eric Saward when the delivered manuscript turned out to be far too long for the alloted budget. A lot of credit for this one also goes to the direction, the opening scene setting this story way beyond the limpness that was Warriors of the Deep. The period costumes are as always well done, and the small village setting evokes Devesham from The Android Invasion. There's also a bit of nifty continuity thrown in linking this story to Saward's own script, The Visitation, two seasons past, when the Doctor recognizes a chunk of tinclavic mined by Terileptils on Raaga. And there's something about the way the TARDIS console room is shot this time that makes it seem different, almost larger.

This is one of the few times in the classic series that we are introduced to the concept of family in the companions. So far we've only really met the Doctor's granddaughter, Sara Kingdom's brother (who she killed herself - feel the love!), heard of Jo's uncle who got her the job at UNIT, heard of Sarah's aunt Lavinia (who we met in... ughh I can't even name that spin off again), heard Leela's father die a terrible off-screen death, saw Adric's brother die, saw Nyssa's father murdered, and Tegan's own Aunt Vanessa hit the skids when she met the Master. "And don't forget Tegan's cousin," Jay reminded me as we went over this list of family. Tegan's got a lot of family in the show it seems. "Tegan Tegan Tegan!" Jay muttered in his best Jan Brady voice. Tegan's grandfather does a bit better and lives, although he is locked up with Turlough. Despite being locked up as was his fate in the previous two part story, Turlough gets to do quite a lot. There's even some interesting companion potential in schoolteacher Jane Hampden and the bewildered Will Chandler who managed to get brought into the future from 1643 through the Malus' power. The far reaching effects of Tegan's travels with the Doctor are never really discussed with her grandfather; in fact the poor man hardly gets to say much at all yet somehow he feels important to the goings on. Aside from being the reason why the Doctor brought them there in the first place.


The Awakening is one of the fortunate adevntures that is hard to fault. It doesn't have any sagging plot holes, although at the end it does seem to finish in a bit of a cop-out way. And okay the face of the Malus busting through the church wall does look a little unrealistic, but to the naysayers I ask them when was the last time they saw a huge face come through a church wall. Anyone?

I didn't think so.

There's interesting news about the possible content of the DVD release of The Awakening when they get around to doing it; in addition to bloopers involving horses demolishing archways, there's a full deleted scene involving Kamelion that was dropped from the original broadcast for time reasons, so depending on the quality of the scene, we may get to see it reinserted into the story or at the very least tacked on the extras section of the disc. Won't that be special and a half?

NEXT EPISODE : THE KING OF TERROR