The Awakening ( TV story ) The Awakening was the second story of season 21 of " Doctor Who " . It was the third and final two - parter of the Peter Davison era . It was , indeed , the final two - parter in the traditional twenty - five - minute format . From this point forward in " Doctor Who " history , any two - parter would be at least forty - five minutes per episode . Despite its brevity , the serial boasted a few milestones . It was the first ( and only ) contribution by its writer and director . It offered the first outing of the Fifth Doctor ' s second costume , most notably differentiated by an obviously altered cricket ing jumper . It was the first time in the show ' s history that the Doctor set his TARDIS on course to meet a member of a companion ' s family — in this case , Tegan ' s grandfather . It was also the final story designed by Barry Newbery , one of Verity Lambert ' s original designers . Unusually , this serial had a certain measure of infamy in Britain for one of its out - takes from part two , in which a horse - drawn carriage was seen to apparently destroy a . The scene became one of the few " Doctor Who " out - takes to actually be broadcast on the BBC , and was also seen internally on BBC safety videos as an example of how " not " to film scenes involving animals . ( DCOM : " The Awakening " ) Naturally , for the transmitted version of the episode the sequence cut before the disaster . Synopsis . The Doctor , Tegan and Turlough arrive in Little Hodcombe , where the townspeople ' s re - enactments of English Civil War battles are causing a dormant entity , the Malus , to re - awaken . Plot . Part one . On 13 July 1643 , two forces came to the village of Little Hodcombe during the English Civil War and destroyed each other . As the story begins , Roundhead s are riding horses in the village of Little Hodcombe with little regard to the villagers around them . It is not 1643 , but 1984 . A schoolteacher , Jane Hampden , is convinced that her fellow villagers , led by the local magistrate , Sir George Hutchinson , have taken their re - enactment of a series of battles too far . Hutchinson tries to assure her that the games are a harmless event to celebrate the war . When Hampden asks him to stop the games , Hutchinson ignores her . The Doctor promises to take his companion , Tegan , to 1984 so she can spend some time with her grandfather , Andrew Verney . He sets the coordinates to Little Hodcombe , where Verney resides , but the TARDIS experiences some turbulence and lands in what appears to be a structurally unstable church . The Doctor , Tegan and Turlough , watching on the scanner , see a man in 17th century clothing flee from the church . The Doctor dashes out to help him , but the man has vanished . Tegan is convinced that they have landed in the wrong time , but Turlough has checked the TARDIS co - ordinates and they are in 1984 . As the Doctor and his companions pursue the man , smoke billows from a crack in the wall . Eventually , the three travellers are captured by Captain Joseph Willow and taken before Hampden and Colonel Ben Wolsey , who apologise for the poor treatment . Hutchinson arrives and explains the town is celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Little Hodcombe . He urges him to join the celebration . Tegan is told her grandfather is missing , and runs outside . The Doctor follows but loses her . Tegan , upset , is crying when someone steals her purse . She tries to get it back and runs into a barn where she finds the ghost of an old man . The Doctor returns to the church and meets a 17th century peasant , Will Chandler , who emerges from a wall . He has been hidden in a priest hole and believes the year to be 1643 . Turlough rescues Tegan from the barn and they return to the TARDIS . There is a sparkly projection on one of the walls . Meanwhile , the Doctor and Will investigate the church . Tegan and Turlough leave the TARDIS and are re - captured . Turlough is locked in a building with Verney . Willow forces Tegan to change into a 17th century costume . She is to be Queen of the May . The Doctor and Will find a secret passage to Ben Woolsey ' s living room under a slab marked with a picture of a creature that Will identifies as the Malus . Coming the other way through the passage , the Doctor and Will meet up with Hampden , who found the passage ' s other end after being locked in Colonel Wolsey ' s office . They avoid Hutchinson , who has followed Jane down the passage , and the Doctor finds a small ball of metal . The Doctor identifies the metal as tinclavic , a metal mined by the Terileptil s on the planet Raaga for the almost exclusive use of the people of Hakol , a planet in the star system Rifta , where psychic energy is a force to be harnessed . Returning to the church , the Doctor and Hampden are astonished when a massive alien face pushes its way through the crack on the wall . Part two . The creature roars and spews smoke . They escape from the psychic projection of a cavalier , and return to the house via the tunnel . The Doctor realises that the Malus in the church was discovered by Verney and Hutchinson . The latter tried to exploit the creature , but it used him by organising the war games . The psychic energy released by the war games has fed the Malus . The Doctor and Jane again try to persuade Hutchinson to stop the games ; the final battle will be for real . He refuses and orders Woolsey to kill the Doctor . Once Hutchinson leaves , Woolsey joins forces with the Doctor . The Queen of the May is taken in a horse - drawn cart to the village green , where she is to be burned . Hutchinson suddenly notices that the Queen is not Tegan , but a straw dummy that has been put in her place by Woolsey . Hutchinson becomes angry and orders his men to kill Woolsey and the others . Will appears in the nick of time and uses a flame torch to cause a distraction . This allows the Doctor , Hampden , Woolsey and Tegan to escape to the TARDIS . The Doctor locks the signal conversion unit on the frequency of the psychic energy feeding the Malus , hoping to direct it . Willow and a trooper try in vain to break their way into the TARDIS , and Turlough and Verney knock them unconscious with lumps of masonry . The Doctor blocks the energy , and the projection of the Malus in the TARDIS dies . The real Malus desperately tries to drain all the psychic energy from the villagers . He creates a corporeal projection of three Roundheads who try to kill the Doctor and his allies . However , the dazed and confused trooper stumbles from the TARDIS and into the main church area , becomes surrounded by the roundheads , who decapitate him , then vanish . Hutchinson arrives and holds them all at gunpoint . When the Doctor tries to talk Hutchinson out of the thrall of the Malus , Willow attacks the group . In the scuffle , Will pushes Hutchinson into the mouth of the Malus , destroying its medium . Realising it has failed , the Malus prepares to destroy itself and everything around it . The church begins to collapse and the Doctor leads the others , including Willow , into the safety of the TARDIS . Inside the TARDIS , the Doctor ' s companions are surprised to see Will still among them . The Doctor explains he must have been wrong in his assumption that Will was a psychic projection . The Malus must have created a temporal rift which allowed Will to slip into the future . The Doctor will take Will back to 1643 . Tegan objects and asks the Doctor to allow her some time to visit her grandfather . The Doctor is disgruntled but is persuaded to stay in Little Hodcombe for a while for a rest . DVD and VHS Releases . VHS release . This story was released on video in episodic format alongside " Frontios " . DVD release . " The Awakening " was released in the " Earth Story " boxset alongside " The Gunfighters " . It was the last Fifth Doctor story to be released in the DVD format . Released : Special Features :