The Awakening

Viewing recommendation: I watched them in one go, but one at a time would work too.

It's Doctor Who does the Wicker Man, in a very terrific episode, very shoddily executed.

Actually, I'll tell you what this episode is. It's End of Days with pitchforks. It's at it best when dealing with two timezones in the same place - such as the Doctor being psychically bitch-slapped by the noise of the battle in the church, Sir George planning to fully reenact the battle - and instead of stranding Toshiko in the past, they drag Will Chambers to the future. It's all very creepy.

Then it turns out it's all at the behest of a huge bit of CGI (or the 1980s equivalent, which is a mildly unconvincing polystyrene mask), and the plot falls apart in twenty minutes. Except I'm not just comparing it to my favourite Torchwood episode, I'm criticising it in comparison.

Which should demonstrate not only how much I enjoyed it, but also how frustrating it was.

This is the Fifth Doctor at his worst and best - dashing off into a dangerous building to rescue a complete stranger, battering people with his uniquely vicious style of sarcasm, and having a total disregard for danger. I particularly liked "the toast of little Hodcombe", and walking straight towards the Malus. And his rapport with Will is just adorable.

On the other hand, he does spend the whole time chasing after companions and being completely hopeless. It's in episodes like The Awakening, in which the Doc demonstrates an inability to cope with a few reenactors, you wonder how he ever had a chance with the Cybermen. And indeed, he didn't did he?

None of the ideas ever quite get the attention they deserve; and it's the end sequence when all SEVEN of the heroes are standing around as the Doctor saves the day, and all SEVEN of them are hanging around and trying not to get dead from the projection (it's OK, though, the writer sees fit to bring in an EVEN MORE USELESS EXTRA to get killed, as if there weren't already four in the room to chose from...), you wonder where it all went wrong. Couldn't one of them have an interesting talent to diffuse the situation? Particularly, Tegan's grandfather, who's supposedly been researching the Malus and must have had some plan when he decided to "stop the Malus" by returning to the church. Tegan and Turlough fufil the "hanging onto the Doctor's sleeve" capacity well enough on their own.

Indeed, this is proper Fifth Doctor stuff full stop. I refer of course to the whole cast being herded into the TARDIS, and that wonderfully whimsical mix of the mundane and the magical, in a pastoral setting. You half expect Richard Mace to wander up. And I wonder what Striker and Marriner would make of Sir George? It certainly supports my theory that this Doctor performs better when on "home ground" - Castrovalva, Black Orchid, Visitation and the like. Nice places with leafy trees. Put him in an industrial area, a space base or somewhere dark and soulless, and suddenly the death toll shoots up.

There are nice touches, though. I thought Tegan's run out of the building was very interesting, in that it is just so similar to her exit in Resurrection of the Daleks. I'm going to assume that's foreshadowing. Though he really gets nothing to do in this episode, I'm amused Turlough prefers tea to beer - I always thought he was a wimp and that proves it. I can't remember whether this is canon, semi-canon or invented by me, but I've always liked the idea he had bad asthma at that school, as a result of Earth and Trion atmospheres being different.

And while this isn't quite up to Season 21's usual standards (almost all the named cast survive! Incredible!) it does feature what would be Who's nastiest ever death, if the camera wasn't looking the other way at the time. My mind substituted a massive jet of the red stuff spraying the church roof, so it was OK.

In contrast, Jane makes an adorable spare companion. Her reactions are just too perfect. But that is nothing compared to Will, dear Will, without which this episode would have been nothing. His reaction makes the Malus scary, the civil war real and the burnings tragic. Without him, sure we could have worked these things out - but he really made me feel it. The Doctor clearly thinks he's great too, from quietly showing him the graves, to the confrontation in the church. Lets face it, having already declared that this time there will be another way, had anyone else in that room pushed Sir George into the Malus, the Doc would have gone ape. Will gets away with it - he even gets sympathy. That's because he's too cute to be real.

What else? Apparently, the plot doesn't make much sense - but I think the Malus would be less scary had it's intentions been spelled out in an obvious way, doubtless something to do with destroying the galaxy. The apparitions are, at times, very scary - particularly that baby Malus in the TARDIS. And there's something quietly threatening throughout in the village.

One last thing: Tereleptils!

All in all, I think this is an episode I will never make my mind up about. Is it good? Is it bad? It's genuinely very hard to tell. Scary, or a bit limp? Again, I'm not sure - it can hardly be both. Too long, too short? Even thinking about The Visitation, an episode I've never truly liked, complicates things - I can't even decide whether I like Awakening a lot more, or a lot less.

This much is certain: I was going to try and watch them one at a time, but I've never managed that with doctor five. I now face the utterly terrifying prospect of only having three adventures left.