| Production Code: 6M
First Transmitted
Cast The Doctor - Peter Davison
Crew
On July 13, 1643, two forces came to the village of Little Hodcombe during the English Civil War and destroyed each other. As the story begins, a group of Roundheads riding horses in the village of Little Hodcombe. They are attacking their opponents in what appears to be a battle in the English Civil War. The only problem is that it is not 1643, it is 1984. A schoolteacher, Jane Hampden, is convinced that her fellow villagers, led by the town’s leader, Sir George Hutchinson, have taken their reenactment of a series of war games too far. Hutchinson attempts to assure her that the games are harmless event which are to merely celebrate the English Civil War. When Hampden asks him to stop the games, Hutchinson blows her off. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor promises to take his companion, Tegan to 1984, so she could spend some time with her grandfather, Andrew Verney. The Doctor sets the coordinates to Little Hodcombe, where Verney resides. However, the TARDIS experiences some turbulence and arrives in what appears to be a structurally unstable church. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough, while watching on the scanner, sees a man in 17th Century clothing, fleeing from the church and the Doctor dashes out to help him. However, the man has now vanished. Tegan is convinced that they have landed in the wrong time zone. However, Turlough tells her that he had checked the TARDIS’ coordinates and they were in the correct time zone, 1984. As the Time Lord and his companions continue pursue the man, smoke starts to billow from a crack in the wall. Eventually, the three travellers are then captured by Captain Joseph Willow and taken to Sir George Hutchinson. The Doctor and his companions are first brought before Hampden and Colonel Ben Woolsey, who apologizes for the poor treatment that they received. Hutchinson arrives and explains to the doctor why everyone is dressed in 1643 apparel. He tells the Time Lord that the town is celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Little Hodcombe and then he urges the Doctor to join the celebration. The Doctor says “You know, I would love to, after I find Tegan’s grandfather.” Willow asks who is her grandfather. Tegan then explains that they have come to this village to see Verney, her grandfather, Andrew Verney. She is informed that her grandfather is missing, and runs outside the room, upset. The Doctor follows but loses her. Tegan is still upset and as she is crying someone steals her purse. She tries to get it back and she runs into a barn where she finds the ghost of an old man. The Doctor returns to the church and meets a 17th Century pessant, Will Chandler, who emerges from a wall. He has been hidden in a priest hole and believes the year to be 1643. Turlough eventually rescues Tegan from the barn and they return to the TARDIS, where they see a sparkly projection on one of the walls. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Will investigate the church. Tegan and Turlough leave the TARDIS and they are re-captured. Turlough is locked in a building with Verney. Willow gives Tegan a 17th Century dress and he forces her to change into the costume. He informs her that she is to become the Queen of the May. The Doctor and Will continue to investigate. Eventually they find a secret passage back 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 Hampden who found the passage’s other end by accident. 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 Terileptils 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, roaring and spewing smoke. They manage to escape from the psychic projection of a cavalier, and head back to the house via the tunnel. The Doctor realises that the Malus in the church was discovered by Verney and Huctchinson. The latter tried to exploit the creature, but instead, the creature began to use him by organizing the war games. He deduces that 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, as the final battle will be for real. He refuses and accuses the Doctor of speaking "Treason." The Doctor replies by saying "Fluently! Stop the games!" Hutchinson orders Woolsey to kill the Doctor and he leaves the room. However, once Hutchinson leaves, Woolsey joins forces with the Doctor. The Queen of the May is taken in a horse-drawn cart towards the village green, where she is to be burned. When the cart arrives, Hutchinson suddenly noticed that the Queen is not Tegan, but a straw dummy that has been put in her place by Woolsey. Hutchinson becomes angry and he orders his men to kill Woolsey and the others. Will appears in the nick of time and uses a flam torch to cause a distraction which allows the Doctor, Hampden, Woolsey and Tegan to escape and get back to the TARDIS. The Doctor locks the signal conversion unit on the frequency of the psychic energy feeding the Malus, hoping to be able 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 succeeds in blocking the energy, and the projection of the Malus in the TARDIS dies. The real Malus, in an act of desperation, attempts to drain as much psychic energy from the villagers as possible. He creates a corporeal projection of three roundheads who try to kill the Doctor, Woolsey, Tegan, Turlough, Hampden, Verney and Will. However, when they were about to strike, the dazed and confused trooper stumbles from the TARDIS and into the main church area where the three roundheads are. The trooper becomes surrounded by them and they raise their swords and they decapitate him and then vanish. Subsequently the church begins to collapse and the Doctor leads the others, including Willow, to safety in the TARDIS. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor's companions are surprised to see Will still among them. The Doctor explains that he must have been wrong in his assumption that Will was a psychic projection. He then says that the Malus must have created a temporal rift which allowed Will to slip into the future. The Time Lord then says that he will take Will back to 1643. Tegan objects and ask the Doctor to allow her some time to visit her grandfather. The Doctor is initially disgruntled but he is persuaded to stay in Little Hodcombe for a while for a rest. Turlough mentions that the stay would give him a chance to drink some tea. Will asks what is "tea." The Doctor explains the organical make up of tea to him. Will is convinced that it is a "wicked brew." The Doctor acknowledges the fact, but he indicates that he likes it anyway.
Another two part historical story – of a sort. This one is different because it is also a contemporary story, set in July 1984. The pretext of a civil war re-enactment taken too far by the villagers, led by the local ‘lord’ is a good start. Strangely, in modern England where democracy is an accepted way of life people like Verney often seem to command a great deal of control over rural affairs. A perfectly sound story could have been made out of his insane obsession to detail that even ran to wanting to burn a May Queen at the stake and have people executed on his orders. The Doctor fighting against a loony lord of the manor and his brainwashed locals would have been enough of a story in itself. But an alien entity was added to the mix, as well as some time slips that brought the young peasant lad, Will into the 20th century. The Malus made a fascinating enemy for The Doctor. Its various manifestations, including the giant stone face with glowing eyes and the lizard like creature on the wall of the console room were convincingly designed – refreshing after complaints about plastic-looking sea Devils. A creature that gains strength from the energy released in battle was a fascinating concept. Though why it would choose a small village and a relatively small battle in the English Civil War to feed on when it could as easily have fixed on something like the Flanders Fields of 1915, I don’t know. The dangerously unstable church in which the Malus established itself was praised by critics as a well-thought out set. And indeed, it is. So is the village generally. The location filming made, as ever, for an open feel to this episode. The juxtaposition of all those civil war costumes with things like red telephone boxes and modern shop fronts in the village was well thought out. The absence of cars from the streets meant that only the immovable landmarks like the phone box gave away that this wasn’t a trip back in time in the usual sense. The story didn’t get overcomplicated. In only two episodes that would have been a bad idea. The only implausible thing, perhaps, was yet another of Tegan’s relatives in trouble. Her aunt was killed by The Master, her cousin entangled in Omega’s plans, and now her uncle mixed up with the Malus. We may start to wonder just how many relatives Tegan has, and whether helping them out of danger might become a full time job for The Doctor. Incidentally, I did some research on this May Queen burning idea
and I can find no reference to it in any part of either British or
Irish culture. Even the Irish “Beltaine” festival which
is similar to May Day but much closer to the original pagan festival
has nothing more sinister in it than a symbolic union between the
May Queen and the young god of spring. In English custom, all that
seems to have happened was a young woman, usually of the peasant class,
got to hobnob with the local gentry for the length of the day’s
festivities. Frankly, I am relieved. It sounded a horrendous idea
and the thought that there was any foundation in it was disturbing.
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