LENGTH: 2 Episodes, 25 mins. each
BROADCAST: January 19 - January 20, 1984
EPISODE 1 SUMMARY:
In the English village of Litttle Hodcombe, the people are involved in historical reenactments in celebration of July 13, 1643, the day the village became a battleground in the English Civil War. The only dissenter among them is schoolteacher Jane Hampden, who thinks the games are getting out of hand. She is appalled to find out her friend Ben Wolsey is involved, and she confronts Sir George Hutchinson, the local magistrate and orchestrator of the war games, asking him to put an end to them. Hutchinson dismisses her concerns.
The Doctor and his companions, Tegan and Turlough, are on their way to Little Hodcombe on Tegan's request to visit her grandfather, Andrew Verney. The TARDIS is being affected by a mysterious time distortion, and experiences strange turbulence before landing inside a crumbling church. On the scanner screen, they see a man running through the building, and the Doctor goes out to help him. From his clothes, Tegan fears they've arrived in the wrong century.
In Wolsey's office, Hutchinson tries to convince Jane to join the games again, but she's concerned any visitors to the village could get hurt. Hutchinson tells her he's sealed off the village, preventing anyone from getting in or leaving.
The time travelers explore the church, but Tegan is eager to go find her grandfather. As they leave, a white vapor begins to pour through a crack in the wall. Outside, they encounter a group of re-enactors dressed as Roundheads, led by Hutchinson's right hand man, Sgt. Joseph Willow. They are arrested and escorted to Wolsey's office. Tegan says they are just there to visit Verney, but Jane informs her that he went missing a few days before, and nothing has been done to find him. Upset, Tegan runs out and the Doctor sends Turlough after her, but Willow holds the Doctor at gunpoint. Tegan rests outside a barn, and someone inside reaches out to snatch her handbag. She follows after them and gets locked in.
Back at Wolsey's office, Hutchinson arrives and explains the history behind the village's involvement in the Civil War and that the war games are being conducted in celebration. He turns on the charm, asking the Doctor to join them in the final battle, but the Doctor says he must find his companions. He knocks Willow's gun off the table and escapes. Willow tells Hutchinson about the connection between Tegan and Verney, and Hutchinson orders them to be captured.
Tegan is frightened by a specter that appears in the barn, but Turlough finds her and they leave. While searching the village for his friends, the Doctor bumps into the man from the church, who is clutching Tegan's bag, and chases after him, returning to the church. Inside, he is assaulted by sounds of a battle, and a man breaks through the wall. He says he is Will Chandler and he was hiding in a priest hole to avoid the fighting. The Doctor asks him what year is is, and Will says it's 1643. Tegan and Turlough arrive, and the Doctor tells them 1984 and 1643 have become linked somehow: the deformed man, the specter in the barn, and Will are all psychic projections from the past. While he goes off with Will to find some answers, Tegan and Turlough take refuge in the TARDIS, but the alien force has already penetrated it's defenses and a projection is attempting to manifest inside. They go back to the village to find the Doctor and are chased by Hutchinson's men, who apprehend Tegan. She is locked up and told to put on a dress, because she has been chosen to be the village's Queen of the May.
Hiding from horsemen, the Doctor and Will take refuge in a crypt. Will is frightened by an image carved into a stone floor slab. The Doctor asks what happened in 1643, and Will tells him the Malus came, causing the hatred and fighting to grow worse. The Doctor trips a mechanism in the slab, which is in fact a trap door leading down into a tunnel system. In Wolsey's office, Jane finds a secret door that leads to the same tunnels, but Hutchinson and two of his men pursue her. She is saved by the Doctor, and tells him they're in the tunnels Verney discovered. The Doctor picks up a lump of squashy metal dropped by Hutchinson, telling Jane that it is tinclavic mined from the prison planet Raaga for the use of the people of Harkol, who have harnessed psychic power as a form of energy. Sometime in the past, a computer probe from Harkol landed in Little Hodcombe, carrying the creature that became known as the Malus. The crack in the church wall suddenly opens up to reveal a sinister face wreathed in smoke, which engulfs the Doctor.
EPISODE 2 SUMMARY:
The Doctor recovers from the attack, and the man clutching Tegan's bag returns, transforming into a projection of a Cavalier soldier. The sounds of battle return, and Will to runs away in fear, while the Doctor and Jane escape back into the tunnels. The Doctor tells Jane that the Malus arrived sometime before the Civil War, and awoke in 1643 because of the psychic overload caused by the conflict. When the war ended, the Malus went back to a dormant state. Hutchinson started the war games to awaken the Malus, but for it to become fully active, the final battle will have to be a real slaughter.
In the village, Turlough is arrested and locked up with Verney, who was not missing but actually a prisoner. He had researched the Malus legend for years, only to discover that it was real. He made the mistake of telling Hutchinson, who wanted to exploit the creature's power.
Returning to Wolsey's office, the Doctor tells Hutchinson to stop the games, but he refuses, ordering Wolsey to kill the Doctor and Jane before he departs. Realizing Hutchinson has gone mad, Wolsey agrees to help stop the war games. They proceed with the May Queen procession while the Doctor goes off to find Will, who is hiding near the May Pole, remembering the last time he saw a May Queen burned alive. The Doctor is restrained, and Wolsey arrives, having replaced Tegan with a straw dummy. Hutchinson orders Willow to kill Wolsey, but Will runs in and attacks the soldiers, freeing the Doctor. The trio head for the church. Turlough and Verney also manage to break out of their prison and make for the church as well.
The Doctor's party meets up with Tegan and Jane, and they all enter the TARDIS. The Doctor hopes he can use the ship to take control of the Malus' psychic signal. Willow and one of his men arrive, and attempt to break into the TARDIS, but they are knocked out by Turlough and Verney. Sensing what the Doctor is trying to do, the Malus calls Hutchinson to it.
The Doctor cuts off the Malus' link with the village and Tegan is reunited with her grandfather, but the Malus conjures up three soldiers to attack the group. Willow's lieutenant comes to and stumbles between the soldiers, who decapitate him. Hutchinson, under the Malus' control, enters the church and Wolsey tries to reason with him. The Malus revives Willow and uses him to attack Wolsey, and in the confusion Will rushes forward, pushing Hutchinson into the Malus, killing him. With it's medium dead, the Malus goes into self-destruct. Everyone escapes in the TARDIS before the church is blown to pieces.
When Jane asks what the Malus really was, the Doctor says it was a living being re-engineered to be a tool of war, sent to Earth to clear the way for an invasion that never took place. Turlough points out that Will is still there, and the Doctor admits the Malus must have had enough power to merge 1643 and 1984 long enough for a living being to cross over.
With the Malus and its influence gone, Jane, Wolsey, and Willow are able to forgive and forget. The Doctor is eager to drop everyone off and move on, but Tegan gets him to agree to a short vacation so she can spend some time with her grandfather.
