The Doctor and Vicki share a moment after returning Ian and Barbara. At least the Doctor is trying to share a moment with Vicki. She's busy imagining what New York was like and how it wouldn't have been too bad if it weren't for the Daleks while the Doctor wants to make certain that she really does want to stay with the Doctor in the TARDIS.
Just as Vicki is reassuring the Doctor that she wants to be with him and that Ian and Barbara needed to go, the pair of them hear something moving around in the living quarters.
Vicki is convinced that it's a Dalek. She and the Doctor await the visitor armed with a jacket and a shoe. Out of the living quarters stumbles a disheveled Steven. It turns out that he found the TARDIS in the confusion of the jungle and managed to get inside and ended up going deeper into the ship.
He's seen some pretty impressive space craft in his day, but nothing that compares to this. He draws the line at believing that it's a time machine. Vicki explains the acronym of TARDIS (she says "Dimensions" instead of "Dimension") and he replies with IDBI; I Don't Believe It.
The Doctor realizes that Steven will find out the true nature of the ship soon enough. Steven's skepticism and his habit of calling the Doctor "Doc" have Hartnell on the edge of another harangue.
The TARDIS materializes on a craigy beach.
A lone monk observes the time ship land.
The travelers leave the ship and do some exploring around the immediate vicinity. Vicki finds a slightly rusty viking helmet. The Doctor estimates that it is 10th or 11th century, Steven thinks that it might be part of a costume. Hartnell has a great line about a space helmet for a cow.
There is some dialog between Steven and Vicki that covers some of the basic ground of the series; the Doctor can't steer the TARDIS, the disguise ability is broken etc. Reasonable questions on Steven's part and a nice way of catching up fans who weren't watching from episode one.
The Monk from earlier is seated at the base of the rock that Vicki and Steven are leaning against. It's a precarious place to spy, but he does manage to catch every word.
The Doctor decides to walk along the beach until the ground rises to the level of the craigs. Steven wants to just climb straight up, but the Doctor makes it clear that he isn't a mountain goat. He instructs them to stay with the ship while he goes forward.
Five seconds after he's out of earshot Steven is dragging Vicki up the side of the cliff.
The Monk tries to access the TARDIS, but finds that it is locked. He listens to the hum that it makes. He looks to his wrist as if he's going to check his watch, but finds the wrist bare. A quick search doesn't reveal it.
Some of the locals have noticed the box that must have washed up on the beach. A few of them go to investigate it before the tide comes in.
The Doctor makes it to the outskirts of a local village. The conditions are very primitive. He is initially accosted by the lady of the hut, but she turns into a hospitable host once she realizes that it's a harmless old man and not some viking invader. Through questioning he discovers that he is in North Umbria in the summer of 1066. He also discovers that a group of monks have recently taken residence in an old abandoned monastery. When the chanting of the monks artificially slows down, only the audience and the Doctor recognize it as a record player malfunction. He goes to explore the monastery.
Vicki and Steven end up lost.
They spot a local hunter. Steven is all for making contact, but Vicki says that they should follow him and find out if he's a threat to them before exposing themselves. Steven starts to go forward and the exasperated Vicki forces him back down.
The hunter stops and picks up something. Steven asks Vicki if she dropped anything. She says no, but Steven is on him in a flash. The hunter is startled by a stranger coming out of the woods. He makes to go and Steven tackles him. I strongly suspect that two years of isolation in a Mechanoid zoo has greatly retarded Steven's people skills.
They struggle for a while before the hunter knocks Steven out and bolts. Steven recovers quickly and shows Vicki his prize-a wrist watch that is very much not 10th century in origin.
The Doctor makes his way inside the monastery with some unseen assistance by the Monk. He soon finds the source of the chanting, a victrola. The Doctor turns to leave looking very pleased with himself when a portcullis falls trapping him in the room that he was in.
This is one of the good ones. It's a Dennis Spooner script which raises it a bit above the rest. It features a major subversion of the series. Up until now the TARDIS and her crew were the only science fiction elements in an historical serial. This story breaks away from that by having other science fiction elements (in this case a rival time traveler) existing alongside the history. It proved to be very popular and, within a couple seasons, ended up completely replacing the traditional historical.
Hartnell is given some great lines in this one and hardly muffles a one.
Steven has quiet a lot in common with Vicki. Both are from a space faring future. Both were stranded on hostile alien worlds. Both were rescued by the Doctor.
They probably shouldn't be very good companions. Part of the purpose of the companion is to act as an identifying character for the audience; to ask the questions that we can't ask the Doctor. Vicki is the product of a far future educational program. She has degrees in multiple subjects. She can and has reprogrammed advanced alien technology. Steven is a soldier of the future. While the details of what he's capable of haven't been explicitly shown at this point it is safe to say that he has experience far beyond that of the viewers.
That aside, they make a great team.
Vicki has demonstrated a puckish sense of humor coupled with a wide eyed innocence that is adorable. Steven has a sarcastic streak that plays well with that. Both are portrayed by very talented actors.
It is my opinion that Steven is the last of the notable companions to be introduced during Hartnell's tenure. The companions introduced later seem to be less well thought out than the ones that we have seen up until this point. Vicki will be replaced by Katarina. The producers realized that they had made a fundamental mistake in having her become a companion and killed her off a few episodes later. Sara Kingdom's status as companion is debatable in some corners of fandom. Dodo was brought on to appeal to the teen market with her Cockney accent, but then the Beeb decreed that she had to tone things down. She literally went away in the middle of a story and never came back. Ben and Polly seem to be a return to quality companions, but there was a lot of animosity on the set between Hartnell and the powers that be at that point and it tainted their time aboard the TARDIS (at least in my opinion.) Things got better and stayed better for quiet some time after they cast Frazer Hines to play Jamie.
That shouldn't be taken as an attack on any of the actors playing those parts; they were playing the characters given to them to the best of their ability. I lay the blame on the creative heads of the series. I feel the same way about the Doctor. I may not have cared for Colin Baker's run or Sylvester McCoy's first seaon, but I don't blame the actor; I blame John Nathan-Turner, the man who decided that the Doctor should look like something a rainbow vomited up or play the part like a vaudeville comedian.
That went pretty far afield. To sum up. This episode good, Colin Baker's rainbow vomit outfit bad.
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| Don't call me "Doc!" |
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