Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, doctor who, iplayer, russell t davies, steven moffat, The Time Meddler, Whoniverse, william hartnell

Doctor Who "The Time Meddler": A Series Milestone & A Lot Of Fun

"The Time Meddler" is a milestone of the Doctor Who classic era on a number of levels. Could Russell T. Davies have plans for the character?

Doctor Who is set to come back to television in a big way with the 60th-anniversary specials' imminent arrival, and the BBC has launched the Whoniverse, a whole portal of nearly all the Doctor Who content on the BBC iPlayer with new content, including Tales of the Tardis, a series of specials where past Doctors and companions reunite to focus on a classic story in the series. The earliest is an episode devoted to "The Time Meddler," a story from the First Doctor's (William Hartnell) era that was a milestone in many ways and worth watching, not just for homework but because it's a lot of fun.

"The Meddling Monk" is the episode that introduces new companion Steven Taylor (Peter Purves) as a foil for the Doctor's companion Vicki (Maureen O'Brien). This was the first time the series had a complete change in the Doctor's companion lineup after the departure of his granddaughter Susan and her teachers, Ian and Barbara. This was also the first time in the series that the Doctor met someone like him who had his own TARDIS, but the writers hadn't called them Time Lords or invented Gallifrey yet. That was still years away. The TARDIS landed in 1066 on the English coast, right before the Vikings were about to invade. The Doctor discovers an old acquaintance, another time traveler like him disguised as a monk who's trying to change history. He's never given a name, so fans have always just called him "the monk" or "the Meddling Monk" ever since.

The Monk wasn't evil so much as mischievous and seemed sincere in wanting to change history to make things better in his opinion. Like changing the course of the Viking invasion of the British Isles so King Harold could end up ruling England and prevent hundreds of years of war with France so the people could progress in a more peaceful timeline. The late Peter Butterworth's performance as the Monk was that of a sneaky prankster with an air of bumbling doofus that made him sort of likable. He was never sinister or murderous like The Master was – he even talks about helping an injured villager using a blood transfusion, then has to stop himself because the method didn't exist then. The Doctor and the Monk had met before, and the Doctor hated his guts and kept threatening to injure him. He seemed to find the Monk's tactics offensive.

A lot of the story is also drily funny, which isn't always common in the Sixties stories. This is also the first time I found Hartnell fun to watch. He's electric every time he's on screen: cranky, haughty, imperious, but also drily funny, mischievous, and more than a little menacing all at the same time. He's everything hardcore fans have raved about for decades that kept the classic show in their memories.

In the end, The Doctor maroons The Monk in 1066 by sabotaging his TARDIS' dimensional control, shrinking the inside so it's inaccessible. He leaves the Monk a note declaring, "Perhaps when you learn your lesson, one day I'll come back and release you." (Steven Moffat used that idea and had the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) trapped inside a shrinking TARDIS decades later.)  The Monk only came back once in the series, during "The Daleks' Masterplan," though he showed up a lot in non-canonical novels and audio dramas, and hardcore fans have talked about the possibility of him returning (if he didn't die in the Time War). Might Russell T. Davies, who handpicked the stories for Tales of the Tardis, have plans to bring him back? He's a dangling thread in the show's history and another rogue Time Lord still out there after all. It wouldn't be a big surprise considering Davies is bringing back the Celestial Toymaker for the 60th Anniversary Specials for the first time since the 1960s.

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