Synopsis:
The TARDIS has left the planet Mechanus, and the Doctor and Vicki have just used the Time-Space Visualiser to observe the safe arrival of Ian and Barbara back in London.
He asks his young companion if she did not wish to go home as well, but she is happy to stay with him. As they talk together in the console room, they hear a sound coming from the living quarters - and worry that a Dalek may have come on board.
They discover that their unknown visitor is actually the astronaut Steven Taylor, last seen running back into the burning Mechonoid city to retrieve "Hi-Fi" - his toy panda mascot.
He staggers into the console room and collapses.
The TARDIS materialises on a rocky shoreline, its arrival witnessed by a figure on the cliffs above - a man dressed in a monk's habit, who seems strangely unperturbed by what he has just seen.
A recovered Steven explains how he stumbled into the ship after escaping the blazing city. Whilst accepting that this is a spaceship of some kind, he refuses to believe that it is capable of travelling through time. After cleaning himself up, they venture outside onto the beach, failing to spot the Monk who has been examining Police Call Box shell.
He ducks behind a boulder and eavesdrops on the new arrivals.
Steven is impressed that they have arrived on Earth so quickly, but still won't accept that the TARDIS is a time machine. Vicki finds a horned helmet nearby - distinctive Viking headgear - and the Doctor explains that they must be in early medieval times. Steven is dismissive.
They split up to explore, as the Doctor refuses to climb the cliff. They will meet up further along the shoreline.
After they have gone, the Monk slips away. He goes to look at his wrist, noticing that something which should be there is missing...
A man named Eldred, dressed in rough woollen clothing, has seen the TARDIS from above and goes to a nearby village to fetch his friend Wulnoth - thinking it some valuable cargo washed overboard from a passing ship. Wulnoth is the village leader.
By the time they get to the cliffs, the tide has come in and the TARDIS is submerged.
The Doctor has found his way to the village and is looking around Wulnoth's hut when he is confronted by his wife, Edith.
She accepts his explanation that he is a harmless traveller and offers him food and drink. He works out from what she says that this is the year 1066 - late summer judging by the climate. The Battle of Hastings has not yet taken place. Edith explains that they fear further raids from the Vikings, more than any invasion from William of Normandy.
The Doctor can hear chanting coming from somewhere close by. Whilst Edith is busy indoors, he hears the sound distort - the speed slowing down like a gramophone that needs winding. He hurriedly asks where the monastery is and is given directions by his host. She explains that the monks have only recently moved back into the monastery, though only one of them has actually been seen near the village.
Steven and Vicki are exploring the countryside when they come across a villager, who has found an intriguing object lying in the grass. They startle him and he runs away, dropping the object. It proves to be a wristwatch - which Steven takes to be evidence that they are certainly not in medieval times.
As he looks round the seemingly deserted monastery the Doctor comes across a 20th Century gramophone, with a 33rpm disc of monastic song, a pop-up toaster and an electric hotplate for cooking.
A sturdy wooden barrier suddenly drops from the roof, trapping him in an alcove, and he is confronted by the Monk...
Next episode: The Meddling Monk
Data:
Written by: Dennis Spooner
Recorded: Friday 11th June, 1965 - Television Centre TC4
First broadcast: 6:55pm, Saturday 3rd July, 1965
Ratings: 8.9 million / AI 57
Designer: Barry Newbery
Director: Douglas Camfield
Guest cast: Peter Butterworth (The Monk), Alethea Charlton (Edith), Michael Miller (Wulnoth), Peter Russell (Eldred)
For the first ten minutes of this episode, the viewer would be forgiven for thinking that this was simply the latest adventure in history for the Doctor. We see Anglo-Saxon characters and Vicki finds a Viking helmet.
The more observant viewer might have taken note of the Monk's strange reaction to the arrival of the TARDIS. For someone of the period, he seems oddly nonplussed. Lurking behind a boulder, he listens to talk of spaceships and time machines without any due alarm. It's as if such things are everyday for him...
We then learn that this is 1066, and assume that the story is going to revolve around the Battle of Hastings. It's probably the most famous date in British history, one that every school child knows.
But then the story takes a bizarre turn. 20th Century objects suddenly turn up in the Monk's possession - or lost by him. The Doctor hears the monks' singing wind down, like a tape recorder whose batteries are running low.
For at least one viewer, this was all too much.
Commenting in a BBC audience research report a housewife stated: "I didn't understand this at all - since when were there wristwatches and gramophones in 1066? I thought it an absolute waste of time watching something that didn't make sense".
The majority of those watching found the whole idea of anachronistic objects intriguing, however. Some even quickly guessed that the mysterious Monk might actually be a time-traveller - though none realised exactly what kind of time-traveller he might be...
What people were watching was the first of a new type of story for Doctor Who.
Up until now, the plan had been to feature three sorts of adventure - those set in a period of Earth's history; those set in the future or on alien worlds; and those termed "sideways" stories, which would investigate different dimensions and states of being. This latter format had only featured a couple of times, and the series was pretty much dominated now by the first two formats which tended to alternate with each other.
The Chase had featured an episode in which the Daleks interacted with a genuine historical event - the mysterious abandonment of the sailing ship Mary Celeste in 1872. Terry Nation had intended another episode to have involved the TARDIS and Daleks arriving in ancient Egypt, at the time of the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza. Story editor Dennis Spooner found these ideas fascinating, and so decided that his farewell story to the series would build on this. He would write a story which was set in history, but would include strong science-fiction elements.
Today, we refer to this style of story as a "pseudo-historical", and they have become one of the most popular formats for the series. The revived series has often included a famous figure from the historical period featured, and these are sometimes called "celebrity-historicals".
Despite the famous date, Spooner opted to avoid the Battle of Hastings, and so we have no King Harold or William the Conqueror. Knowing full well the limitations of studio-bound TV production, he decided instead to set the story a few weeks before the Norman invasion - in the period running up to the Viking invasion which ended at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.
The Doctor provides the audience with a short history lesson as he meets and talks with Edith - commenting on how much History teacher Barbara Wright would have enjoyed this.
He learns that King Edward (the Confessor) has died and been buried at Westminster at the begging of the present year. Edward, who was born c.1003, died on 5th January 1066, and was interred in his new abbey. His decision to remain celibate led to arguments over the succession. Many believed that he intended William of Normandy to be his heir, but had then fallen under the influence of the Godwins, and changed his mind. He is supposed to have named Harold Godwinson his heir on his deathbed. William argued that his claim took precedence.
Harold became King, and quickly came under threat from two quarters. One was William, and the other was his rebellious brother Tostig, who had exiled himself to Scandinavia. There he allied himself with the Viking ruler Harald Hardrada, and together they planned an invasion of England, with a landing in the North East.
It is this event which is about to take place in The Time Meddler.
With the arrival of a new companion, the series is able to remind established viewers (and educate the newer ones) of some of the basics of the series. Vicki restates the derivation of the name "TARDIS" - even if she gets it slightly wrong (see below). It can travel in time - though Steven refuses to believe it. She also mentions how it is bigger on the inside than it appears from the outside. Ex-companions Susan, Ian and Barbara are all name-checked.
The camouflage unit, and its malfunctioning, is spoken of by the Doctor - explaining how the ship ought to change appearance to blend in with its surroundings. The example of it looking like a howdah (the carriage carried on the back of an elephant) is given, were the TARDIS to land in India.
At one point the Doctor even starts to talk about Vicki's father, and the events of The Rescue - the last time we saw a new companion enter the TARDIS. References to The Chase include the fact they think a Dalek might have come aboard, and Steven recalling that Vicki is afraid of heights.
To play the Monk, Douglas Camfield cast Peter Butterworth. At this point he had still to join the Carry On... team, but had started to develop a successful career as a comedic performer. During the Second World War he had found himself interned in Stalag Luft III, where a fellow POW was Talbot Rothwell, who would later cast him in the long-running cinematic comedy series. This POW camp later became famous for the "Wooden Horse" escape attempt. Butterworth and Rothwell put on entertainments, which diverted attention away from the tunnelling, and the famous vaulting horse also helped disguise this activity. Ironically, when Butterworth went up for a part in the 1950 film of these events, he was turned down - despite having been an actual participant. The reason given was that he didn't look "heroic" enough.
In developing the character of the Monk, Spooner simply thought about what the opposite of the Doctor might be like. He took is travels into Earth history very seriously, struggling to protect the time-line. His opposite would see no problem with messing about with history. Indeed, he might even go out of his way to change things for his own benefit - or amusement. He would be like a mischievous schoolboy, though the draft script refers to him as being old throughout.
The rehearsals had seen Camfield plan his production schedule down to the nearest five minutes. Unsettled by the departure of Russell and Hill, and with John Wiles and Donald Tosh taking over, William Hartnell started throwing tantrums as a means of getting his own way. Tosh determined to get on his good side by complimenting him on his film work, which did the trick, but the star and Wiles would never see eye to eye. Wiles noted how Maureen O'Brien criticised the script, and decided that she wasn't happy in the role.
A small amount of filming, of the TARDIS on the beach, had taken place at Ealing on Monday 10th May.
The production moved away from its regular base at Riverside Studios for this story, returning to Television Centre. Faced with a limited amount of studio space, Barry Newbery made the most of it by creating different levels and areas that could be shot from more than one direction. To give a feeling of space and location, he employed a projected moving backdrop - suggesting clouds scudding across the skies of windswept Northumbria.
His researches into period buildings extended to learning of how the Anglo-Saxons "painted" the floors of their huts - crucks - with ox blood.
False perspective was used for ruined building behind the monastery entrance, based on a Saxon tower Newbery had seen in a book.
Purves had now shaved off the beard he had grown for The Planet of Decision and was wearing a false one for his opening scene. He removed this at the first recording break.
The fastidious Camfield was upset that the recording overran by seven minutes, due to a mix-up with the music. A certain amount had been cleared and paid for, but more had been used in one scene - necessitating a retake.
Following recording, Hartnell embarked on a week's holiday.
One scene, of Steven and Vicki looking for shelter whilst in the forest, was cut for timing. This came just after the Doctor first arrived at Edith's home.
This episode features some notable lines of dialogue:
On finding the Viking helmet, which Steven refuses to accept as proof of time travel, the Doctor exclaims: "What do you think it is, a space helmet for a cow?",
The Doctor's summation of the TARDIS to Steven: "That is the dematerialising 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".
And the Hartnell fluff: "But I'm not a mountain goat and I prefer walking to any day. And I hate climbing".
- The working title for this episode was "The Paradox".
- Future director David Maloney was the production assistant on this story, which was being called "The Vikings" by the production team. He pointed out that there were far more Saxons than Vikings, so they started referring to it as "The Saxons" instead.
- The ratings are around half a million lower than for the preceding Dalek episode, though the AI remains the same.
- This was the latest start time for any episode since the series began - and would remain so for many years. The reason was that afternoon's extended sports coverage - tennis from Wimbledon and the Henley Regatta.
- Peter Purves took time out of rehearsals to appear in an episode of Dixon of Dock Green - a role he had already been contracted for before being cast as Steven.
- Vicki gives the letter D in the acronym TARDIS as "Dimensions", whereas Susan had originally given it as the singular "Dimension". O'Brien made this change herself - it was scripted as "Dimension".
- Peter Butterworth's first Carry On... was Carry On Cowboy, which he filmed one month after recording The Time Meddler. It didn't open until early 1966, by which time he had been seen playing the Monk for the second time.
- Alethea Charlton had previously featured as Hur in An Unearthly Child. Edith got her name from the sister of King Harold.
- Michael Miller was a direct descendant of King Henry VII. (He bears a striking resemblance to Henry Tudor's namesake son). Wulnoth got his name from the grandfather of King Harold (Wulfnoth).
- The Doctor is seen to drink mead in this episode. Also known as hydromel, it is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey and water. The Doctor's attitude to alcohol will vary over time.
- The clock which is seen behind the opening titles is not the one that has been previously seen in the series.
- Only 8 minutes of new music had been supplied by percussionist Charles Botterill, to be used across all four instalments.
- Radio Times delivered its usual opening episode feature on the Thursday before broadcast:
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