Classic Doctor Who 2x09 "The Time Meddler" eps 1-2 full reaction
Added 2021-10-16 20:57:00 +0000 UTC"That is merely another technical hitch and the Doctor will repair it one day." π€£
Comments
I really love this story. Any school child of the 60's (I was one of the 70's and education hadn't changed much) would immediately have got excited as soon as the Doctor put together the year- 1066. The Conquest, Harold getting an arrow in the eye, and its subsequent effect on the history of the British Isles (to this day) was known by almost everyone as familiar, and I'd imagine still is, as familiar as say the Alamo to an American. And with it the Vikings. And another thing every school child of the time knew about the Vikings was what they were famous for- rape, murder, pillage and plunder. Even if as school kids of the 70's we might have been a bit hazy on the details of the first one. What's brave about this episode however is not alluding to the rape of the kind Saxon woman in a tea-time family show, but alluding to it by showing us and giving us a scene in its aftermath and the obvious traumatic effect it has had on the victim; at first near catatonic, and then finally still in obvious tremendous shock and horror whilst being questioned about it and therefore forced to relive it- an experience unfortunately many who have been in this terrible position would recognise. They could have so easily left this at her being dragged off, one for the adults to get the likely meaning for and to be just her dragged away for the kids, but they choose not to show the attack, but to show the damage it did to a human being instead, and in a very realistic and direct way. The actor who plays the Monk, Peter Butterworth (a very Tolkienesque surname) was well known in his day as a comedy actor and appeared in many UK comedy radio and tv shows, sitcoms and films of the period including the hugely popular Carry On series of comedy farces with it's 70's bawd and saucy seaside postcard humour. He was therefore a well known face even by his casting in Who, familiar already to the audience and may even count as the first celebrity casting. The viking helmets,historically wrong as they didn't actually have horns on their helmets, was however the best knowledge of the day. However when in the 12th Doctor episode the Girl Who Died Vikings returned it was decided to follow Who continuity rather than now understood historic reality and so they once more gave the Vikings helmets with horns. This episode also contains two of my favourite 1st Doctor pieces of incidental dialogue- the space helmet for a cow line and the longer but brilliant, βThat is the dematerialising 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 stop bothering me.β I think the reason the camera lingers on the ocean so often ,besides it being where the TARDIS was parked is because it has particular foreboding at this time in history. Both the Vikings and subsequent Norman Conquest would arrive on the sea. The sea has an ambiguous role in the British mindset ,either Shakespeare's 'precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands' But also its where all the enemies come from, every conqueror every tyrant, every invasion has come on the waves of the sea save the last one (it was in the air). So I think the choice of cutting to lingering shots of the ocean is to play on these dualities and build foreboding of the change soon to come the sea will bring.
BobBob
2021-10-19 10:58:31 +0000 UTCThis ones a slow burner; but it has loads of atmosphere,and contains a few plot twists which are nothing short of triumphant!
Ian Smith
2021-10-17 12:04:33 +0000 UTC
