Douglas Camfield | Through the Shattered Lens

Working on behalf of World Ecology Bureau (?), the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Slader) are sent to a remote research station in Antarctica where an expedition has unearthed two mysterious plant pod. The Doctor recognizes the pod as a Krynoid, an alien that survives by laying its seeds in a host organism who is then slowly and painfully transformed into a plant. One of the members of the expedition, Winlett (John Gleeson), has already been infected. The infection is so bad that the Doctor is forced to say that there is nothing that can be done to save Winlett, other than amputating his arm to try to slow the infection.

While the Doctor and Sarah Jane try to deal with the Krynoid, a pant-obsessed millionaire named Harrison Chase (Tony Beckley) learns of the pod’s existence. He sends two of his henchmen, Scorby (John Callis) and Keeler (Mark Jones) to collect it for him. While the now fully mutated Winlett kills the other members of the expedition, Scorby and Keeler steal one of the pods. Scorby blows up the base, killing Winlett and nearly killing the Doctor and Sarah Jane as well.

That’s all in the first two episodes of this six-episode serial. The remaining four episodes find the Doctor and Sarah Jane (and eventually UNIT) invading Chase’s estate and trying to destroy the Krynoid before it grows big enough to destroy all animal life on Earth. Chase becomes possessed by the Krynoid, Keeler turns into fungus, and several people are strangled by plants. There’s even a death by mulcher.

The Seeds of Doom is one of those serials that has really stuck with me. I think it’s because of how desperate the Doctor gets once he realizes that he’s failed in his mission to keep the Krynoid from escape Antarctica. Tom Baker was usually known for being the funny Doctor but, in this episode, he’s almost an action hero, smashing through windows, beating up numerous henchpeople, and maybe snapping one man’s neck. (It’s hard to tell if the Doctor killed him or just rendered him unconscious.) It’s a different side of the Doctor but it’s appropriate because, for once, the Doctor isn’t one step ahead of everyone else. There’s no time for fun and games when the Krynoid has already taken over Chase’s entire estate.

Harrison Chase was one of the best of the Doctor Who one-off villains. Tony Beckley gave a great performance as Chase, playing him as someone who was an evil fanatic even before his mind was taken over by the Krynoid. By the end of the serial, as he rants while bullet fly around his estate, Chase has become a truly wonderfully loathsome character. Watching him, it’s easy to imagine Tony Beckley playing a minor villain in a James Bond movie. (Sadly, Tony Beckley died just four years after playing Harrison Chase.)

Still, the moment that has always stuck with me is Sarah Jane discovering Keeler, covered in spores and grasping onto his last strands of humanity before becoming a Krynoid. There was always considerable debate over whether or not Doctor Who was too scary for its target audience. That debate usually seems pretty dumb but I imagine The Seeds of Doom inspired more than a few nightmares.

The Seeds of Doom brought the 13th season of the classic series to an impressive end. The Doctor and Sarah Jane decided to take a vacation. They had earned it.

Today, everyone knows the origins of the Doctor. We know that the Doctor is a Time Lord and a native of the planet Gallifrey. We know that the Time Lords had a policy of not interfering with other civilizations. They could travel through time but they were never to change history. We know that the Doctor, even after stealing the TARDIS, remained true to that belief while other renegade Time Lords did not.

It wasn’t always like that. During the show’s early years, the Doctor was meant to be a very mysterious figure and it was implied that he himself had invented (rather than stolen) his TARDIS. It wasn’t until nearly two years into the show’s original run that we met anyone else from the Doctor’s home planet and that we finally got to see a TARDIS that could actually change shape.

All of that happened in The Time Meddler, a four-episode serial the originally aired from July 3rd, 1965 to July 24th. In this episode, the Doctor’s TARDIS materializes in Northumbria in 1066. With Ian and Barbara having recently returned to their own time, the Doctor (William Hartnell) is now traveling with Vicki (Maureen O’Brien) and Steven Taylor (Peter Purves), both of whom come from the future and who are much less argumentative than either Ian or Barbara. Finally, the Doctor has companions who are not only happy to be there but who are willing to do whatever he says. Though the Doctor tells Vicki that he will miss Ian and Barbara, he does seem much more relaxed in this serial than in previous ones.

The Doctor’s arrival is observed by The Monk (Peter Butterworth), a mysterious figure who doesn’t seem to be surprised at all to see a blue police call box materialize in 1066. A time meddler who it is implied has met the Doctor before, the Monk is plotting on changing the course of history by wiping out King Harald Hardrada’s Viking invasion fleet, therefore leaving Harold Godwinson and his troops fresh and fully armed so that they can then defeat William The Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. The Doctor is captured early on by the Monk, leaving Steven and Vicki to deal with the suspicious locals.

The Meddling Monk was truly a great creation. As played by Peter Butterworth, he wasn’t so much an evil-doer as he was just someone who thought it would be fun to change history. (I’ve always disliked the theory that the Meddling Monk was an early incarnation of The Master. The Master was always evil while the Monk was basically a prankster.) Peter Butterworth gives an amusing and energetic performance as the Monk and the highlights of the serial are the scenes between him and Hartnell. They both bring out the best in each other and Hartnell, who could often seem testy while acting opposite the younger actors who played his companions, truly seems to enjoy playing opposite an actor who was basically his equal in both skill and experience.

This episode is best-known for being the first episode to introduce another member of The Doctor and Susan’s race. It was also the first episode to feature a TARDIS other than the Doctor’s. (The Monk’s TARDIS works, which reminds the viewer of just how broken-down the Doctor’s vehicle actually is.) It is often overlooked that it was also one of the better “historical” episodes. Doctor Who was originally envisioned as a show that would teach younger viewers about history. Unfortunately, the purely historical episodes were often dry and uninvolving. This episode teaches about the Battle of Normandy but it also livens things up by giving the Doctor a worthy adversary.

It can be difficult to judge Hartnell’s time as the Doctor, just because so many of his serials are either incomplete or totally missing. For viewers who are used to a younger and friendlier Doctor, Hartnell’s Doctor can seem rather grouchy. The Time Meddler, though, features William Hartnell at his best and is one of the highlights of Doctor Who‘s early years.