s02 e17: The Time Meddler

In the second season finale, the newly slimmed-down TARDIS crew battle a renegade Time Lord called the Meddling Monk, a sort of proto-Master who differs from the Doctor's more well-known nemesis in that instead of being maniacally evil, he's just sort of a dumbass.

Review:

• Awesome to see another TARDIS and another Time Lord on screen for the first time, but, overall, not enough vikings get whacked with two-by-fours to make this really exciting. 

Important Firsts:

• First appearance of the Meddling Monk
• First Time Lord other than the Doctor and Susan (though the name "Time Lord" is not yet used).
• First recurring individual villain.
• First "pseudo-historical" (an episode which mixes historical and sci-fi elements)

Musings:

• I really will miss Barbara and Ian. For one thing, I rather like large TARDIS crews. For another, Willian Russel and Jacqueline Hill were both good actors, and I rather enjoy their dynamic.  They were the closest thing we had to a couple traveling on the TARDIS until Amy and Rory turned up some 48 years later.  Individually, they were pretty fun also.
• Ian gets replaced by the fairly-similar Steven, and Barbara is totally obsoleted. I guess the producers decided that since her main function was to provide historical commentary and to accidentally end up as a courtesan in various alien brothels, they could do without her.
• I liked how companions used to come and go in the middle of seasons.  It helped keep me on my toes (not that I was watching these as they came out in 1964, but you know what I mean).
• An episode of the spinoff Sarah Jane Adventures mentions that by the year 2010, Ian and Barbara have married each other, become professors, and live and Cambridge.  Also they are rumored to have not aged since the 60s, and I'm really not sure what that is all about.
• But now, on to the episode:
• doo doo doo, DOOOO do-do!  (I love this music)
• Vicki whines that she shall miss Ian and Barbara
• The Doctor agrees, and reminisces about how Susan left also.  It's all quite sad, really.  I love how the Doctor always ends up sad and alone.  Angst is the best.  Also Hartnell is a phenomenal actor who manages to portray sad without screwing up his face and crying like Tennant.
• Vicki is good at comforting him though.  They're really cute together, and they have much better chemistry than the Doctor and Susan had onscreen.
• OMFG A NOISE IN THE LIVING QUARTERS! 
• The Doctor and Vicki think it's a Dalek.
• But WAIT!  It's actually Steven!  I never expected this!
• The Doctor is not super pleased, especially after Steven starts calling him "Doc"
• Pretty much every incarnation of the Doctor hates being called Doc.
• A conversation about the TARDIS being bigger on the inside.
• After Steven bugs him him incessantly, the Doctor gives him an irritated introduciton to the TARDIS:
• "That is the dematerializing 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."
• Steven doesn't believe the TARDIS can travel in time and is very slow to accept that they are in 10th century England.
• Steven and Vicki make for a pretty cute brother-sister pair.
• Steven rags on the Doctor about how the TARDIS looks like a phone-box.
• Steven discovers an artifact that the Doctor tells him must be a space helmet for a cow.
• The Doctor tells Vicki and Steven not to wander off.  
• Vicki and Steven wander off.
• Vicki and Steven get lost.
• A dweeb in a hat watches from the bushes and then emerges to fondle the TARDIS.
• Apparently William Hartnell threw a temper tantrum during filming off this story after a techie misplaced his hat.
• Steven finds a modern-day watch on a local, adding to his incredulity about time travel. Something spooky is going on here.
• The Doctor meets up with a rather intelligent local. 
• Some monks chant in a monastery, but their chanting sounds suspicious.
• The Doctor discovers an extremely anachronistic gramophone just before the Meddling Monk locks him in a cage and cackles maniacally. 
• Hey, it could be worse.
• In the opening of the second segment, the Meddling Monk serves the Doctor tea and eggs. The Doctor is grumpy.
• The Doctor will spend this entire segment locked up since Hartnell was on vacation AGAIN.
• Some sexy mountain men arrive to harass Steven and Vicki.
• Steven and Vicki are dragged before Gimli.
• The Meddling Monk looks pretty good in his hood and pretty stupid without it.
• Some subplot involving grumpy locals that I don't understand.
• I can't wait for the Doctor to tweak out at the Meddling Monk.
• Steven and Vicki go to the monastery searching for the Doctor.  The Meddling Monk answers the door and puckers up for a kiss from Steven. 
• The Monk tells Steven and Vicki that he hasn't seen the Doctor.  And he's not at all suspicious while he does it.
• For some reason, Steven doesn't buy his story.
• Steven and Vicki sneak in, discovering a host of anachronistic kitchen appliances. 
• While the Monk is distracted by a viking invasion, Steven and Vicki discover the Doctor's cell.  However, the Doctor is missing, and only his cloak remains.
• This is all a little dull actually.  Hoping for a Time Lord fistfight sometime soon, but we;re halfway through and the Doctor and the Monk haven't really even spoken yet.
• Steven finally starts to believe that they have time traveled.  He is quicker than Vicki to realize that the Monk must also be a time traveler. 
• The Monk gives penicillin to a wounded viking.
• The Monk keeps a historical flowchart, and checks off events as they happen.  He seems to be trying to manipulate history.  Or maybe MEDDLE with history, eh?
• The Doctor returns to the monastery and uses an extremely clever ruse to make the Meddling Monk think he has a gun pressed to his back.
• Yes, that is a stick.
• Vicki and Steven notes that the tide has come in and drowned the TARDIS.  It makes me wonder what would happen if they opened the doors underwater.  Could you drain an ocean?  Or what the water be kept out just like air is kept inside while in the vacuum of space.
• Vicki and Steven find a Gatling gun on the beach shore.  It appears that the Monk was planning to be a huge dick.
• The Monk discovers the Doctor's ruse.  The Doctor continues to threaten him with the stick.
• A grumpy argument ensues. The Doctor makes a terrible pun about "Monk-ying around"
• Incidentally: don't fuck with the Doctor.
• Some vikings bust down the door and lock up the Doctor. The plan to take over the monastery and use it as a base.
• The Meddling Monk bitchslaps a viking with a two-by-four.
• The Doctor bitchslaps a different viking with a different two-by-four.  NOW we're talking!
• The Monk escapes to the village and encounters a fat shirtless man.
• Steven and Vicki arrive at the Monastery and find a bunch of unconscious vikings and two-by-fours.
• The Doctor returns to confront the Monk.  This time he carries a sword.
• In the third segment cliffhanger, Vicki and Steven find a door in a Monk's pulpit.  The enter and find A MOTHERFUCKING TARDIS!
• I wish I were born in the 50s and could have been watching this stuff as it came out.  Think how shocking this moment must have been. Evidently, all of England was abuzz talking about this cliffhanger.
• The Monk's TARDIS has a function chameleon circuit, unlike the Doctor's.  Owned.
• The Monk reveals his plan: something about averting a viking invasion with a Gatling gun.
• Vicki and Steven find a journal in the Monk's TARDIS.  Apparently the Monk has been dicking around history for a long time.  Something about having sex with Leonardo da Vinci and collecting a lot of compound interest.  He also built Stonehenge. 
• The Doctor calls the Monk a "Time Meddler" with implied capital letters. Evidently, it's a thing.
• The Monk gloats about his functioning chameleon circuit. 
• They enter the TARDIS, and everyone has a party.
• The Monk's goal seems to be to accelerate history for the purpose of hilarity.  His endgame is to watch the original performance of Hamlet on television while sitting on a jetliner. I am not making this up.
• Some vikings storm the monastery and tie up everyone but the Monk, who escapes.
• Some discovery about the mutability of history. 
• By the way, I've been calling everyone vikings, but really a lot of them are actually Saxons.  I really don't care enough to try to tell the difference.
• The Doctor's ugly lady friend frees the Doctor and his companions.  The Monk is captured by vikings.
• Before leaving, the Doctor dicks over the Monk's TARDIS in a pretty hilarious way. 
• Ostensibly The Monk is stranded in the eleventh century.  I forget how he escapes, but I assume it involves a trashy blond girl fondling things she has no business fondling.
• All in all, the Doctor is pretty smug about how things turn out.
• Although when you think about it, the Monk is still free to meddle from his current time.  He just can't pull any compound interest tricks.
• Some special sexy end credits.
• And that's a wrap on series 2!