‘Doctor Who: The Awakening’ (1984)


After I finished work yesterday (the afternoon was back to back meetings followed by my end of year review, all I was good for was a nap and belated feeding of the cat and the rabbit. No reading happened last night but I do have some bits on the go which I’m hoping will make it onto the blog before the end of this week. Fingers crossed and all that :o)

I did have a little browse through the ‘Classic Doctor Who’ stuff on Prime Video though, just to see what was what, and came across something called ‘Season 131’ that was only £2.99. I thought I’d have some of that and it turned out to be ‘The Awakening’. I don’t know why they couldn’t have just advertised it as ‘The Awakening’, it is clearly shown in the title sequence… Oh well :o)

I’ve got vague memories of watching ‘The Awakening’ back in the day but couldn’t really remember it (to be fair, the story is a two-parter and I was all of nine when it first aired…) so I thought I’d do something about that last night. And…

It’s 1984 and the Doctor and his companions have landed in the village of Little Hodcombe, so that Tegan can visit her Grandfather. Something else has landed in Little Hodcombe though, hundreds of years earlier, and its influence over the villagers means danger for the Doctor and his friends.

I used to love it when ‘two-parters’ aired; they’re short, sharp tales that break up the flow between longer serials (I know, they were only 4-6 episodes themselves but you know what I mean) and you didn’t have to wait too long for closure. And I’ll be honest, these days, they make for a nice, simple blog post ;o) I need that right now!

So I went into ‘The Awakening’ on a little burst of nostalgia and…

It was ok. Nothing to get too excited about but it was fun and did its job so I can’t complain really :o)

The concept has a lot going for it, an alien evil corrupting the villagers and turning a harmless re-enactment event into something more sinister. The cast throw everything at it, Peter Davison and Janet Fielding are always great together, and it all looks brilliant (‘By the Sword Divided’ was airing at the same time, I wonder if they lent ‘Doctor Who’ some of their costumes?) And all of that is before I get to the Malus, the ‘Big Face’ doesn’t look up to much but the little creature that invades the TARDIS looks properly evil.

Plenty to look at then but I think the story suffers slightly from not having enough room to breathe, thanks to the limited run time. I get that there’s only so much you can do with a plot where the main threat is trapped in a church (no matter how evil it is) but at the same time, it felt like there was a lot of stuff that we were just meant to accept with minimal explanation and just keep up with the story. Maybe one more episode would have given these moments a little chance to expand and make a little more sense? As it stood, ‘The Awakening’ felt like it had plenty to say, just not enough room to really say it all in.

But having said all that, I can’t really complain about an alien walled up in the church and an ‘English Civil War re-enactment’ gone wrong. It may not fit together perfectly but ‘The Awakening’ has plenty of moments that made it a lot of fun to watch and that was just what I was after last night ;o)

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