The Doctor takes the Tardis to the sleepy English village of Little Hodcombe in order for Tegan to meet her grandfather . The village likes to celebrate The English Civil War by having a re-enactment though some people fear the re-enactments are taken too seriously . What is certain is that there's something mysterious about the Church building in the village
This is a strange mixture of good and bad . It's an inconsequential story that features some very good location filming and the idea of having an re-enactment of a historical event pushes the show in to the realms of meta-fiction . That said because it's two episodes the whole structure of the story feels compressed and rushed , a problem we often see in NuWho and in many ways you could remake this shot for shot in the new show without altering anything . We'd also get much better production values because there's nothing more certain to destroy an illusion in DOCTOR WHO than seeing giant polystyrene blocks acting as rubble in a story climax
There's also another problem and that is if you're a fan then it's impossible not to compare The Awakening to the 1971 story The Deamons since both premises revolve around a malignant dormant power at the local church reasserting itself .In 1984 The Deamons was undoubtedly considered the greatest Pertwee adventure if not the greatest DOCTOR WHO story ever so this story was on a hiding to nothing from the outset
One interesting point is a scene where Tegan is forced to change in to period dress by one of the heavies " Change in to this ....unless you want me to help you " which jars because their seems to have a very obvious innuendo behind it . . We're used to seeing the undercurrent of sex in NuWho but is certainly wasn't the case in the classic series so this scene sticks out in an otherwise unmemorable story