Monday, September 5, 2016

The Time Meddler by: Dennis Spooner directed by: Douglas Camfield: The Monk's Got a TARDIS

The Time Meddler stars William Hartnell as the Doctor and Maureen O’Brien as Vicki with Peter Purves as Steven Taylor and Peter Butterworth as the Meddling Monk.  It was written by Dennis Spooner and directed by Douglas Camfield with Donald Tosh as Script Editor and Verity Lambert as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Saturdays from 3 to 24 July 1965 on BBC1.

 

The initial mystery of the Doctor was always exactly what the Doctor was.  The audience had been given hints that he could have been an alien or possibly a scientist from the future.  We didn’t know if he built the TARDIS which was hinted at in the original pilot of the story or if he stole it which would eventually be established.  The mystery everyone says is given up in The War Games, but really that is false as it is The Time Meddler that really gives us the first glimpses behind the curtain into what the Doctor is and where he comes from through its villain.  I will of course delve into that later.  First let’s discuss the opening scenes in the TARDIS which serve to introduce Steven who had been introduced in The Chase as the new companion to replace Ian and Barbara.  It is a great scene as it allows the Doctor and Vicki to contemplate where they are going from here before Steven is introduced.  The Doctor is ready to leave Vicki if she asks for it as we see just how the Doctor has grown.  He is ready to say goodbye and go on his own travelling.  Of course Vicki doesn’t and we get introduced to Steven in a scene that is simply hilarious.  Hartnell shows Steven around pointing out a chair with a panda on it and calling it sheer poetry which is a hilarious line.

 

The actual plot of The Time Meddler sees the Doctor land in 1066 just before the Battle of Hastings which of course Steven is skeptical of time travel being possible, where there is a monk in a monastery.  Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary until Steven finds a watch on the ground and the monk holds the Doctor hostage.  Eventually it is of course revealed that the Monk is trying to stop the Viking invasion so King Harold can defeat William of Normandy.  The plot then thickens when it is revealed at the end of “The Battle of Wits” that the Monk has a TARDIS and is from the same planet as the Doctor.  The plot while sounding very dramatic on paper is played with a very good mix of drama and comedy and Dennis Spooner is great at writing this serial.

 

William Hartnell does very well with the comedy and the drama as the First Doctor, be it his reactions to Steven which are hilarious or his interactions with the Monk he is on top form through all four of the story’s episodes.  He is obviously having the time of his life in the part and is almost celebrating the fact that this is one of the last times he is able to work with Verity Lambert.  He’s got some great fluffs in this story which just adds to the whole comedy of the piece.  Hartnell and Maureen O’Brien also have this really good chemistry as they are still acting a lot like a couple of schoolchildren having a laugh with each other.  The Doctor acts very mysteriously and almost feels like he is going to explain his plan, but then just snatches away the letter from Vicki which is a hilarious scene.  It’s these little moments that really sells the two as old friends together.

 

Maureen O’Brien as Vicki also has a lot of the great moments with Peter Purves’ Steven Taylor mainly because for “The Meddling Monk” the Doctor does not appear.  Both actors however pull off the episode brilliantly and you barely remember that the Doctor is not in the episode.  Steven is the skeptic while Vicki is still like a schoolgirl who knows she’s right, but is having a lot of fun winding up Steven for a laugh.  Peter Purves is just great as Steven and while Hartnell as the Doctor starts off a bit distant from Steven, by the end of the story they have grown to work together as a real team to continue into the next season.

 

The final member of the cast that isn’t part of the two groups is the Meddling Monk played by Peter Butterworth.  The Monk is the same species as the Doctor and has left the planet for most of the same reasons, but of course he is the villain because he is changing history to rewrite it in his own image.  We do learn that some of his plans have actually succeeded and created the history that we have today which is a very interesting idea.  Peter Butterworth is great as he is a comedy actor in a comedic script.  He is really in his element here as the Monk and became popular enough with audiences to warrant a return in The Daleks’ Master Plan the next year.  The Vikings while historically accurate, not actually having horned helmets, are very comedic characters for the most part until “Checkmate” where the actual drama comes in and there is a massacre.  There are twelve seconds missing and those twelve seconds sound brutal as the two Vikings are brutally murdered by the Saxons.

 


Douglas Camfield returns from The Crusade to direct this story and now that we can see his entire direction, it is brilliant.  He knows exactly how to position the cameras to convey the emotions on screen.  He uses every frame as a painting to give you off some sort of impression even if it is on a limited budget and in black and white and for television.  The scenes in the Monk’s TARDIS in particular are very surreal as we get the shots mainly coming down from the ceiling which gives off that effect.  There are also action scenes which Camfield also excels at directing for the screens, knowing just when to cut from camera to camera.

 

To summarize, The Time Meddler is one of the earliest stories that can be called perfect as it does what every Doctor Who story should be doing.  It explores its characters with brilliance, gives us a good reason to be invested in the mystery and shows a new style of story which would be a breath of fresh air for the people watching.  The direction is great while the acting and writing comes together extremely well for a tight and perfect story.  100/100

No comments:

Post a Comment