“The Time Meddler” is the last adventure of the second season of “Doctor Who” classic series which aired in 1965. It follows “The Chase” and it’s a four parts adventure written by Dennis Spooner and directed by Douglas Camfield. At that time the various episodes of each adventure had individual titles, in this case:

• The Watcher
• The Meddling Monk
• A Battle of Wits
• Checkmate

The story

The Tardis materializes on Earth in 1066, on the coast of Northumbria. With surprise, the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and Vicki (Maureen O’Brien) discover that Steven (Peter Purves) had entered the Tardis on planet Mechanus.

The travelers explore the area and soon realize that there’s something wrong when they discover objects that shouldn’t even exist at the time. The Doctor investigates at a monastery in the area, where he finds the only monk anybody has actually seen and he’s not what he appears.

Extras

This DVD contains a pretty poor amount of extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, Radio Times Billings, a trailer about the next DVDs to be released and a gallery of pictures from this adventure.

There are comments in the adventure alternative audio track moderated by Clayton Hickman by protagonist Peter Purves, script editor Donald Tosh, designer Donald Tosh and producer Verity Lambert.

Verity Lambert Obituary. The obituary for producer Verity Lambert.

Verity Lambert Gallery. A gallery of photos of producer Verity Lambert.

Stripped for Action – The First Doctor. A look at the First Doctor comics.

The Lost Twelve Seconds. The story of the twelve seconds missing in the fourth episode because they were censored so they were cut from the copy of this adventure that was found in the ’80s, when it was considered lost.

Restoration. Some examples of sections of this adventure before and after the restoration of their images.

“The Time Meddler” is in some ways a milestone in “Doctor Who”. Ian and Barbara had just left the Doctor and Vicki and at that time it was an big deal for the series, also because previously Susan had been replaced by Vicki, a similar character, while from this adventure there’s Steven as a companion, a character who’s not only very different from Ian but replaces two characters loved very much by the audience.

At the time the change was so big that some people stopped watching “Doctor Who” because according to them without Ian and Barbara it wasn’t worth it anymore. This kind of attitude recurred over the years at other major changes in the series.

Steven is actually a breaking point because Ian was a man with a certain level of culture and a reasonable person. Steven is at least initially a little unlikable because he was quite a hothead. His character is made ​​less “abrasive” by Vicki’s veteran of time travel attitude towards him.

“The Time Meddler” is also the first pseudo-historical adventure. Previously, the Doctor and his companions had visited various historical periods and in those cases the only science fiction elements were the presence of the travelers and the Tardis. In the early years several experiments were made to understand what kind of stories could be produced in “Doctor Who” and in this case it was decided to create one that was set in Earth’s past but with an actual science fiction plot.

The presence of anachronisms found by the Doctor and his companions in the first episode of “The Time Meddler” confused part of the audience who didn’t understand that they were part of the plot and found that nonsensical so in later episodes the audience went down. Today the audience is more used to seeing apparently absurd elements in a science fiction show and before criticizing it or even stop watching it they usually wait to see if there’s an explanation.

In “The Time Meddler” there’s the first appearance of a member of the same species as the Doctor and Susan. The whole mythology about the Time Lord was developed only from a few years later but in this adventure there’s another Tardis and the Monk uses it to change Earth’s history. The Doctor is totally opposed to such interference and the second half of this adventure – actor William Hartnell was on holiday when the second episode was filmed – is basically dedicated to the struggle between the two of them.

William Hartnell and Peter Butterworth, who plays the Monk, work very well together in what is an intellectual battle in which each of the two Time Lords – though that expression didn’t exist yet – try to outsmart the other.

Producer Verity Lambert decided to leave “Doctor Who” at the end of the second season so during this adventure John Wiles started taking over the production of the series. For a bitter irony, Verity Lambert died during the production of the DVD, which is why it’s dedicated to one of the creators of the series and one of the main makers of its success.

In addition to containing those new elements, “The Time Meddler” is also a well crafted adventure with a good balance between drama and comedy, although due to the limited resources you only see a few Vikings during their invasion attempt. The reputation of this adventure has grown over time and it’s a shame that the DVD has no better extras. Nevertheless, in my opinion this is a must-have for fans and anyone curious to see the best of the First Doctor.