M is for... Malus

The Malus was a demonic-looking entity which appeared at the village of Little Hodcombe during a battle between Parliamentarians and Royalists in 1643. The superstitious people of the time thought it the very Devil himself.

It had arrived on Earth in prehistoric times but lain dormant - the local church being built over its burial site. Really a psychic probe from the planet Hakol, despatched in a capsule made of tinclavic, it had been intended as the advance guard for an invasion which never took place. It fed on negative mental energies and so was triggered by the hatred generated by the Civil War conflict. This was not enough to sustain it and it lapsed into dormancy - until reactivated by the planned battle re-enactment by local squire Sir George Hutchinson in 1984. He was mentally unbalanced and easily influenced by the Malus, which drove him to recreate the battle for real.

The probe was able to break down temporal barriers - allowing solid psychic projections to appear in the village of 1984, when it was visited by the Fifth Doctor and his companions. Tegan Jovanka's grandfather lived at Little Hodcombe and had studied the Malus legends. 

Identifying the threat posed by the Doctor, the Malus began to project itself within the TARDIS, appearing as a diminutive gargoyle-like creature. At the same time, the probe itself was breaking out from beneath the long-abandoned church.

The Doctor cut off the link with the entity in the TARDIS, starving it of energy - and the main probe was destroyed when Will Chandler - a young man from the 17th Century who had been transplanted into 1984 - similarly cut off the psychic link between it and Sir George after pushing him to his death, resulting in an implosion which obliterated the Malus along with the church.

Appearances: The Awakening (1984).

• The Malus was designed by Tony Harding - the man who had previously designed K9.
• The prop still exists in private hands.
• The story was written by Eric pringle, whose literary agent was Peter Bryant - the former producer of Doctor Who.
• Script editor Eric Saward added the reference to the soft metal tinclavic - previously mentioned in his own 17th Century-set story The Visitation.