It's a Sofa of Rassilon milestone, Sarah!
We have arrived at the midway point of our viewing marathon! Halfway through watching the entire Doctor Who series -- a series that has coloured and impacted our lives in myriad ways. This calls for drinks!
Sarah -
Halfway? Really? It's hard to believe that we'll have the Fifth Doctor wrapped up by the end of the year and will reach the current series in 2016. It's been a fun five years and I'm impressed that we're still chugging along.
So, what do you think of "The Awakening"? I have to admit I'm a bit of a sucker for a jaunty two-parter. I had forgotten that it was only two parts until it became clear that the story was wrapping up in episode two.
Harry -
It's a pleasant romp, quite literally. Everyone gets to romp around the village of Little Hodcombe, as a local English Civil War re-enactment goes way too far.
I felt anxious about watching this story again, because I always find Live Action Role Playing a bit unsettling. Some folks take it way too seriously, some folks don't know when to turn it off, and as is the case here, some folks make contact with a malevolent alien force and attempt to release its destructive powers, likely killing everyone in the village as a consequence. So that's why I've always declined your invites to LARP weekends, Sarah. You just never know.
Sarah -
Clearly my email had been hacked, as there's very little that I find more terrifying than historical-recreation LARPers! The American Civil War folks scare me the most. "Hey, remember that horrible civil war that resulted in the deaths of MORE THAN 600,000 Americans? Why don't we dress up and reenact it? That would be FUN!" The English Civil War was responsible for more than 200,000 deaths in England with more in Scotland and Ireland -- so, you know, fun. It's also a terribly impractical hobby. I happened to be at Gettysburg during Memorial Day weekend a few years ago and was horrified by the number of people walking around in 1860s garb. I have a great idea, Harry, on the next roasting summer day, let's put on wool and several layers of crinoline and walk around a cemetery. That would be FUN!
Those people are CRAZY.
Harry -
There's a Canadian movie that came out about five years ago that riffed on the dark side of LARPing, but I think we're agreed that LARPing is all dark. A little cosplay at Chicago TARDIS is fine, but acting out a persona for an extended period of time is not my thing.
Sarah -
As uncomfortable as it can be when a cosplayer refuses to break character -- I'm still haunted by the weeping angel at Chicago TARDIS a few year back -- there's a huge difference between dressing up as a fictional character and dressing up as cannon fodder. But, we digress. Back to Little Hodcombe.
Harry -
As for the Doctor and his friends, they are still blissfully unaware of what's ahead. They are just trying to get to England 1984 so that Tegan can visit her grandfather. As has been too often the case, the Doctor is having trouble piloting the TARDIS. Until we got to this part of our marathon, I had no recollection that "TARDIS on the blink" was an ongoing trope of the Davison era.
Sarah -
One of the things I love in this story is that Tegan's first reaction is to be annoyed with the Doctor for getting it wrong yet again -- and that it turns out he got it right and they're not actually in 1643.
Harry -
They land inside the crumbling ruins of an old abbey. Stepping outside, they run smack into Sir George's war games. Roundheads! Cavaliers! Run for it!
Sarah -
I love the opening scene in Little Hodcombe, when we meet schoolteacher Jane Hampden. The cutting between her searching the stables intercut with the charging horses is really effective. We're not used to so much action kicking off Doctor Who.
Harry -
Definitely a different kind of opening. Wildly arresting stuff.
Sarah -
It's a good thing JN-T was a master of budget -- I can't imagine how he managed the horses. Back to Jane, her reaction to the LARPers is entirely appropriate -- run and hide! You get the sense that she's one of the few people in the village who have managed not fall under Sir George's spell.
Harry -
Her non-compliance is great. She wants nothing to do with these boys charging about brandishing swords and bellowing at people. It's all fun and games until someone turns an ankle.
Sarah -
She also becomes a now-familiar character in the Davison Era, that of a more mature, female pseudo-companion for the Doctor. Polly James is wonderful as the voice of reason in the middle of all this insanity.
Harry -
For a fast moving two-parter, she jumped right into that role when the Doctor and his friends got hauled into the 17th century period-accurate room in Colonel Wolsey's home. That's where Tegan learns that her grandfather has gone missing. None of the LARPers seem the least bit concerned, so Tegan rushes out in frustration. Turlough follows while the Doctor is held at the house at gunpoint.
Sarah -
Turlough runs after Tegan and they're eventually separated, giving each regular more time with this week's guest stars.
Harry -
From the moment he first appears, Sir George has an unhinged quality about him. He's gotten way too deep into his role as local magistrate, and is a genuinely frightening character. There's no telling how far he's going to take things. Luckily, the Doctor manages to dash away too. Separated from his friends, he returns to the church and meets an unlikely person: Will Chandler, a frightened villager plucked from the year 1643. Will is not the only one, as other apparitions appear to Tegan and Turlough. There was something about the silent, eerily lit 17th century apparitions that was just as unsettling as the maniac LARPers. There are a lot of freaky frightening moments in this story.
Sarah -
I really liked Will's character, but I wasn't entirely clear on how hiding in a priest hole in the 17th century led him to 1984.
Harry -
When ye wanna avoid the fightin', there be no be'er place than a priest hole.
Sarah -
Well, there is that. I suspect there's something timey-wimey to do with it.
Harry -
Turns out, Will is full of information. Knows all about the Malus, a great evil demon, the very thought of which gets him all frightened again. I like how the Doctor uses his affability to calm the lad. He calmed him so much that Will fell asleep.
Suddenly, one of the church walls starts growling and belching smoke. Chunks of stone and plaster fall away, and the Doctor's first impulse is to surge forward and stick his head in. Odd that.
Sarah -
His confidence likely sprung from the lack of LARPers in the vicinity. I have to say the Malus is really quite impressive, especially after the pantomime horse in "Warriors of the Deep".
Harry -
A terrifying sea monster, surely? Well...
Sarah -
But here's the thing -- what is the Malus? Why is it in Little Hodcombe? What does it want? Is he responsible for the cosplay?
Harry -
Everyone in Little Hodcombe has an opinion of the Malus, but no one can really explain it until the Doctor decides what it is. In the meantime, the local space alien had become a demon of lore, sealed away under the church.
Sarah -
Perhaps the presence of the Malus would have been explained in episodes 3 and 4 -- along with a lot more running down corridors to fill the extra time.
Harry -
Not enough horse budget.
Limitations aside, letting us only see the Malus' slowly awakening face was effective. It glanced from side to side as if semi-conscious and uttered booming growls of a monstrosity coming to life. Its greatest power over the locals is that it feeds on the psychic energy they produce, so it telepathically urges Sir George to lead the war games -- and eventually to start slaughtering people to maximize the psychic energy and enable the Malus to break free.
Sarah -
It's probably a good thing we don't know more about the Malus' masterplan.
Harry -
Amid all this revelation, it turns out that Tegan's grandad -- Andrew Verney -- had most of it sorted out already, which is why Sir George had him locked away.
Sarah -
I liked Tegan's grandad. Pity we meet him so briefly.
Harry -
The Davison era is rare in that we meet so many of the companions' family members and they become part of their respective adventures (Tegan's grandad and aunt, Adric's brother & friends, Nyssa's father and step-mom). This won't happen again until the new series.
Sarah -
Good point. It's a huge departure for the companions.
Harry -
Because this is a two-parter, there's no space for filler and the plot bounces along. There's a brief episode where Tegan is imprisoned and forced into a May Queen costume. Presumably, she will be the first human to be sacrificed for the Malus. Colonel Wolsey however comes to his senses and realizes that the war games have crossed the line. He creates a dummy Queen and helps Tegan escape. This was a disturbing little episode, one that harkened to the "folk horror" films and shows of the 70s, where villagers or entire villages fell under the sway of evil beings right out of English lore.
Sarah -
That whole segment was really disturbing. Pity there weren't some Morris dancers about to save the day, a la "The Daemons".
Harry -
Eventually, all the threads lead back to the church and the Malus, which is trying to seize the TARDIS. The Doctor formulates a hasty plan and uses the TARDIS console to kill the apparition-Malus that was inside. Well, I'm not entirely sure what he did to it, but it fell to the floor and began oozing green stuff, which can't be good.
Sarah -
The apparition-Malus was so creepy -- even scarier than the giant head. The oozing didn't help, either.
Harry -
The real Malus is also affected, and the TARDIS escapes just before it explodes and takes the whole church down with it. Nice model work by the crew on that one. It must have been fun blowing the whole thing up at the end.
Sarah -
In one of the DVD featurettes, a local comments on how surprised they were to see their church explode when the story finally aired.
I just realized we've barely mentioned Turlough. He didn't have much to do in this story, did he?
Harry -
Yeah, Turlough got a holiday in this one. He just moved from one set to another without doing much.
Sarah -
So, there were are. The day is saved and it's time to drop everyone off in their appropriate time and place, but not before the Doctor is persuaded to spend a bit more time in Little Hodcombe so Tegan can visit with her grandad. It's hard to imagine how Will will return to the 17th century after this experience, but apparently that's where he's headed, so we can get on to our next adventure.
Harry -
Back to the priest hole, in case there be more o' the fightin'!
I didn't have good or bad memories of this story, but was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. The madness of Sir George went a long way in making this one very unsettling. As we discussed above, something about war games gone too far makes me anxious, and this is the only Davison story so far to have that effect. I'm going to give this one a high mark.
Sarah -
It was a fun story to rewatch. One of my favorite things about our marathon is the chance to revisit stories like "The Awakening", which we might not think about as we rush to rewatch "Genesis of the Daleks" for the 54th time!
Best Line:
Hutchinson: "You speak treason."
The Doctor: "Fluently!"
Favorite Moment: Tegan assuming the Doctor has brought her to the right place in the wrong time...again.
Lasting Image: The Malus head
6/10
Harry -
Best Line:
Turlough: "We're running out of places to run."
Tegan: "The story of our lives."
Favourite Moment: the church blows up.
Lasting Image: Sir George's maniacal face
8/10
Our marathon continues with Story #132: Frontios...
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