The Doctor and Turlough accompany Tegan to the village of Little Hodcombe. She plans to visit her grandfather, Andrew Verney, but learns that he has gone missing. The villagers, led by Sir George Hutchinson, are re-enacting events from 1643, when the English Civil War came to Little Hodcombe. But now strange apparitions are haunting the village, and the Doctor finds Wil Chandler, an urchin from 1643, hiding in the ruined church. Little Hodcombe has come under the influence of an alien entity called the Malus -- and when Tegan is chosen to be the Queen of the May, she may become its next victim.

Eric Pringle was a regular viewer of Doctor Who who had developed an unsuccessful proposal called “The Angarath” in 1975. His agent happened to be former Doctor Who producer Peter Bryant, who encouraged Pringle to try again. In August 1981, Pringle offered two new four-part stories to the Doctor Who production office. “The Darkness”, which apparently featured the Daleks, provoked little interest from script editor Eric Saward, but he was more enthusiastic about Pringle's other submission. “War Game” was inspired by the writer's interest in the English Civil War, and Saward thought that it might be suitable for Doctor Who's twenty-first season.

After a delay of some months while the final serials of Season Twenty were being lined up, Pringle was commissioned to develop a storyline for “War Game” on March 3rd, 1982. At this stage, Pringle began to realise that his narrative might lack sufficient incident to sustain four episodes. Nonetheless, he completed his story breakdown and delivered it to Saward on July 16th. At this point, Saward was worried that “War Game” would prove too costly to make, and voiced his concerns to Pringle when they met on September 1st. Nonetheless, he agreed to commission the script for Episode One the next day.

Eric Pringle agreed to compress The Awakening from four episodes to two

Following its submission on November 10th, Saward and producer John Nathan-Turner came to share Pringle's fear that “War Game” could not justify its intended length. As a result, Pringle agreed to compress his narrative from four installments to two, which he was able to accomplish without losing any significant elements of the plot. The reimagined Episode Two was commissioned on December 3rd, while the new version of Episode One was re-commissioned on the 13th. In early 1983, the serial was renamed The Awakening; the title “Poltergeist” may also have been considered at one point.

Although Pringle worked closely with Saward in completing The Awakening, the script editor concluded that the finished drafts were too long, and he carried out extensive rewrites to address the problem. He also wanted to diminish the supernatural aspects of the narrative, and sought to strengthen the science-fiction elements. To this end, Saward provided the Malus with a backstory connected to the Terileptils, the aliens he had created for 1982's The Visitation; he also hoped to lay the groundwork for their return appearance. Pringle was unhappy with Saward's rewrites, which he believed made the story confusing and rushed. The Awakening would become his only contribution to Doctor Who.

Other changes made by Saward involved the manifestation of the Malus: rather than the creature emerging from the fabric of the church wall, it was now revealed to be lurking behind it. He also added material involving Kamelion, the robot companion who would be introduced in 1983's The King's Demons. This sequence took place in a TARDIS corridor, where Tegan found Kamelion interfacing with the circuitry behind a roundel, and the robot claimed to be learning about the time machine. To avoid having to rehire Gerald Flood -- who had provided Kamelion's dialogue in The King's Demons -- Saward depicted the robot as imitating the voices of the Doctor and Turlough, much to Tegan's discomfort. Of the Little Hodcombe characters, Sir George Hutchinson's first name was originally John.

The director assigned to The Awakening was Michael Owen Morris, who had previously worked as a production assistant on The Pirate Planet in 1978. The Awakening would be his first job as a director; it would also prove to be his last involvement with Doctor Who, although it was thought at one point that he would return for Season Twenty-Two. Morris made arrangements for some of the cast to travel to Tarrant Monkton in Dorset a day early, in order to practice their horse riding. Jack Galloway, who was playing Willow, was quickly dumped by his horse into the waters of the River Tarrant -- belying his claims of being an experienced rider.

Production on The Awakening then began on July 19th, starting in Tarrant Monkton with material at the ford. Cast and crew then moved to Shapwick, where recording took place outside the Church of St Bartholomew, as well as at the market cross for some of the scenes on the village green. The team remained in Shapwick on July 20th, and were now joined by Peter Davison. For the first time, the lead actor donned a slightly redesigned costume: his jumper was given larger stripes, and green lining was added to his shirt in place of the original red. Bishops Court Farm served as the Wolsey property on this day, and additional material was filmed at St Bartholomew.

One of the sequences scheduled for the church was the arrival of the Doctor, Wolsey and Will Chandler in a horse-drawn cart, for which a false lych gate had been erected. At first, the horse was reluctant to approach St Bartholomew because his mare was grazing in a nearby field. Morris decided to bring the mare inside the churchyard -- out of shot -- to encourage the animal to behave as required. Unfortunately, the carthorse then became so excited that, on the take, he followed the actors through the lych gate, destroying it in the process. Luckily, the necessary footage could still be salvaged for use in the finished episode. This accident became a popular selection for blooper reels, beginning with the September 10th edition of Noel Edmonds' Late, Late Breakfast Show. It even made its way to the international market, featuring on programmes such as Television Bloopers And Practical Jokes in the United States.

The final two days of filming took place at Martin, Hampshire on July 21st and 22nd. Additional scenes on the Little Hodcombe green were recorded on the first day, and the shot of the trooper on the hillside was captured at nearby Martin Down. A press photocall for The Awakening was also held, although Nathan-Turner was irritated to observe that the reporters were less interested in Doctor Who than in Davison's wife, actress Sandra Dickinson, who had accompanied him to the location shoot. The next day, the building in which Turlough and Verney were held prisoner was a stable adjacent to Damers Cottage.

Consideration was given to retaining Will Chandler as a companion, but it was decided that he would not have a lasting appeal

Rehearsals for The Awakening's lone studio session followed, during which Keith Jayne's character, the young seventeenth-century peasant Will Chandler, became very popular with the cast and crew. Some consideration was given to retaining Will as a companion, but Nathan-Turner and Saward finally decided that he would not have a lasting appeal for viewers. Meanwhile, on July 28th, Nathan-Turner organised a press conference to announce that Davison would be leaving Doctor Who before the end of Season Twenty-One. Speculation immediately ran rampant as to who might be chosen to play the Sixth Doctor, with Brian Blessed -- best known for roles in Z Cars and I, Claudius -- championed by the newspapers. However, unbeknownst to the press and the public, Colin Baker had already agreed to succeed Davison.

The Awakening was completed between August 4th and 6th at BBC Television Centre Studio 6 in White City, London. The primary set was the church nave, which was used throughout the block. The first day otherwise dealt with scenes in the barn and the underground passage. The last two days also saw Morris record material in the crypt, Wolsey's parlour, and the box room where Tegan changed into her Queen of the May costume. Additionally, sequences in the vestry were taped on the middle day, and those in the TARDIS console room and corridor on the final day. Although the Kamelion prop was now working better than it had during the making of The King's Demons in December and January, it continued to be plagued by frequent faults.

In post-production, it was found that Episode One overran by almost four minutes. Even after deleting the lengthy Kamelion scene -- which was felt to be extraneous to the story's requirements -- the installment was still eighteen seconds too long. Morris concluded that more drastic editing would compromise the integrity of the programme, and so Nathan-Turner was forced to obtain special permission for Doctor Who to exceed its timeslot when the episode aired on January 19th, 1984.

• Doctor Who Magazine #282, 22nd September 1999, “Archive: The Awakening” by Andrew Pixley, Marvel Comics UK Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #1, 2001, “Hide And Seek” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #38, 2015, “Story 131: The Awakening”, edited by John Ainsworth, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Eighties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1996), Virgin Publishing.
• Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Fifth Doctor by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker (1995), Virgin Publishing.
• In·Vision #72, June 1997, “Production” edited by Anthony Brown, Cybermark Services.