The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: The Awakening

THE AWAKENING (Part One) 19/01/2024 

Well, that was all sorts of brilliant! We're back on modern day Earth and the Doctor has brought Tegan to Little Hodcombe to visit her grandfather. Except the local Magistrate, Sir George Hutchinson, has had the village closed off from the outside world so villagers can engage in some celebratory War Games, reenacting the battle that took place there in 1643 between the Roundheads and the Royalists during the English Civil War, Tegan's grandfather (Andrew Verney, a local historian) has gone missing, and there's some very peculiar goings on concerning apparitions from the past.

This episode was incredibly well shot and very tightly scripted with some properly unnerving scenes. It's Doctor Who as a Ghost Story with the perfect locations of a dilapidated church and a quiet, deserted village. It's a brilliant idea having everyone (bar Jane Hampden) dressing up and being involved in the anniversary celebrations as it gives the story something of a Sapphire And Steel quality as we see figures of the past in a modern day setting - the scene where Colonel Ben Wolsey and Sergeant Willow were looking for Tegan on horseback in their Roundhead garb, discussing contacting Sir George using the red telephone box beside them (they weren't allowed to due to the rules of the game) was very good by being so jarring. But this is all perfectly ordinary as it's just people dressing up and getting carried away.

That isn't to say that there isn't anything disturbing about these scenes, though. Sergeant Willow in particular is a very nasty piece of work. He's aggressive, abusive, and incredibly rapey. Having found out that Tegan is Verney's granddaughter, Sir George decided she was to be Queen of the May. According to Jane, the village has a tradition concerning the May Queen at the end of her reign and I think it might be something to do with burning. Willow fully deserved the slap across the face when he suggested they could easily have picked Jane instead of Tegan, and later when he handed Tegan the May Queen costume he suggested that if Tegan didn't get changed he could do it for her. This is a step up from Mariner in Enlightenment; he was an alien only interested in Tegan's mind. Willow (so far as we know) is very Human, and having him threaten the two main women characters in this story was quite uncomfortable to watch. I can understand they're pushing the envelope here by featuring such a vile character, but this is a family show on at teatime on a week day.

Still, these are all more rounded and interesting characters than in Warriors Of The Deep. Jane, in particular, comes across as one of the most identifiable and believable individuals we've ever seen in the show! She's very much the access character of this story, being the first person we see on screen and basically the voice of reason throughout. She's the local schoolteacher and is the only villager not taking part in the Games, although she understands the importance of keeping the local history alive. But she sees that some (Willow, Sir George) are taking it all a bit too seriously. The episode opened with Jane looking for Ben Wolsey at his stables only to have Sergeant Willow charge at her on his horse. Her conversations with Sir George are a great way to info-dump whilst setting up who's who and what role they have to play; it's through his conversations with Jane that we learn that Sir George knows more than it at first seemed - he knows that something "wonderful and strange" is coming to the village - and when she joins the Doctor later it gives him someone intelligent to explain the plot to.

And it's quite a cool idea, too. It seems that the village was visited by a being called the Malus which arrived from the planet Hakol in a reconnaissance vehicle. The inhabitants of Hakol have, apparently, harnessed the power of psychic energy in the same way we have electricity, hence the apparitions seen by Tegan and Turlough in Ben's barn and the TARDIS console room, and the disfigured man and Will Chandler who are seemingly projections from 1643 made solid in 1984. Polly James is brilliant, really selling Jane's incredulity at what the Doctor is telling her:

"A spaceship...from Hakol...landed here?"

and she really makes Jane the perfect sceptical, but not closed-minded, foil for Davison's Doctor. She's also clearly no fool and not one to take any nonsense. 

The sets are incredibly impressive, too, particularly the interior of the church and Ben's study. I'm not entirely sure about the 'priest hole' that Will broke out of - was he walled up in there? Was it walled up after 1643 and he just found himself in there? - but the overall design is very realistic. Will is an interesting character, more by necessity than anything - a boy from 1643 who witnessed the Malus worsen the fighting between the enemy forces which led to the deaths of everyone on either side and the destruction of the village (according to Sir George, although clearly not enough for it to be abandoned like many of the period). It seems the Malus is still there, though, and responsible for the apparitions and projections and, until the cliffhanger, hidden behind a huge crack in the church wall. Prior to this we only saw images of it in wood and stone carvings, but at the end of the episode Jane noticed that the crack hadn't been there a few days ago and, as the Doctor broke down the wall, a huge face with glowing, green eyes was seen behind it as smoke belched out and engulfed him. It was an impressive conclusion to an impressive episode and I can't wait to see what happens next! This could easily be the best Davison story yet, and the best story in years!

THE AWAKENING (Part Two) 20/01/2024 

Well, that really was quite brilliant; a mix of Folk Horror and Science Fiction which recalled The Dæmons and The Visitation but was arguably better than both. My only complaint is that it was only two episodes long!

We finally got to meet Tegan's grandfather when Turlough was caught and locked up with him, and found out that he was the one who had discovered the Malus and had informed Sir George - I assume, from dialogue in Part One, because the abandoned church is on Sir George's land. The Malus, which feeds on negative psychic energy, latched on to Sir George and was using the reenactments of the Battle of Little Hodcombe (seemingly a local tradition) to regain power to, I assume, complete its original mission. The Doctor described it as a reconnaissance scout for an invasion which never happened. He also said that the Malus had been there longer than 340-odd years, which would explain why it's been entombed in what appears to be a church from the Late Mediaeval Period, and features on a carving on the church's pulpit which clearly predates 1600 in design.

Despite being given quite a lot of information about the Malus and the events leading up to its present awakening, I do wish we'd learnt more and spent more time with these characters. Andrew Verney didn't really have much to do, although we got a lot of backstory from his conversations with Turlough, and an explanation why Will was transported forward in time (he wasn't a projection like the rest) would have been nice. Was it because he was so scared, having seen the Malus and being trapped in the church while the battle waged outside? Did the Malus plan on using him some way? And Jane continued to be the best companion we never had, opening the TARDIS doors for the Doctor when they'd taken refuge there having seen how Tegan closed them, and being a wonderful foil for the Doctor in a way that Tegan and Turlough could never be! It even looked like Will might be joining the cast at the end in a Jamie McCrimmon way, but I doubt that will transpire.

Speaking of people who've joined the TARDIS crew, we're now three weeks into the new series and three stories since the last one, and we've not see hide nor hair of Kamelion. Granted, he was only in two episodes and only properly introduced in the second one, but it really feels like everyone has completely forgotten he exists. Is he wandering round by himself somewhere in the TARDIS? Who knows!

The design for the Malus was very good, really effective and creepy, as was the little monkey-Malus that invaded the TARDIS. Perhaps it was best that this was only a two part story, though, because if it had been longer we may have seen the creature free itself from the church, and I don't think the series could have pulled off a huge alien stomping around the English countryside. The model of the exploding church was a bit weak, too, mainly because of the way the tower sort of fell over into the church rather than collapse as it actually would have done. On the whole, though, it all looked really good. My only other criticism (than the model, the need for more answers, and the length of the story) is in regards to culpability. Colonel Wolsey at one point indicated he knew about the Malus influencing the war games, even if he didn't realise how much control it had over Sir George, and I don't think Sir George really deserved to die (by being pushed into the Malus - I'm not sure that worked as well as it should have), although it was Will's fear and impulsiveness that led to it. Likewise, the beheading of the trooper seemed a little unnecessary. Worst, though, was the way Ben and Jane agreed to hold no recriminations against Joseph Willow when he was arguably worse than Sir George. Yes, they all have to live in the same village in the aftermath of what happened, but the man was a fucking monster who was constantly wanting to actually kill someone and said some horrific things to Jane and Tegan. I wouldn't be able to cast a blind eye to there being an obvious psychopath and potential rapist or murderer living round the corner! I think it should have been Willow who got decapitated, but then that might've been a bit too much in comparison to an anonymous extra being the victim.

And we did at least get a decent coda to this story with things winding down over the last few minutes and the implication that everyone was okay and getting a break from all the relentless running around. So, overall, this has been a really good story with very few negatives, and I think it's probably the best Fifth Doctor story there's been so far. This season certainly feels a lot fresher and much more dynamic than the last series with the look of these first two stories feeling more akin to Season 19. I hope it continues in this vein. Last year really did feel very stuffy, cheap and tired in comparison!