Doctor Who & the Meddling Monk

The Watcher-Episode One

It was first broadcast on July 3^rd, 1965. This episode from the Very First Doctor Who incarnation takes place shortly after Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton have left The Doctor and returned to their own time and place in history. Left inside the TARDIS is The Doctor, his granddaughter Susan Foreman having been left in the year 2167 by her grandfather, and Vicki , an orphan from 2493.

This episode, the first of four which together make the story, The Meddling Monk, opens with The Doctor and Vicki (played by William Hartnell and Maureen O'Brien) lamenting the fact that their two friends, Barbara and Ian, have gone. The Doctor, who is very fatherly to Vicki (calling her "My dear"), offers Vicki the chance to go home also, however with no family to return to Vicki is content to continue traveling with The Doctor.

Soon some noise is detected in what Vicki refers to as "the living quarters". The Doctor and Vicki find Steven there, almost dead. Following their adventure in the six-episode Chase episodes, Steven Taylor, a stranded astronaut, is believed dead, however this shows that Steven, played by Peter Purves, made it out of the Daleks' traps and became a stowaway on the TARDIS.

At first The Doctor seems very upset that Steven is even on board his ship. However, he is willing to accept Steven at face value, although he does insist that Steven not refer to him as "Doc". While The Doctor checks the TARDIS controls, Vicki tries to explain to Steven about the ship they are on...explaining the letters to mean "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space"...just as Susan Foreman, The Doctor's granddaughter, had described them to mean.

An outside shot shows the TARDIS landing on a coastline, with a mysterious Monk watching from above. As the three travelers search around the area they landed, The Doctor guesses they are in 10^th or 11^th Century England, finding an old, rusty Viking helmet to try to prove to Steven that they can travel in time. Steven, dressed and shaved after his narrow escape from the Daleks, does not believe it.