The Awakening (1984) Review

The 1980s Wicker Man was even weirder than Nicolas Cage's.
For example, instead of bees, our lead was allergic to Australia.

The Awakening is a clever, quirky story that suffers massively from its short length.

WRITTEN BY

Eric Pringle, um... some guy who wrote some Doctor Who once. Shame he never came back, the show really suited him.

PLOT

The TARDIS returns to Earth to visit Tegan's grandfather, only to find out that his village of Little Hodcombe is embroiled in celebratory war games led by the mad Sir George Hutchinson, who is trying to recreate the era and thus, send his men into a frenzy to summon forth enough psychic energy to power his evil master, the Malus.

ANALYSIS

There's a lot to love about The Awakening: the isolated English village is a classic, and thanks to the war games it has a historical tinge to it. And the idea of people becoming so obsessed with the past that they become a danger to others in their attempts at recreating it is genuinely terrifying. The guest stars are all very good and make the characters stand out, and the juxtaposition of the past and present brings modern Doctor Who to mind.

The problem here is that The Awakening aims way too high to be a two-parter. From what I've heard, JNT and Eric Saward felt the story went on for too long and had Pringle shorten it. And after that, Saward even made some extra edits on his own.

So, Warriors Of The Deep had to spend an hour and a half on lame bloodshed, but a story about temporal and psychic manipulation of reality caused by the alien equivalent of a catapult - cut that down to 45 minutes!

Utter codswallop.

CHARACTERS

Peter Davison continues to impress me. Thankfully, it seems the days of breathless babbling and spineless apologies are long past. The Fifth Doctor now exudes a calm, sardonic attitude that actually makes him fun to watch as he brings some subtle humor to the part, at times even reminiscent of Troughton.

There's not really anything to say about Mark Strickson or Janet Fielding. Mark has thankfully gone back to normal after chewing the scenery in Warriors Of The Deep, so they're their usual selves, in a good way. Tegan's a bit prickly and Turlough's a bit pragmatic and cynical, but they both look out for one another. It's an interesting and realistic dynamic that I wish the writers focused more on.

Denis Lill(previously the eccentric Dr. Fendelman in Image Of The Fendahl) is fantastic as the mad dog Sir George Hutchinson. He's completely believable as a villain even without the Malus' influence, as his obsession and pride with the war games immediately makes him a frightening threat, someone who's taken a relatively unimportant event way too far and who also wields the power to carry out any one of his whims.

Keith Jayne plays a likable rapscallion from 1643, who... is there. I mean, I like him, but like most of the characters in this story, he only exists to supply a few lines of exposition and then tag along. It should be mentioned that Jayne resembles Matthew Waterhouse and... of course, JNT wanted to keep him around as a companion.

Jack Galloway is pure evil as Willow, enjoying being able to do as he pleases(so long as Sir Hutchinson's orders are fulfilled) and completely shameless in his antagonising of everyone around him. Bizarrely, the character's evil deeds are completely forgotten after the Malus is defeated(it is hinted that the Malus influenced the villagers, but it had a way bigger effect on Willow than anyone else other than Hutchinson, who was under direct control), though it's still an effective performance.

Polly James is a rather likable leading character for the Fifth Doctor to interact with, as she's sort of part-Liz, part-Jo, if that makes any sense. She's very pragmatic, but can also get quite excitable once she gets into the groove of things, so to speak.

Glyn Houston(who gave a similarly underrated performance in The Hand Of Fear) is so lovable as old Colonel Ben Wolsey, that it's hard to see how he could've been coerced by Hutchinson to begin with, Malus or no Malus. I loved the scene of him defying Hutchinson at the Queen Of The May ceremony and, though it seemed a bit out of left field, his desire to repent for his sins by fighting Hutchinson on his own.

Frederick Hall's Andrew Verney is a cipher character, but to be honest, I really would've liked to see more of him as it would've been interesting to explore Tegan's relationship with his grandfather, maybe see a little bit of her warmer side. Still, he was perfectly fine in the role.

NOTES

*I already mentioned how Hutchinson seemed like a human villain, but I would like to emphasise that it would've made the story much, much better if Pringle had just ditched the Malus altogether and simply had the villagers go nuts about their war games. It's a much more frightening and rich concept, reminiscent of the old historicals, not to mention far more manageable in just two parts.

*Both Tegan and Jane seem to pay no heed to the fact that the entire village is against them and are content to shout their lines in the streets and church respectively. If I was in their shoes, I'd be whispering and clutching a weapon the entire time.

*Time to dust off the old cliche of the companion clearly encountering something weird and choosing to ignore it and not tell anyone.

*Okay, flipping a coin to make a decision I understand, but playing "which hand has the item?" with yourself is just... stupid. Although I suppose the whole game is just a charade, given that the Doctor loves to flip the coin more than once.

*I love how self-satisfied Turlough is when the Doctor orders him and Tegan to get back to the TARDIS. He practically ushers her in!

*First of all, how does leaving a door unlocked mean that the Malus' apparition can get into the TARDIS? Secondly, why do Tegan and Turlough just run off without even prodding it or... I dunno, something? Just leave it there unguarded, sure.

*In a funny coincidence, the Fifth Doctor's flashlight looks like the RTD-era sonic screwdriver.

*"Was Andrew Verney engaged in r- in any research..." Told you Davison was a young Hartnell.

*Jane's cliffhanger scream has to be heard to be believed. "Doctoooooooooo-ooooooooorrr!!"

*What exactly was the result of that cliffhanger anyway? The Doctor stood in front of the Malus, got a nice steam sauna treatment and then fell over, slightly weakened. What happened?

*A lot of nonsense happens in this story, which I won't recount, but it can all be chalked up to the psychic bleedover caused by the Malus... although I do wonder, why does it need to recreate the events of 1643 so badly? Wouldn't just murdering a bunch of people and starting a metaphorical witch hunt have the same effect? And why on Earth is the Malus actually physically bringing people to the future, like Will and that thief and the strange mute lord??

*"Insight is often mistaken for madness, my dear." Never heard that one before.

*How stupid is Hutchinson to leave the fate of Jane, Tegan and the Doctor at Wolsey's hands, whom he knows was just having a civil conversation with them? I guess he firmly believes Wolsey is loyal, but... couldn't he have just killed them all himself with a gun there and then? It would only take about five seconds.

*We clearly see some women toss flower petals(or whatever it is you toss at weddings) at Tegan, so why couldn't any one of them been the May Queen? Hutchinson seemed to think it could only have been her or Jane, but it's never explained why.

*After Wolsey reveals the May Queen is made of hay, he takes off to escape... but then apparently stops to let the Doctor and Will perform their daring escape with his carriage, which takes a while. I know it sounds cowardly when I write it down, but on-screen, it would've made far more sense for him to escape on the carriage before anyone could stop him rather than hang around for the Doctor and Will.

*I'd love to see the Hakolians realised one day, because their weapon is just about the most convoluted thing ever. Get this: to prepare a planet for invasion, they send down this giant head to manipulate the planet's history and recreate an event from its past to create psychic disturbances, which it then uses to power itself whilst also turning people against one another and killing a lot of them. Seriously, Pringle, why not just drop this daft thing?

*In a remarkable show of perhaps unintentional chauvinism, the Doctor asks Tegan to close the TARDIS doors... even though she's standing on the scanner side of the console whilst he's standing with his back to the door... right in front of the control! So Tegan has to run around the console to push a giant lever for him.

*You have to love the knight who gets a polystyrene rock to break into the TARDIS as opposed to just slamming the feeble wooden doors open with his leg or shoulder.

*The psychic projection of the Malus inside the TARDIS drools green when it dies... why?! Is it a physical thing now? How? What? Why?

*There's an adorable moment where Jane uses the TARDIS door control right ahead of the Doctor, which is a lovely, subtle bit of background comedy of the sort that the show hasn't done for ages.

*What exactly killed Sir George in the end? Will pushes him onto the Malus' face and that's it? Instant death?

*Rather hilariously, Turlough points out at the very end that Will could not possibly be a psychic projection(which is the explanation the Doctor provided early on) and the Doctor's like "Uh, I guess I was wrong then!". It's perfectly naturalistic, but I just find it funny as heck that for once, the Doctor wasn't immediately right.

CONTINUITY ADVISOR

Upon finding some tinclavic(metal from the planet Ragga), the Doctor tells Jane that it's mined by the Terileptils(the villains from The Visitation) for the Hakolians. Not only is this a pointless reference, but it actually distracts from the storyline because the tinclavic has nothing to do with anything.

I have heard that Saward wanted to keep the Terileptils in the public eye to do a sequel and just never got around to it, which is fair enough, but surely he could've done so in a better way, like actually having the aliens cameo(they would've made Warriors Of The Deep instantly much more interesting) or anything other than this, because all that this reference does is tell the audience "oh, they're a thing". Which they will no doubt forget instantly after anyway.

Point is, if you want your monster remembered in-between stories, just putting the word "Terileptil" in the script isn't going to cut it.

BEST QUOTE

HUTCHINSON: "Are you a member of the theatrical profession?"
DOCTOR: "No more than you are."

CONCLUSION

An imaginative, splendid time travel story with a great cast and setting crammed into a far too short runtime.