081 The Time Meddler Episode 4: Checkmate

EPISODE: The Time Meddler Episode 4: Checkmate
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 081
STORY NUMBER: 017
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 24 July 1965
WRITER: Dennis Spooner
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Donald Tosh
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 8.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Time Meddler

"So that's it! You're a time meddler! No wonder you wanted to get rid of me!"

The Monk plans to signal the Viking fleet to land and then destroy them, allowing Harold's army to ride fresh to Hastings without having been involved in battle. Steven & Vicki find the Monk's collection of artefacts & technology plus his diary of attempted time meddling. The Doctor is enraged with the Monk and reminds him not to interfere. The Monk claims to have helped build Stonehenge with an anti gravity lift and explains his plan which the Doctor vows to prevent. Sven the Viking wakes and seeks Ulf but is seen by the recovered Eldred. The Monk shows the Doctor his Tardis disguised as an altar. Eldred sneaks out of the monastery to warn the villagers. The Doctor marvels at the Monk's later mark IV Tardis. Vicki tells him the tide came in but the Doctor is confident it has survived intact. The Doctor admits he comes from the same place as the Monk but 50 years earlier by his reckoning. The Monk escapes but is captures by the Vikings. However he claims that he's in league with them and that the Doctor's party are their enemies. Eldred tells the villagers about the Vikings and they come to the monastery. The Monk deceives the Vikings into taking his weaponry to the cliff top. The Tardis crew are tied up and the Doctor vows to stop the monk. The villages set on the Vikings but they & the Monk escape. Edith frees the Tardis crew. The Vikings are caught (and killed though we don't see it as there's 12 seconds of footage missing from this episode, cut by the New Zealand censor and this is where it would be) The Doctor tampers with the Monk's Tardis and is delighted with his work. They decide to return to the Tardis, leaving a note for the Monk. The Monk returns to read the note and laughs. He enters the Tardis to find that the Doctor has removed it's dimensional control causing the inner dimensions to collapse to the size of the outer ones marooning the Monk in 1066. The Tardis dematerialises from the beech.....

That was a satisfying conclusion to the story. Lots of Hartnell & Butterworth together really make the episode, the exchanges between the two are fabulous.

It appears the Monk has prior form for doing naughty things with time travel as Vicki & Steven find out when they locate his diary in his haul of treasures assembled during his travels:

VICKI: Listen! Met Leonardo Da Vinci and discussed with him the principles of powered flight.
STEVEN: What? Da Vinci lived in the middle ages. I know he tried to build a flying machine, a sort of aeroplane.
VICKI: I know and according to this it was the Monk who put him up to it. And listen to this: Put two hundred pounds in a London bank in 1968. Nipped forward two hundred years and collected a fortune in compound interest.

DOCTOR: So that's it! You're a time meddler! No wonder you wanted to get rid of me. And what are you trying to get up to this time?
MONK: I'm sure you'll approve, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Are you quite mad? You know as well as I do the golden rule about space and time travelling. Never, never interfere with the course of history.

This has been a central concept to the series travels into the past going right back to the Aztecs when Barbara wants to make them stop their sacrifices:

DOCTOR: But you can't rewrite history! Not one line!

The Monk then poses an interesting question:

MONK: And who says so?

The answer to this, and many other questions, lies four years in the show's future in the final episode of The War Games

The Monk then boasts of more of what he has done and reveals his plan:

Doctor it's more fun my way. I can make things happen ahead of their time.
DOCTOR: Is that so?
MONK: Yes, indeed. For instance, do you really believe the ancient Britons could have built Stonehenge without the aid of my anti-gravitational lift?
DOCTOR: And what mischief are you up to now?
MONK: Mischief? No, no. A master plan. A master plan to end all master plans.
DOCTOR: Oh, is that so?
MONK: The whole course of history changed in one single swoop.
DOCTOR: By wiping out the Viking fleet?
MONK: Exactly, Doctor, exactly. Of course, obviously, I don't have to remind you that the main reason William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings, was because King Harold had to march to Stamford Bridge and defeat the Vikings first.
DOCTOR: So you plan to save him the journey?
MONK: That's right. Precisely. A fresh army, no desertions. Why King Harold will kick William back to Normandy before knows what happened. It's quite a plan, eh?
DOCTOR: Oh, yes, it's quite a plan. It's quite a plan, yes. I count myself a very fortunate person indeed, to be here, in time to prevent this disgusting exhibition!
MONK: You haven't prevented it yet, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Haven't I?

Why? What's the Monk going to gain by this? As Vicki asks what's his reason for doing what he is?

MONK: I couldn't have picked a better place for my headquarters than this. A deserted monastery right on the coast, gullible peasants who believe everything I say to them. No, Doctor. No, I planned to materialise my ship right on this very spot disguised as a sarcophagus, and here it is.

Yet more examples of the Monk's forward planning.

DOCTOR: Yes, well, tell me, how does one exactly get into this sarcophagus? Hammer and chisel?
MONK: This way, Doctor. Oh, er, mind your head.

Note that the sarcophagus is roughly the same size as a Police Box tipped on it's side!

We get a lovely aerial view of the Monk's Tardis console at the start the episode.

What we can't see then, but comes apparent now everyone is inside, is that the console is raised up a foot or so compared to the Doctor's which we're used to seeing him bend over:

The Doctor seems a little jealous of the Monk's Tardis....

DOCTOR: The water cannot affect the Tardis. It won't wash away. It'll still be there when the tide goes down. Now stop fretting, my dear. Well, I must confess, er, I do congratulate you. It's a splendid machine. Although I do note there's been quite a few changes?
MONK: Oh, yes, indeed, Doctor. In fact this one is fitted with the automatic drift control.
DOCTOR: Oh, I see, yes, of course. And, er, thereby you can suspend yourself in space with absolute safety.
MONK: Precisely, Doctor.

.... and then gets decidedly irritably when the Monk starts insinuating that his Tardis is a better model:

MONK: By the way, I tried to get into your police box but the door was locked. What type's yours, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Mind your own business.
STEVEN: Look, I take it you both come from the same place, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes, I regret that we do, but I would say that I am fifty years earlier.

Many years later we'll learn that the Doctor's Tardis is a Type 40 TT capsule.

But after that the Doctor gets down to the business of finding out exactly what the Monk is up to here:

DOCTOR: Now when are you going to answer my questions?
MONK: Which questions?
DOCTOR: The reason for this deliberate destruction.
MONK: I, I want to improve things.
DOCTOR: Improve things? Improve things, yes, that's good. Very good. Improve what, for instance?
MONK: Well, for instance, Harold, King Harold, I know he'd be a good king. There wouldn't be all those wars in Europe, those claims over France went on for years and years. With peace the people'd be able to better themselves. With a few hints and tips from me they'd be able to have jet airliners by 1320! Shakespeare'd be able to put Hamlet on television.
DOCTOR: He'd do what?
MONK: The play Hamlet on television.
DOCTOR: Oh, yes, quite so, yes, of course, I do know the medium.
STEVEN: Were you going to kill the Vikings?
MONK: Yes, yes, I was. You see, if I didn't, then King
DOCTOR: What are we going to do with this fellow? What can we do with this man? He's utterly irresponsible. He wants to destroy the whole pattern of world history.

A little expansion: most people are probably aware of The Battle Of Hastings, that it's the pivotal event in British history and, with apologies to W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, probably the only date that everyone can remember. But what isn't so well known is the events leading up to it. Following the death of Edward the Confessor while still childless the English line of succession was unclear. Harold Godwinson ascended to the throne in early 1066. Two challengers for the English throne Tostig Godwinson, King Harold's brother, and the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada together with a force of Norwegian soldiers defeated a hastily gathered army of Englishmen at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September 1066, and were in turn defeated by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge five days later which left Harold's English army weary. William of Normandy landed his invasion forces in the south of England on 28 September 1066 forcing Harold to speed march his tired troops south, a major contributing factor in the defeat of the English there.

Of course the Monk is quick to switch sides when the need arises to get away from his time travelling captors:

MONK: Long live King Hardrada! Those are your enemies, there. Quick!

As I've said above the interaction between Hartnell and Butterworth is a joy to watch but Hartnell himself has been on fine form throughout this story. His glee at working out a way of stealing the Monk's dimensional control is fabulous.

Of course we ask ourselves *WHY* go to so much trouble when he could have simply removed it. We get the answer at the end of the episode:

The Monk finds the letter on the altar:

MONK: The Doctor.

My dear fellow, I'm sure will you excuse me but I didn't want to say goodbye, as you are obviously going to be very busy for some time.

He's right there.

Just in case you still have ideas about your master plan, I've taken precautions to stop your time meddling.

How could he stop a Mark 4?

Possibly one day in the future, when you've learnt your lesson, I shall return and release you.

Release me? Ha! Me? Oh, the old fool. I wonder what he meant by release me? Well, I'll be going.

MONK: Ah! Ah! What's he done? He's taken my dimensional control! He's ruined my time machine! I'm, I'm marooned. Marooned! In 1066. Oh, Doctor. Doctor! Doctor!

Peter Butterworth's Monk is a fantastic character and it's little surprise that he returns in the not to distant future in the next story that Dennis Spooner & Douglas Camfield take charge of. Well done to both of them for producing a fantastic story. I loved Spooner's first effort, The Reign of Terror, and enjoyed his Romans too far more than I thought I would. The same humour in those is present in this story through the Monk. The plotting is great: it sets up a mystery and plays it out. Little details like mentioning The Atomic Cannon on the plan before Steven & Vicki find it and making the Doctor go to such trouble removing the dimensional control circuit make the story which also accomplishes the educational aims of the series by imparting some lesser known details about a well known historical tale.

The Time Meddler is the first historical story with science fiction elements inserted into it, although The Chase featured a brief sequence with the Daleks on the Mary Celeste. As the historical story dies out we'll later come to see many more science fiction stories with a historical setting. A section of the Dalek Masterplan takes place in Ancient Egypt pitting the Daleks against Pyramid builders for example and in later years The Time Warrior, Talons of Weng Chiang and The Visitation follow a similar pattern. Indeed later in the series the production team realised that a good way to get decent costumes and sets out of the BBC was to set it in the past and treat it as a historical drama. It's no coincidence that many of the best Sylvester McCoy stories are set in Earth's past.

Like episodes 1 & 3 of The Time Meddler episode 4 was recovered from Nigeria in 1984/5. The prints are believe to be those previously used in New Zealand because they contain cuts precisely matching what the New Zealand censor was known to have to have had removed. In episode 4's case the cut begins at 16:18 where 13 seconds of a Saxon stabbing two Vikings is missing. It's at the end of the scene, the picture fades to black and resumes with the Doctor fiddling with the Monk's Tardis console. No other copy of this episode has ever been found so to this day it remains incomplete.

Interestingly Telesnaps are known to exist for this episode, but have never been published. I wonder if any of them show something of the cut section?

Because of the change of cast, with Steven replacing Ian & Barbara, the Time Meddler has a very different feel to much of season 2 of Doctor Who. I'm led to wonder if any thought was given to holding it back to open the third season? Although they don't get a huge amount of screen time here Vicki & Steven work well together, indeed they are probably my favourite set of Hartnell companions. It's just a shame that this line up is so short lived.

But it is broadcast at the end of Season 2 and to mark the occasion the end titles are different starting with the faces of the companions and then the title captions play out over a starfield background instead of the usual black.

The Time meddler was novelised for Target Books by Nigel Robinson and released in October 1987 in Hardback and March 1988 in Paperback.

Having been something that seemed a bit of an ignored story for many years The Time Meddler came to prominence when it was chosen to open a repeat season on BBC2 in 1992. It aired on Friday nights from 3rd to 24th January that year was and followed by The Mind Robber, The Sea Devils, a newly recoloured The Daemons, (surprisingly) Genesis of the Daleks, Caves of Androzani, Revelation of the Daleks and Battlefield. See here for what was a complete list of terrestrial Doctor Who repeats.

The Time Meddler was released on VHS in late 2002 in a boxset containing the last 3 complete William Hartnell stories not yet on Video - also included were the Sensorites and the Gunfighters. The Time Meddler posed numerous technical challenges which led to the then brand new Vidfire technique not being applied to it. See The Restoration Team's article on the First Doctor boxset for more details.

The Time Meddler was released on DVD on 4th February 2008 where the technical challenges again prevented Vidfire's use.

A slide appears at the end of episode 4 paying tribute to the show's producer Verity Lambert who had recently died. It's fitting that it should appear on this disc because, bar the miraculous recovery of Galaxy 4 or Mission to the Unknown this is likely to be the latest story of her reign released on DVD.

And that concludes Doctor Who season 2. Generally I've enjoyed this season, with the exception of the one real clunker. I've only had to resort to audio for two episodes as well. When I first watched this story I said

Sadly it will be another TEN episodes before I next get to watch a complete episode as we're now entering the period of the program really devastated by the junkings of the 1970s. So I'm afraid that in the next few weeks they'll be lots of listening to CDs instead of watching on DVD or Video. So tomorrow we start Doctor Who Season 3 with Galaxy 4 Part 1: Four Hundred Dawns.

Thankfully since then the situation has changed and it's only TWO episodes on CD before the next we can watch a whole episode.... and there's a sizeable chunk of the first of those two in existence! Join us on Friday 11th September for Doctor who episode 82 Galaxy 4 Episode 1: Four Hundred Dawns and if you can't wait that long then our 40 years of Tom Baker blog is back on Sunday 30th August with Doctor Who episode 402 Terror of the Zygons: Part One!

080 The Time Meddler Episode 3: A Battle of Wits

EPISODE: The Time Meddler Episode 3: A Battle of Wits
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 080
STORY NUMBER: 017
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 17 July 1965
WRITER: Dennis Spooner
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Donald Tosh
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 7.7 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Time Meddler

"What is it you're doing here? What are you up to?"

The Monk finds the wounded villagers somewhere to lie down. In the cell Vicki & Steven discover a secret passage and figure the Doctor must have used it to escape. The Monk finds his captive gone but is called back to the villagers. The Doctor is in the village where Edith has told him where his friends have gone and about the Viking visitors. Steven and Vicki emerge from the tunnel and seek the Doctor. The Monk treats villager Eldred with penicillin for his wounds and pumps him for information on the Vikings who tells them the main fleet is probably two days away. There are two Vikings left in the woods, Sven & Ulf. They decide to assault the monastery and hold the monks hostage. The Monk ticks another thing off his to do list before plotting on a map he has laid out on the altar. Knocking on the door makes him hide the papers, and answering he is grabbed by the Doctor who makes the Monk think he is being held at gunpoint. Steven & Vicki arrive at the cliff discovering the tide has come in burying the Tardis. Steven discovers a bazooka set up on the cliff. They head back towards the monastery, where the Doctor & Monk are arguing as the Vikings hammer at the door. When they answer it the Doctor is overcome as the Monk slips away to overpower Ulf while the Doctor knocks Sven out. The Monk goes to the village and gets the villagers to set beacons on the cliff tops. The Doctor captures him on his return and asks him what the fires are for.

This is one of those occasions where it's necessary to look at most of the episode and then come back for the ending

Superb. Hartnell & Butterworth are fabulous opposite each other and really make the episode.

MONK: I thought I'd seen the last of you, Doctor.

DOCTOR: Oh, did you now? Well, as it happens, I happen to be a very curious fellow. Yes, very curious. Now then, I have some questions for you and I want them answered. Continue.

The Doctor coerces the Monk into co-operations and eventually ends up dressed like him in a habit. Then both he and the Monk separately knock out Vikings with planks of wood:

It's almost as if the story is trying to make us think that the Doctor and the Monk are similar. There's another hint to the same extent in episode 1 where the Monk is shown to be wearing a ring on his little finger just like the Doctor:

It's evident from this episode that they know each other from before this story with the Monk being surprised at the Doctor's threat of violence and teasing him about how he looks in the habit of a Monk.

Nevertheless the episode ends with the Doctor holding a sword to the Monk's throat wanting to know details of his plan....

The Monk is actually a very well organised villain: he's got a plan with a list of goals that need achieving which he's helpfully written down:

1 Arrival in Northumberland ✔
2 Position Atomic Cannon ✔
3 Sight Vikings ✔
4 Light Beacon Fires
5 Destroy Viking Fleet
6 Norman Landing
7 Battle of Hastings
8 Meet King Harold

Item 2 on the list is interesting: it talks about the weapons that Steven & Vicki find on the cliff top before they find it!

The time frame of this story, 1066, would immediately bring to mind the Battle of Hastings. But the events leading up to it wouldn't be known in detail to everyone so even though it's written down for us to see not all viewers would have got what he was trying to do. An explanation will follow next episode but the key points there are 7 & 8, and in particular the order they're in! But the Doctor in the course of this episode has made a connection between the Vikings, Hastings and the Monk.....

The atomic cannon is not the only thing from out of it's time that we see this episode. There's the Monk's first aid kit, housed in a tin box with the red cross symbol on it, and containing the penicillin that he gets the injured Saxon to take to avoid infection:

MONK: You need to swallow these.
WULNOTH: What are those, Father?
MONK: Oh, it's just some penicillin. It's a sort of herb.

Then there's the altar covered in maps and a compass:

Note he kneels down afterwards, seemingly hiding them behind the altar.... We'll see more of that altar later

Oh, no more visitors. It's getting it's getting so that you can't call a monastery your own.

He does seem to be getting quite annoyed at getting interrupted though!

As we've said, the principle guest star for this story is Peter Butterworth. At this time he was already well known but was shortly to find fame in the Carry On series of films. The first Carry On was Carry on Sergeant, made in 1959, and had featured William Hartnell in the title role. Butterworth, who'd been a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III with the series regular writer Talbot Rothwell, made his Carry On début in 1965's Carry on Cowboy with fellow first timer Bernard Bresslaw who would later appear in Doctor Who in The Ice Warriors as their leader Varga. Future Doctor Who Jon Pertwee has several appearances in the Carry On series and film companions Roy Castle & Bernard Cribbins both have Carry Ons on their CV while prominent Carry On star Joan Sims appears in the Sixth Doctor tale Trial of a Timelord. The list of actors who have been in both Doctor Who and Carry On is so legion that it beats even my OCD/ASD powered list making ability. (I started one: it was huge when I gave up!)

Butterworth was married to actress & impressionist June Brown. While performing in pantomime in 1979 he failed to turn up one day and was discovered dead in his hotel room having had a heart attack following the performance the previous night.

Like episode 1 this episode was recovered from Nigeria with a portion missing: during Sven and Ulf's argument mid episode a ten second portion was cut containing the moment where Ulf urges Sven to kill him. Like episode 1 collector Ian Levine held a complete copy of this episode and that was used to patch the episode for it's 1992 repeat and subsequent commercial releases. The quality of the episode is better than one but is still more grainy and less sharp than episode 2. There's certain points where I can spot repaired damage including tramline scratches.

Back to the end of the episode......

Steven & Vicki discover a cable on the floor of the Monastery leading to a door in the back of the altar.

Opening it and entering they are amazed at what they discover:

VICKI: It's a Tardis. The Monk's got a Tardis!

What an ending! As they walk through those doors you're hit with the familiar console room noise and then pulls back to reveal the roundeled walls. The shock in 1965 of discovering that there was another Tardis out there must have been HUGE. The whole story has been leading up to this moment. How has The Monk obtained all these anomalous objects? How does he know what's about to happen historically? Really the only conclusion you can draw is he's a Time Traveller somehow/ But a Time Traveller with his own Tardis? Huge! It removes the uniqueness of the Doctor's ship to start with and opens up lots of interesting questions. If The Monk has a Tardis then by extension the Monk must be from the same place as the Doctor...... so where is it that? And are there any more like him out there?.

It's a real game changing moment right up there with the first appearance of The Daleks, their reappearance from the Water in Dalek Invasion of Earth and Susan's departure at the end of the same story. Oddly the Daleks getting time travel feels like a logical step for them to be able pursue their enemy wherever he goes. The revelation that the Doctor's technology, and thus the Doctor, isn't unique is a big jump.

079 The Time Meddler Episode 2: The Meddling Monk

EPISODE: The Time Meddler Episode 2: The Meddling Monk
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 079
STORY NUMBER: 017
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 10 July 1965
WRITER: Dennis Spooner
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Donald Tosh
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 8.8 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Time Meddler

"Why listen to their lies? They've been put ashore somewhere along to the coast to spy for the Vikings!"

The next day the monk makes the Doctor breakfast using a toaster, frying pan and tea pot serving it on a tray with modern crockery & cutlery. However his ungrateful guest throws it at him from within the cell (Another week off for Hartnell who remains unseen and only heard in a recording). Vicki is worried out in the woods, Steven finds them some breakfast of Blackberries. Steven doubts they are in the 10th Century. The travellers are seized by villagers. While outside the Monk is met by two women of the village who have brought him food. He's looking out to sea with binoculars waiting for something.... The Doctor hammers on the inside of the cell door wanting to be let out. The monk spots an approaching Viking ship and is pleased that they're coming at last. Vicki and Steven have been taken to the village. The villagers argue about whether to let the travellers go or kill him. They meet Edith, the woman who spoke with the Doctor last night. The headman releases them to proceed on their way. The Vikings land and scale the cliffs, dispatching a party to reconnoitre the land. Vicki & Steven arrive at the monastery and meet the Monk who tells them no stranger has visited them. The Monk accidentally reveals to them that the Doctor has been there so Steven & Vicki decide to break in. Back at the village the Viking scouting party attacks and assaults Edith. The men of the village blame the travellers but Edith tells her husband it was Vikings. The villagers attack the Vikings causing many of them to be slain and injured by the superior warriors. The chief elder Wulnoth takes his friend Eldred to the monastery for help as Steven & Vicki are breaking in. The monk sees Steven and Vicki but is called to the door by the villagers allowing them too to find the gramophone recording of the song. They find the Doctor's cell empty apart from his cloak.

A little slow moving but Peter Butterworth is just superb as the Monk and so watchable! It's a good job because, bar his appearance in the reprise and some pre recorded voice segments from off screen in the cell, Hartnell is absent this week and after last week's towering performance it shows.

There's lots of nice little touches dropped in to keep the mystery of where and when the Monk comes from in your mind. In addition to the Gramophone and transistor radio we've already seen there's a toaster, modern kitchenware & plates and a pair of binoculars:

It's the last of these that he's using to keep an eye out for the Vikings, which was presumably what he was doing on the cliff top last episode.

And when the Vikings show up they do what Vikings always do! We see the scouting party later on walking off with spoils taken from the village and, though not explicitly stated on screen, we're left with little doubt in our mind what they've done to Edith.

The Vikings are identified as they come ashore: In the left picture on the left with the blonde hair is Sven while next to him with the darker hair is Ulf. The helmeted figure in both photos is the Viking leader while the eye patched man is Gunnar the Giant.

Settle back for a bit of Camfield repeat casting fun:

Sven is played by David Anderson. He was in Marco Polo 5: Rider from Shang-Tu as a Caravan Warrior and then episode 7: Assassin at Peking as a Palace Guard. Camfield was the Assistant Floor Manager on this story. He then plays the Aztec Captain in The Aztecs before appearing as Reynier de Marun in The Lion, the opening episode of the Camfield directed Crusade. He'll be back again in The Dalek Masterplan, another story directed by Camfield, where he plays an Egyptian Warrior in episode 9: Golden Death.

Geoffrey Cheshire, the Viking Leader, also returns in The Dalek Masterplan where he's in episode 3: Devil's Planet (one of the ones we failed to find anyone in in the Crusade!) as Garge before returning as Tracy in the opening two episodes of The Invasion which was also directed by Camfield and features Norman Hartley, who plays Ulf here, as Sergeant Peters in episodes 7 & 8. Hartley was interviewed by Toby Hadoke in Who's Round #122.

Ronald Rich played Gunnar the Giant in this episode. He's in the prelude to The Dalek Masterplan, Mission to the Unknown where he plays one of the Alien Delegates. Which one is up for some debate as we'll see when we get there!

IMDB credits plenty of Saxon extras for this episode as well and some of them are worth looking at

Dougie Dean is the only one of the male extras with prior form in the program: he was Eprin in episodes 4 & 5, The Snows of Terror & Sentence of Death, of the Keys of Marinus.

Derek Chafer is making his first Doctor Who appearance here but he'll be back as a Greek Soldier in the first, Temple of Secrets, third, Death of a Spy, and fourth, Horse of Destruction, episodes of the Myth Makers followed by an appearance in The Massacre 4: Bell of Doom as a Guard, The Gunfighters 2 & 3, Don't Shoot the Pianist & as a Lynch Mob Member, a Cyberman in The Moonbase Episodes 3 & 4 and The Invasion: Episode 6, an extra in The Space Pirates: Episodes 4 & 5, a UNIT Soldier in Doctor Who and the Silurians Episode 3, a Prisoner in The Mind of Evil Episode Four, a Guard in The Curse of Peladon Episode One, an Exillon in Death to the Daleks Parts One to Three, a Guard in The Monster of Peladon Part One and the Armourer in The Masque of Mandragora: Part Four, NONE of which he gets a credit for!

Ken McGarvie is another to return in Dalek Masterplan: he's in episode 8: Volcano (1966) as a Cricketer & a Reveller. He's also in The Massacre too this time appearing in episode 1, War of God, as a Tavern Customer before playing a Man in the Newsroom in episode 4 of The War Machines and a Soldier in the Tracking Room in episodes 1 & 2 of The Tenth Planet. Vic Taylor also returns in The Massacre 1: War of God, this time as the Cardinal's Guard. He's then in The War Machines 3 as a Worker and 3 & 4 as a Soldier. He's a guard in The Enemy of the World Episode 4 (1968), a UNIT Soldier in Doctor Who and the Silurians Episode 3 appears in The Dæmons as a Villager in the first two episodes and a Coven Member in the last two, presumably the same character throughout!

All of these are hard to identify but the lone female extra Lyn Turner must be the woman with Edith as she visits the Monk with a food basket. She'd already been in Doctor Who appearing with Edith's actress Aletha Charlton in An Unearthly Child 2: The Cave of Skulls as another Tribeswoman. The Assistant Floor Manager that day was Douglas Camfield. she'll return to the programme in Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode 6 .

On Ian Levine's initial visit to the BBC Film Library this episode was the only from this serial that they retained. It's of a much higher quality than episode 1 looking much sharper and much less grainy than the print recovered from Nigeria.

078 The Time Meddler Episode 1: The Watcher

EPISODE: The Time Meddler Episode 1: The Watcher
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 078
STORY NUMBER: 017
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 03 July 1965
WRITER: Dennis Spooner
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Donald Tosh
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 8.9 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Time Meddler

"You still say this is tenth century England?"

Vicki & the Doctor are travelling together in the Tardis:

VICKI: I shall miss them, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Who?
VICKI: Ian and Barbara.
DOCTOR: Yes, I shall miss them too. First Susan and now them. Come over here, my dear, I'd like to talk to you.
VICKI: What about the control panel?
DOCTOR: Oh, that's all right, my dear. It's already set. Their decision certainly surprised me, although it shouldn't, I know. But it was quite obvious they intended to take the first opportunity of going back home.
VICKI: Well, they weren't getting any younger, were they?
DOCTOR: It's lucky for you child, they're not here to hear you say that. Good gracious me. You think they're old? What do you think of me?
VICKI: You're different, Doctor. Anyway, we may land in their time one day and be able to talk over old times.
DOCTOR: Well, perhaps Vicki, perhaps.

The Doctor asks Vicki if she wishes to go home too but she says she wants to stay. They hear a noise in the Tardis and are scared it might be a Dalek but discover Steven who had strayed aboard while they were on Mechanus.

The Tardis materialises on a sea shore: a man in Monk's robes observes the event and seems interested in it. Vicki explains about the Tardis to a disbelieving Steven.

Now, my boy, there are two things you can do. One: Sit there until you get your breath back, and two: Don't call me Doc! Now do I make myself clear?

That is the dematerializing control. And that, over yonder, is the horizontal hold. Up there is the scanner, those are the doors, that is a chair with a panda on it. Sheer poetry, dear boy! Now please stop bothering me.

The Doctor believes they have landed on Earth. Outside villagers discuss the blue box found on the beach. The travellers stand on the beach as the Doctor tries to convince Steven that they've travelled in time

DOCTOR: What do you think of that, now, eh? A Viking helmet.

STEVEN: Maybe.

DOCTOR: What do you mean, "maybe"? What do you think it is, a space helmet for a cow?

The monk overhears their conversation as the Doctor explains how they don't know where they're going and why the Tardis doesn't change. When they leave the Monk excitedly examines the Tardis before reaching to his wrist for something he finds is missing. The Doctor has become separated from his friends and visits the village but is caught sneaking around. Returning to his monastery the monk lights a light as the sound of evensong is heard. The villagers find their way to where the Tardis was but it's now under water. The Doctor has befriended the villager, Edith, who found him who explains they live in fear of strangers. The Doctor works out that he is in the year 1066 and it is late summer: Vikings are due to invade soon and encounter Harold Hardrada in battle. The noise of evensong distorts making the Doctor curious. Edith tells him just one Monk has been seen and the Doctor leaves for the monastery to investigate. Steven & Vicki encounter a trapper, alarmed by Steven he drops an item he's just found on the ground. Steven & Vicki discover it's a wrist watch making Steven dubious of the Tardis' time travel abilities. The Doctor enters the monastery and discovers the singing is being played off of a gramophone record before being captured by the Monk, who seems to recognise him.

That was great. Superb stuff from start to finish.

The opening really gives a sense of the loneliness that the Doctor and Vicki are feeling now their friends have departed. The Doctor even goes as far as mentioning it in the same breath as Susan's departure which gives you an indication what Ian & Barbara have come to mean to him.

As The Doctor and Vicki realise they're not alone and prepare to confront their we hear another piece of library music by musician Eric Siday, who's work has cropped up in Edge of Destruction & Space Museum. This time round it's Suspended Animation from Ultra Sonic Perception.

The arrival of Steven gives the series a chance to restate many of the basics about itself that it hasn't had before: Here's a box that's bigger on the inside than on the outside and can travel in Time & Space. Steven naturally is incredulous, as most are when first exposed to the idea, and indeed is still doubting as the episode goes on. We didn't get this with Vicki, she was just taken into the ship. We won't get it again till Ben and Polly come on board at the start of the Smugglers. There it's used to launch a new series and that's what this feels like, the start of something new. Which in a way it is: Ian and Barbara, who've been there from the very start, are gone. Indeed if you've been watching since the first episode just two things remain: The Doctor & The Tardis.

Steven's arrived battered and dishevelled but we can see his trip back into the Mechanoid city was worthwhile and he's managed to rescue his soft toy panda HiFi!

Some stock footage really helps set the scene on the coast with the mysterious figure of the watching Monk.

A Monk in itself isn't anything to particularly worry about in 11th century Britain. But when he starts listening to their conversation, accompanied by some nice comedy as they dislodge stones onto his head ..... And then he starts taking an interest in the Tardis, putting his ear to the door to hear the hum we know it makes. There's definitely more to this one than meets the eye!

Of course it's at this point the Monk realises he's lost something that was round his wrist. Could have been anything. And when Steven & Vicki make their find, the viewer would possibly be associating something out of time with what the Daleks time travelling in the previous story.

It's only after the Doctor's suspicions are aroused when listening to the Monk's chanting and discovers it's being played off a record player, leading to his imprisonment, does the Monk really stand revealed as more than just a Monk and a very suspicious character. But even then you wouldn't have even begun to suspect the truth about him!

Since I was on the look out for anomalous things in this episode this sprang out at me: The front door of the monastery has a modern lock in it as well as the bar used to bolt it closed !

Of note is that the Monk doesn't say a thing all episode: he remains mute throughout. Superb performance from Peter Butterworth.

And I don't know if it's Butterworth's presence , or liking his new co-star, or the director who was both talented and familiar, but Hartnell's on top top form this episode. Butterworth and Hartnell had worked on the same projects before: 1950's Double Confession and 1953's Will Any Gentlemen?, also starring future Doctor Who Jon Pertwee and many of the Carry On cast! He gets a lot of time to himself during the episode and after leaving Steven & Vicky the only person he really interacts with is Edith and he'd worked with the actress playing her before too. The conversation he has with Edith, which he uses to establish exactly where and when they are, is fantastic.Maybe it's a combination of all the above. Hartnell really is on fire this week, absolutely magnetic and you can't take your eyes off him. I'd go as far as to say it's the best performance he's given in the series, beating Reign of Terror 2.

Vicki has a really good episode two: she's no longer the little girl with two school teachers she's behaving a bit older in relation to her new companion a young man closer her age but obviously enjoying he promotion to the more senior of the companions. She also gets a nice call back to the previous episode reiterating that she's not very good with heights.

You can't see it here but the sky is moving behind the two Saxons, Wulnoth & Eldred played by Michael Miller & Peter Russell as Eldred. Lovely, lovely effect and we can lay responsibility for that at the feet of returning director Douglas Camfield who's done a superb job this episode.

Also returning is writer Dennis Spooner who'd previously written The Reign of Terror & The Romans. He'd served a stint as Script Editor from The Rescue through to the previous story The Chase and continued the tradition set by his predecessor as Script Editor David Whitaker by writing the first story after he departed the role. Replacing Spooner as Script Editor is Donald Tosh.

And it wouldn't be a Camfield episode without him using at least one person he'd worked with previously: Alethea Charlton who plays Edith was in the very first Doctor Who story an Unearthly Child, which Camfield was the Assistant Floor Manager on, playing cavewoman Hur. Michael Guest plays the briefly seen Saxon Hunter and he'll be back again for The Daleks Masterplan episode 1: The Nightmare Begins where he's the interviewer. Need I say who directed that ;-)

Come back next episode for loads more of that!

Today all four episodes of the Time Meddler reside in the BBC archives but this wasn't always the case. Episode 2 has always been there, it was amongst the 47 black & white episodes found by Ian Levene when he first visited. All 4 episodes were found in Nigeria in 1984 along with all 6 episodes of the Web Planet (which was already in the archive) and all 4 of the War Machines (which only had it's 2nd part) However there was a delay returning these episodes to the UK because diplomatic relations between the UK & Nigeria were severed following the kidnap of a Nigerian politician on UK soil. They eventually found their way back to the BBC in early 1985. it was then discovered that the copies of the Time Meddler & War Machines have small sections missing, which probably means that the prints originated in New Zealand because they exactly match the cuts New Zealand censors made. In the case of this episode the whole sequence at the start where Ian & Vicki discover Steven was missing, nearly 2 1/2 minutes worth of action. In addition the print we have looks a little rough in places: I keep noticing a patched up scratch running down the left hand side of the screen and they're quite grainy throughout.

In the early 1980s Roger Stevens came into contact with a BBC projectionist, termed "Mr Agnew" in Wiped, who supplied him with prints of seven episodes including two missing episodes: The Abominable Snowmen 2 and Invasion of the Dinosaurs 1 (the others were Space Museum 1, Moonbase 4 and three episodes of Carnival of Monsters). Steven's passed them onto Levine who returned them to the BBC (Wiped, v2, p205 & 206). Agnew also came into contact with Ian Sheward (Wiped, v2, p218-221) and passed him complete prints of episodes 1 & 3 of The Time Meddler. Levine kept these a secret for some while, hoping to use them as bargaining chips for obtaining other missing episodes. These copies were eventually returned to the BBC in early 1992 and used to patch the Nigerian copies of episodes 1 & 3 for a repeat showing. This means only episode 4 of this story stands incomplete, missing 13 seconds of a Saxon stabbing two Vikings.