The Ark

Dear Gary—

“Why are you dressed in these stupid clothes?” Such is the introduction of Dodo to TARDIS life. To give the Doctor credit, they are rather stupid. “What do you think you’re playing at, crusade?” Apparently Dodo has been getting at the Doctor’s wardrobe.

Her clothes aren’t the only thing that bothers the Doctor. “My dear child, if you’re going to be with us for any length of time, you’ll have to do something about that English of yours. . . . It’s terrible, child, oh, it’s most irritating.”

Dodo does not offer the same comfortable companionship that Vicki and Susan provided. She’s rather like a big floppy sheepdog that has bounded on board and gets under foot. Loveable but exasperating. And in The Ark, our first story with Dodo, she unwittingly sows disaster in her wake.

“I’ve been taking a look at my instruments in there and it’s really very strange.” Strange indeed. The TARDIS has landed in what appears to be a jungle, but with the oddest combination of animal and plant life. They have landed in a zoo/arboretum within a spacecraft making its escape from a doomed Earth and journey bound to the planet Refusis II, some 700 years away.

Just a side note again, Gary. I’m not sure why they need this zoo of animals to transport. After all, the majority of the Earth’s population has been miniaturized and put in storage awaiting the arrival on Refusis II when they will be restored to full size. Can’t the same be done to the animals? Perhaps the remaining humans (Guardians) just want the zoo for their own sentimental reasons. And another side note, the Guardians refer to the TARDIS as a black box—are they color blind as well?

But back to our story and our travelers arrival. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of this Ark, as they dub it, Dodo has a cold. The common cold has been wiped out long ago and therefore people no longer have any resistance. But I don’t know, Gary. It seems to me that there is more to it than just a cold. After all, Steven comes down with the same ‘fever’ that is killing the rest, but shouldn’t this only affect him as a cold and not the deadly disease that is wreaking havoc on the Ark? I tend to think that Dodo is getting a bum rap.

Fortunately the Doctor knows how to make the vaccine (from certain animal membranes) and all is put right again. And this is where the story takes a most interesting turn. The Doctor and company have stepped on the proverbial butterfly.

As they make their farewells, the Doctor tells the Refusis II bound travelers that they “must travel with understanding as well as hope.” The TARDIS then dematerializes, but within a few seconds it rematerializes in the exact same spot, except, as we come to learn, 700 years in the future. Not only has the cast changed in those 700 years, but so too has the script.

On their previous visit the human Guardians were in charge and the alien Monoids their servants. The Monoids had come from their own dying planet and offered up their services to the humans during the long journey to Refusis II. However, now, 700 years in the future, the roles are reversed. The Monoids have taken control of the ship and keep the surviving humans enslaved. Apparently there was a mutation of the fever introduced by Dodo that sapped the will of the Guardians allowing for the takeover.

And so begins part two of The Ark. While the first half dealt with the fever and its cure, we are now dealing with plots against the Monoids by the humans to gain their freedom and the arrival on the planet Refusis II and the invisible inhabitants thereof. Not to mention the bomb hidden somewhere on the Ark that is due to explode at any moment.

Steven remains on the Ark to deal with the Monoids and the bomb; the Doctor and Dodo are taken by the Monoid elite to the planet’s surface. Now we begin to see how ineffectual these Monoids really are. We should have known from the names they give themselves—One, Two, Three . . .

An observation, Gary. We are beginning to see a shift in the underlying philosophy of Doctor Who and our merry band of travelers. Previously the Doctor was all about maintaining the historical integrity; about not interfering; about not actively aiding and abetting. When the Doctor did end up helping revolutionists, the revolution was already in full swing. But now, as in the previous story The Space Museum, the Doctor and company actually instigate insurgency.

Throughout human history there are countless examples of indigenous peoples rising up against their tyrants. In Doctor Who, however, in all his travels through the myriad galaxies and universes, he meets up with scores of peoples who need the Doctor to spur them on to rebellion.

Despite the Monoids disadvantages as oppressors, the Guardians do nothing to regain the upper hand.  The Monoids have weapons, yes, but they are so slow moving and easily overcome. I find it hard to believe that not one Guardian ever took it into his head to jump one, grab his weapon, and take charge. No, it takes Steven to think of that.

The Doctor, on the other hand, uses his wits against these dimwitted Monoids to turn them against one another. Then with a little help from our invisible Refusian friends (actually, friend, since only one Refusian ever makes himself known) the day is won and the Doctor once again finds himself admonishing these Guardians that they must “travel with understanding as well as hope.” The Guardians and Monoids must work together, along with the Refusians, to build a new life on this new planet.

To travel with understanding and hope. Echoing back to The Sensorites “Isn’t it a better thing to travel hopefully than arrive?” Echoing back . . .

Here’s hoping, Gary.

The Massacre

Dear Gary—

I don’t really have much to say about this next missing story, The Massacre. These historicals can be hit or miss; in this case it’s a miss. The story itself is interesting and well done, but it doesn’t have much to do with Doctor Who. It’s as if it were written as a straight drama and someone decided to add a few TARDIS scenes and insert the Doctor and Steven (mostly Steven) here and there to make it into a Doctor Who serial.

The Doctor is MIA for most of The Massacre, although William Hartnell does inexplicably play a look-alike in the character of the Abbot, and Steven just ping pongs around the streets of Paris to serve as witness to events unfolding in 1572 France on the eve of the St Bartholomew Massacre. “Oh what a senseless waste,” to borrow the words of the Doctor.

This four part story seems to exist solely to set up the final 10 minutes or so in which the Doctor and Steven quarrel over what has taken place during their brief stop in this “terrible page from the past.” Steven is outraged that the Doctor has left the young French girl Anne Chaplet to her fate. “You can’t say for certain that you weren’t responsible for that girl’s death,” he argues.  However, the Doctor “dare not change the course of history.”

This scene reminds me of the Doctor and Donna in The Fires of Pompeii during the David Tenant era. Donna wins that argument and the Doctor does save one family. In our story The Massacre, however, the Doctor sends Anne back to her aunt’s house and most certain slaughter.

“If your researches have so little regard for human life, then I want no part of it,” Steven announces as he prepares to leave the TARDIS for good.

“My dear Steven,” the Doctor answers, “history sometimes gives us a terrible shock; and that is because we don’t quite truly understand. Why should we? After all, we’re all too small to realize its final pattern. Therefore don’t try and judge it from where you stand. I was right to do as I did. Yes, that I firmly believe.”

But Steven does not understand and he storms out of the TARDIS and out of the Doctor’s life, not caring where they have landed.

The Doctor, alone with his thoughts, consoles himself that, “at least I have taught him to take some precautions.” Steven did check the scanner before leaving after all.

And now the Doctor is abandoned by all. “Now they’ve all gone . . . all gone. None of them could understand; not even my little Susan . . . or Vicki. And as for Barbara and Chesterton . . . Chesterton . . .they were all too impatient to get back to their own time. And now Steven.”

The entirety of the 3 ½ episodes leading up to this scene can be forgiven for these final moments that provide such insight into the Doctor and the burden of time travel.

“Perhaps I should go home; back to my own planet,” the Doctor muses. “But I can’t.”

We are left to wonder about this fascinating admission—“But I can’t”—for just when the Doctor is at his lowest Dodo bursts into the TARDIS like a breath of fresh air.

I never had a clear picture of Dodo before, Gary. For the longest time my only exposure to her was in the one surviving episode of The Celestial Toymaker. It has only been in the past few years that I have seen the few existing complete stories that she appears in, and this is my first viewing of her arrival onto the scene, and I have to say that I am beginning to like her. 

Steven follows closely behind Dodo into the TARDIS, being pursued by two policemen. Both the Doctor and Steven stare intently at Dodo, played by the same actress who had been Anne Chaplet. The Doctor notices a resemblance; however he decides that “she looks rather like Susan.” But when Dodo states that her full name is Dorothea Chaplet, they both have to wonder if she couldn’t be a descendent of the Anne they have just left behind. After all, her grandfather, Dodo tells them, was French.

Again the Doctor irresponsibly takes off in the TARDIS with a stranger on board. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he deliberately kidnapped Barbara and Ian, and he took off with no thought despite the presence of Katarina on board, so this is not out of character for him. Luckily for him, Dodo doesn’t seem to mind.

 In fact, I have to wonder if Dodo isn’t just a little dodo. She bursts into the TARDIS looking for the phone to report a terrible accident involving a child, and she doesn’t seem particularly alarmed by what she finds inside. If anything, she is annoyed that there is no phone and the Doctor isn’t a policeman. When Steven tells her they travel through time and space she decides that’s fine with her. She doesn’t have anyone to go back to; might as well tag along.

And off they fly, the three of them; all is forgotten—the accident, Anne, and the quarreling. Let us take a lesson from them and forget this “terrible page from the past” and look forward to our next adventure.

Until then, Gary, as ever . . .

The Daleks' Master Plan

Dear Gary—

The Daleks’ Master Plan is a 12 part masterpiece; unfortunately only 3 parts survive. Actually I would argue that this is a 13 episode story; I count the prelude single episode story Mission to the Unknown (also missing) as part and parcel of this epic. Mission to the Unknown has no Doctor, no companions, no TARDIS. It aired prior to The Myth Makers, but it sets the stage for The Daleks’ Master Plan, and it is a testament to this sprawling serial, and to this early incarnation of Doctor Who, that this single Doctorless episode exists (or did exist and now is dispersed throughout the time spectrum). The thought and care and preparation that went into this tightly packed and densely constructed classic resounds through the time swirl and echoes back its creative genius.  Three complete episodes only remain, but the inspired residue shimmers about us like the molten silver sprays of Galaxy Four.

Again I have the internet and the diligent work of others who have painstakingly reconstructed The Daleks’ Master Plan to thank for filling in the blank spaces around those 3 surviving episodes. Seeing only those 3 without the surrounding context one gets the feeling that these are from 3 separate stories altogether. As Doctor Who has done on previous occasions, The Daleks’ Master Plan has multiple stories within a single story, yet each separate story taken together as a whole reveals a truly grand Master Plan.

The Master Plan is really quite straight forward and simple, just like the Daleks. Consolidate power, conquer, and exterminate. The Daleks have somehow convinced the various leaders of the Solar System and outer galaxies (including a marvelously malevolent Mavic Chan, Guardian of the Solar System) to form an alliance. Of course the Daleks have no real loyalty to this alliance and will exterminate them all once their usefulness is at an end. And as usual their intent is rather murky. It all hinges on the Time Destructor, but I’m not quite clear on what this Time Destructor will accomplish (other than to destroy time perhaps, which is well within the realm of Dalek mentality, but why do the others go along with the plan when this implies the destruction of them and their own planets as well?). But as in all good Doctor Who stories, none of that really matters. That is merely the Hitchcockian McGuffin.

The Doctor, however, arrives to throw a spanner into the works. Simply stated: “If the Daleks are doing something drastic then we have to stop the Daleks.” This is the fourth meeting between the Doctor and the Daleks and the Doctor by now knows, just as Mavic Chen states, that they have a “genius for war.” However I find it odd, Gary, that the Daleks don’t recognize the Doctor or the TARDIS in this story; but again we have the complications of time travel and who knows what period in Dalek history these Daleks come from (although we know by Earth years that our story takes place in the year 4000 and the previous Dalek Invasion of Earth took place in 2164, even though the Doctor in our present story mistakenly refers back to that invasion as occurring in 2157).

The Doctor steals the critical piece of the Time Destructor, the tiranium core, and off we are led on another merry Dalek chase. From planet hopping to companion swapping, the story takes us on an entertaining joy ride.

The Dalek Master Plan marks another first for Doctor Who. We have had our first companion leave and our first new companion; now we have the first death of a companion, and not just one but three. First to go is the hapless Katarina, the Trojan handmaiden so irresponsibly swept off by the Doctor in our previous story The Myth Makers. Poor Katarina. The Doctor admonishes Steven for asking so many questions. “Look at Katarina over there. She doesn’t ask so many questions; she just looks and learns.” Poor hapless Katarina. Doesn’t ask any questions.  Just looks and learns. And dies. At least it is a noble death, or so it appears from the reconstructed version I viewed. She sacrifices herself to save the others, sending herself and the menacing convict Kirksen adrift in space, always to be remembered as “one of the daughters of the gods.”

Next to go is Bret Vyon, who represents another first in Doctor Who history—the first appearance of Nicholas Courtney, better known in later stories as Brigadier Lethbridge-Steward. Vyon originally locks horns with the Doctor but then allies with him through several episodes, only to be shot down by Sara Kingdom who, as we later learn, is his sister, and who also starts out at odds with the Doctor only to turn ally and eventually to die. One, two, three—all dead, and the Doctor and Steven alone are left to carry on.

The Daleks are not the only repeat antagonist to appear in The Daleks' Master Plan, either. The Monk also makes a return to Doctor Who for several episodes. Somehow he was able to fix his TARDIS and escape 1066 Earth where the Doctor had stranded him back in The Time Meddler, but the Doctor once again gets the better of him, taking the Monk’s directional unit in the process.

Add in a few Egyptians, bungling cops, Christmas cheer, deadly plants, volcanoes, prison planets, invisible enemies, underground cities, crashing space ships, and even a cricket match, and you have one whale of a story.

Of course no Doctor Who story would be complete without a dig or two at the TARDIS, “Now you listen to me, young man; don’t you start to criticize my TARDIS;” and at each other, “As for space travel, you’re still wet behind the ears.” And there are still more gadgets for the Doctor to reveal, like the magnetic chair he has invented with a force field strong enough to restrain a herd of elephants, and the Power Impulse Compass.

We also get repeated several times in this story the Doctor’s abhorrence of violence. “Just you remember, young man, I have no desire to kill anyone.” And later, “You brainless idiot; how many times have I told you about taking lives?” The Doctor is all about the well thought out action. “Brain . . . or brawn, rather, versus brain . . . I’ve got you beaten from the start young man.” And about action without thinking, he states, “I never do and never shall.”

And finally we get yet another definition of the Doctor. “You might say I am a citizen of the universe . . . and a gentleman to boot.”

A citizen of the universe with a destiny in the stars; not a Doc and not a god.

I hope this finds you, Gary, somewhere out there in the Doctor’s stars.

The Myth Makers

Dear Gary—

Sadly, another lost story. And sadly, another parting with a companion. I am grateful for the reconstructed versions I can find on line; at least I can get a flavor of it, but I have to say, The Myth Makers is another mixed bag that doesn’t quite work as a whole. Like The Romans, The Myth Makers injects a healthy dose of comedy into the historical, but unlike The Romans the humor here doesn’t quite get it right.

We start with a rather comical fight scene between Achilles and Hector, but when the TARDIS arrives and the Doctor emerges the startled Hector is struck dead.  “You must not kick a man when he is down,” admonishes the Doctor, but that seems to be the grim note this story takes, offering up its characters as clowns and then brutally striking them down.

The Doctor, presumed to be Zeus by Achilles, declares, “I refuse to enter into any kind of vulgar bawdry;” however the story doesn’t hesitate to rush in where the Doctor fears to tread.

There are some nice moments, though. I especially like the fact that we are getting to know Steven better. For the longest time my only exposure to Steven was his brief introduction in the makeshift monkey bar cage of The Chase and the one surviving episode of the later story The Celestial Toymaker. Watching these last few stories has served to round out his character for me, and I am rather liking Steven. He is not as combative with the Doctor as Ian had been, but he does slip in some sly, good natured zingers.

“You know, I don’t think they’d appreciate your kind of sarcasm,” the Doctor tells Steven; but I do. The unreliable TARDIS is always reliable for providing fodder for friendly ribbing, and when Steven states that their landing in the middle of the Trojan War is “just another miscalculation by the Doctor,” the Doctor counters that he would hardly call it a miscalculation. Rather, he continues, “with all eternity to choose from I did rather well to get us back to earth.”

And I have to say that I enjoyed most of the story. The humor sucked me in and was carrying me right along. “The whole story is obviously absurd,” the Doctor says of the Trojan Horse, and he speculates that it was merely an invention by Homer as a good dramatic device. The Myth Makers treats this chapter of history as absurd, depicting Paris and Achilles as cowards, Helen as a tramp, Odysseus as a braggart, and all as jesters for our entertainment.

“Woe to the horse.”

“Too late to say ‘whoa’ to the horse.”

The horse is on a runaway course. The Myth Makers started running with this farce and found itself plummeting downhill quickly. And as the Doctor says of the horse, there was “not time to make shock absorbers.”

Steven, in an attempt to locate the captured Vicki, gives himself up to Paris. “I beg your pardon?” Paris exclaims. “I say, this sort of thing is just not done; I mean, surely you’d rather die than be taken prisoner.” With lines such as that one can only laugh. But we’re only being set up for a most tragic and cruel finish.

King Priam and his daughter Cassandra offer more comedy, and there are some genuinely warm moments between Priam and Vicki. Vicki seems to have found a friend in Priam and a budding romance with his son Troilus. But again we are merely being set up for the painful end.

The Doctor, too, begins to find the whole thing distasteful. When Odysseus (who has played the fool for us throughout) suddenly turns nasty the Doctor proclaims, “I’ve gone far enough with you.” “My Lord Odysseus,” he continues, “you go adventuring on your own. Be off with you.”

But our clowns turn to murderers and our jesters are slain. It was all a Trojan Horse with a belly full of horror.

And then, with no real warning, Vicki is gone. Left behind to start a new life with the young and newly orphaned Troilus.  With only a few snatched hours of acquaintance. And the Doctor, rather irresponsibly I think, takes off in the TARDIS with the young Trojan handmaiden Katarina still on board.

“You must call me Doctor,” the Doctor tells the confused Katrina. “I am not a Doc; and I am not a god.” Quite a concise and accurate definition.

Young Katarina, however, believes herself in limbo. “This is a journey through the beyond,” she states.

A journey through the beyond . . . through the stars . . . through the swirling eternity of time . . .perhaps to find its way to you, dear Gary.

Galaxy 4

Dear Gary—

Following The Time Meddler we have a huge gap of missing Doctor Who episodes. Galaxy 4 should be the next in line after our Monk adventure, but until recently all four episodes of this story have been missing. Thankfully the third episode has recently been found, however it will not be available for a few years yet. In the meantime, Gary, I have discovered a whole new world of reconstructed episodes available on the internet and have been able to view Galaxy 4, perhaps not as originally aired, but with the use of stills, some surviving snippets, and the audio track, I have seen enough to get as good a picture of the story as is possible at this time, and am starting to get a clearer picture of our new companion Steven.

Steven staggered into the TARDIS escaping the Mechanoids back in The Chase; in The Time Meddler he took quite some convincing to believe that the TARDIS is actually a time and space machine. Now that he has settled down into the life of the TARDIS, he is along for the ride. The kidnapped Barbara and Ian, while eventually coming to enjoy and relish in their adventures with the Doctor, ultimately just wanted to get back home. Susan traveled with her grandfather out of love and devotion. Vicki has no home to go back to; the TARDIS is her home. We don’t know about Steven’s home; we don’t know if he has any family or friends that he longs for. He has stumbled into the TARDIS and stumbled into a life of adventure and that seems to be OK with him.

“My dear young man, this is not a joy ride; this is a scientific expedition,” admonishes the Doctor. But Steven just wants to go for a swim on this new and mysterious planet they have arrived on. For Steven this is a joy ride.

This new and mysterious planet, however, is due to explode any day, they learn, and in addition, there are two crashed ships with two crashed crews who lead our newly formed TARDIS group into adventure and danger.

Maaga is especially fascinating: a leader of warriors; female warriors; female warriors born of test tubes.  This mindless army has driven Maaga more than a little mad. They were made unintelligent, she soliloquizes, and will remain that way for the rest of their lives. She is filled with hubris, knowing that she is the only thinking being, and at the same time frustrated by this fact. Confronted with danger, she has no one to rely on but these dimwitted automatons.

While Steven is briefly taken in by the beauty of these beasts, it doesn’t take long for the Doctor and company to realize their true nature. “You want to kill us,” Vicki states bluntly. And indeed, that is Maaga’s intent. Killing is all she knows. She is the only living being, she brags, while the others are merely products; products to fulfill one purpose and that is to kill. As leader of this killing machine, that too seems to be her sole purpose. “The rest we kill,” she casually states of the majority of men on her home planet of Drahva, and she seeks to enlist the Doctor’s aid in killing the Rills, the other crashed crew on the planet. “In the first place, Madam,” the Doctor responds, “I never kill anything; neither do my friends.”

Steven sarcastically asks her, “Have you ever tried being friendly?” No, Maaga doesn’t even know what a friend is. She marvels at the fact that on other worlds people actually help each other, and in some cases even die for one another. This is a concept she cannot comprehend. “There are many strange things in the universe.”

There is a certain poetry in her madness. Alone in her thoughts, she considers the prospects of escaping in the Rill ship, leaving the Doctor, his companions, and the Rills behind on the dying planet.  “And then,” she elegizes, “when we’re out in space, we can look back; there will be a loud, white exploding planet; and know that they have died with it.” True, she admits, they will not be able to see them die, “but I at least have enough intelligence to imagine it—the fear, the horror, the shuddering of the planet in its last moments of life, and then they die.”

The Doctor, too, sees poetry in the dying planet, but while Maaga sees only destruction, the Doctor sees new life. When Vicki laments that shortly it will explode into nothing, the Doctor replies, “No, not nothing, child—hydrogen gas that sprays itself out like molten silver against the other stars in the same galaxy.”

In fact, the Doctor seems to be softening in these last few stories since the loss of Barbara and Ian. He is more poetical, philosophical, and playful; longing for some peace, a chance to stop and “take stock of ourselves instead of being surrounded by dangers all the time.”  Even when confronted by danger, he is less tetchy and more calm.

He advises Vicki on being patient: “First we must observe, note, collate, and then conclude; after that perhaps we can act.” Vicki playfully echoes this back to him after distracting a Chumbley (as Vicki terms the little robot creatures they find on the planet): “That was no risk. I noted, observed, collated, concluded . . . and then I threw the rock.” “I suppose I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” the Doctor good naturedly concedes. And later he humorously notes that he guesses he can drag his “aged limbs” into some “semblance of a run.” William Hartnell’s edges indeed have softened.

This kinder, gentler Doctor has no problem with the Rills, despite their hideous appearance. While the feminine Drahvins were beautiful of form, the Doctor immediately saw through to their barbaric core. The Rills, on the other hand, are intelligent, reasoned, and just, and the Doctor sees past their beastly appearance. The Rills, in turn, admire the Doctor. “We respect you as we respect all life.” And later: “Though we are beings of separate planets, you from the solar system and we from another space, our ways . . . do not seem all that different. It has been an honor to know you and serve you.”

I hope, Gary, that you had a chance to stumble upon this reconstructed episode as I have done, for it is truly a gem. I doubt that this was the case, but perhaps, just as the planet of Galaxy 4 shatters into glittering silver sprays of hydrogen, so too the story of Galaxy 4 echoes through time and space and somewhere, somehow its shimmering shards will reach you.

The Time Meddler

Dear Gary—

“I shall miss them.” This time it is Vicki who says it, echoing back to the end of The Chase.

“Who?” asks the Doctor. He has not forgotten; he is simply preoccupied. Preoccupied with his thoughts of loss. “First Susan and now them,” he muses. “Their decision certainly surprised me, although it shouldn’t, I know.” Now the Doctor is left with “a small worry.” First Susan left then Ian and Barbara; will Vicki be next? He hates to think she is staying simply for the “sake of an old man,” he states. But Vicki assures him she has nothing to go back to, and now they discover a new stowaway—Steven.

“Don’t call me Doc.”

Life in the TARDIS goes on.

 “That is the dematerializing control and that over yonder is the horizontal hold. Up there is the scanner. These are the doors. That is a chair with a panda on it. Sheer poetry, dear boy.” Thus the Doctor describes the TARDIS and welcomes his new companion on board.

I’m reserving judgment on Steven, Gary. Barbara and Ian are hard acts to follow, and there are not a lot of Steven stories that survive. In this his first serial, The Time Meddler, he is passable.

I have mixed feelings about The Time Meddler as well. I think I want to like it more than I actually do. I like the bits of humor scattered throughout; and the revelation that there is a peer of the Doctor, complete with his own TARDIS, is a valued progression in the Doctor Who annals. The Meddling Monk is an interesting character and his concept of changing time and the resulting philosophical discussions (and scoldings) with the Doctor are entertaining. The historical 1066 scuffles between the Saxons and the Vikings, however, tend to bog the story down.

It also doesn’t help that the Doctor and his companions are separated early on and don’t hook back up until the end. It would have been nice to see some interactions with the newly arrived Steven to get a better feel for the group dynamic.  Instead we get Steven and Vicki beating a path to and from the monastery and a missing Doctor for the entire second episode of this four part story (oh how we could use Ian and Barbara right about now).

The Time Meddler is important, though, in its exploration of a Doctor Who staple. The golden rule of time and space travel, as the Doctor spells out: “Never, never interfere with the course of history.” The Meddling Monk argues it is more fun his way and claims to have discussed powered flight with Da Vinci and aided the construction of Stonehenge with the use of his anti-gravitational lift. His current attempt to destroy the Viking fleet and thus alter the outcome of the Battle of Hastings he deems his “master plan to end master plans.”

This begs the question, is the Meddling Monk in fact the Master as some fans have posited? I doubt it myself, Gary.  The Monk is not evil, he is merely mischievous, and “utterly irresponsible” as the Doctor calls him, for seeking to destroy the whole pattern of world history. If he does turn into the Master in later generations he has undergone a serious personality change. Besides, in later years we learn that the Doctor and the Master grew up together, in which case the Meddling Monk and the Doctor would have surely recognized one another.

No, he is simply a mischievous time meddler bent on changing history. The Doctor, however, is determined to prevent this “disgusting exhibition” that the Monk intends. “Remember, no more monkery,” the Doctor admonishes. In order to ensure that the Monk can do no further harm, the Doctor steals his dimensional control so that the inside of the Monk’s TARDIS is no longer bigger on the inside, thus effectively stranding him on 1066 Earth.

The Monk’s TARDIS, we learn, is a Mark IV, a later model than the Doctor’s and one in which he has made several modifications, like the auto-drift control so that the TARDIS can remain suspended in space with safety.   The Doctor displays some mild envy upon encountering this newer TARDIS model and petulantly replies “None of your business” when the Monk asks what type TARDIS the Doctor has. The Doctor does show some pride in his TARDIS, though, when he assures Steven and Vicki that water cannot harm it and that it will not be washed away despite having been covered by the rising tide.

All in all I have to say I am disappointed in The Time Meddler. It has intriguing elements but taken as a whole it just doesn’t quite gel. Similarly the new cast doesn’t quite gel, and again much of this is the fault of the script which keeps them separate for so long. As Vicki tells the Monk, referring to the Doctor, “He’s the crew; we’re just the passengers.” And that about sums it up. They are not one functioning group that clicks together like the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara and later the Doctor, Vicki, Ian and Barbara were. They are merely the Doctor and his passengers.

How sad that the following stories, that might have developed and strengthened the relationship of our three travelers, are missing, swirling somewhere out there in space and time. And so Gary I must leave you with this void, and hope that the hollow echoes find their way across to you.

The Chase

Dear Gary—

“I shall miss them. Yes, I shall miss them.” No histrionics, no running mascara. Just a simple, heartfelt “I shall miss them.” For me, Gary, this is the single most heartbreaking scene in all of Doctor Who.

I hate writing this, Gary, because this time it’s not goodbye Susan but rather goodbye Ian and Barbara. Never again will the Doctor have companions as valuable. Although dependent on the Doctor, Barbara and Ian were very much independent. Never again could a companion of the Doctor carry the show sans the Doctor. It’s fitting that the two go out in a Dalek episode, and just like Susan’s farewell, Barbara and Ian go out on a high note.

In this their third appearance, the Daleks have identified the Doctor and his companions as their greatest enemy, referring back to the second Dalek episode when their attempted conquest of Earth was thwarted. I’m not even going to try to fit this into the Dalek/Doctor timeline but will rather take a cue from Doctor Who and deflect the questions. The Daleks, after all, have discovered time travel, so who can say when any of these stories take place relative to each other? What with the Doctor traveling and the Daleks traveling, crisscrossing through time. Any attempt at reconciliation would be like the Doctor “rattling off explanations that would have baffled Einstein.”

No matter. The Dalek Supreme has identified the Doctor and company as arch enemies  to be pursued through all eternity.  This is truly the beginning of a beautiful hostility. Now it is personal. It is not the Doctor stumbling upon the Daleks and happening to defeat them. This is a concerted and directed effort by the Daleks to pursue and exterminate. Do not deviate.

And it is a wild ride through time and space that results. It starts with some light hearted TARDIS scenes involving the Time-Space Visualiser, a sort of time TV that was a souvenir from the previous story The Space Museum. Using this device our adventurers peek in on the Gettysburg Address, Queen Elizabeth conversing with Shakespeare, and a 1965 performance by the Beatles. A precursor to the actual time ride on which they will soon find themselves.

Similar to The Keys of Marinus, The Chase consists of several episodes that are mini stories within a story, and each one entertaining. We start with a typical Doctor Who alien planet with assorted beings, a sandstorm, our adventurers separated, collapsing tunnels, threatening Mire Beasts, and the TARDIS guarded by Daleks (all the while Ian is running around in a dapper barbershop quartet shirt). Once out of this jam, the crew is on the run, from the top of the Empire State Building to the deck of a sailing ship (the mysterious Mary Celeste); they stay one step ahead of the Daleks.

Their next landing is my favorite in this story—a haunted house exhibit complete with Dracula, ghosts, bats, and of course Frankenstein’s monster. I love how Doctor Who during William Hartnell’s run was not afraid to show up the Doctor. He is convinced that this house of horrors is a nightmare world existing within the human mind. They are, he claims, lost in an area of human thought and therefore safe for the moment from the Daleks who cannot enter. Of course he is wrong.

I also love the interchanges between Ian and the Doctor during this episode. The Doctor is so sure of himself and Ian is equally unsure. “Where’s your spirit of adventure?” the Doctor enquires. “It died a slow and painful death when those bats came out of the rafters,” Ian replies. The Doctor ventures on, down into the eerie lab, and even after beating a hasty retreat upon encountering the monster he maintains his game face bravado.

And again, Gary, we have a lovely little scene of Ian getting irritated when they return to where they left Vicki and Barbara only to find that the two are nowhere in sight. “The girls have gone,” he says in that resigned, I-should-have-known-it disgust of his.

The chase finally takes them to another alien planet with another robot race to contend with—the Mechonoids. After being so sure of himself about the haunted nightmare world they just left (while all the time being so very wrong), the Doctor now admits to several failings. He takes complete blame for having inadvertently left Vicki behind—“all my own stupid fault”—and later he states, “I don’t mind admitting I feel rather exhausted.” For all of his arrogance and bravado, William Hartnell’s Doctor is willing to admit his faults.

I want to take an aside here, Gary, to mention some things we learn in this story about the TARDIS. First, the Doctor has a TARDIS magnet that he gives to Ian so that he can always find his way back (the Doctor doesn’t need it as he has “the directional instincts of a homing pigeon”). I don’t believe this magnet is ever mentioned again, so I can only assume that Ian either lost it or still had it when he left.  We also learn more of the indestructibility of the TARDIS as it resists the Daleks attempts to destroy it. The TARDIS is also equipped with a Time Path Detector, and most startling, this detector, the Doctor says, has been on the ship ever since he “constructed it.” The Doctor ‘constructed’ the TARDIS? I’m picturing him with a TARDIS kit, reading the instructions, inserting piece B into slot A. No wonder it never works properly. What he does not have yet, apparently, is a sonic screwdriver, for at one point in this story he does ask for his screwdriver, but it is most evidently non-sonic.

We’re winding down The Chase now. The Daleks use a Reproducer to make a robot version of the Doctor, but thankfully our travelers ultimately can tell the real from the fake. We are also introduced to Steven Taylor (who must be a descendent of the Arkansas tourist they ran across on top of the Empire State Building as he is portrayed by the same actor) who is destined to become the Doctor’s new companion.

But it is the final scenes that are the most powerful.  Barbara and Ian want to go home, to “belong somewhere” rather than the “aimless drifting” they have been doing. They have been dependent on the Doctor to this point, hoping someday the unreliable TARDIS with its broken time mechanism will miraculously land them back in their own time and place. But now they have the Dalek time machine at their disposal and the sudden realization that this is their chance.

A sudden realization it is. Too sudden for the Doctor. At least with Susan he had an adventure long time to reconcile himself to the fact that his granddaughter was growing up and needed to move on. He himself made the decision to part with her. The departure of Barbara and Ian, however, is sprung on him, and his angry reaction is born of grief and fear.

“You are absolute idiots,” he declares. He will not aid their suicide. They will end up “a couple of burnt cinders,” he sputters. He cannot bear this parting. The Doctor’s vulnerability comes shining through in these last scenes. Ian and Barbara, the kidnapped schoolteachers, have become his companions, his friends. They are the last link to his granddaughter. They are leaving him.

In the end he must let them go, and we get a nice little montage of the two delighting in their return to London (even though it is 1965—2 years out) as the Doctor and Vicki observe them on the Time-Space Visualiser.

And then we have the simple, “I shall miss them. Yes, I shall miss them.” All of the emotion is felt in those few simple words, and we grieve with the Doctor.

The loss of true friends is always the hardest, Gary.