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One week since the crowded video room... and a little over half of them came back to watch The Time Meddler. There were a lot of people genuinely interested in seeing what 1965 Doctor Who was like, and a good few fans of experience as well as fans of new enthusiasm amongst them.
The Time Meddler sticks in the mind for its joy in experiment; it has a little of the summer variety show about it, and were it not for their involvement in the (implied) rape of Edith it would be difficult to imagine that the audience were meant to take the Vikings seriously; the Viking leader's headgear looks like a Monty Python prop. It courts the audience's awareness of Doctor Who's artificiality: we learn the TARDIS has a horizontal hold, a control familiar to lots of 1960s televiewers; Vicki chides newcomer Steven for not recognising the narrative conventions of adventure fiction when he doubts that there will be a secret passage leading out of the monastery; and the Doctor, in response to the Monk's enquiry about television, confirms (with a glance at the camera, and thus the viewer) that he is 'familiar with the medium'. Douglas Camfield likes camera angles which one member of the audience said were like CCTV, perhaps taking advantage of the viewer's foreknowledge about history, or perhaps just because this angle emphasises that the viewer isn't a silent participant in a conversation, but is looking on from a tree branch or some gantry on the TARDIS ceiling.
The Time Meddler sticks in the mind for its joy in experiment; it has a little of the summer variety show about it, and were it not for their involvement in the (implied) rape of Edith it would be difficult to imagine that the audience were meant to take the Vikings seriously; the Viking leader's headgear looks like a Monty Python prop. It courts the audience's awareness of Doctor Who's artificiality: we learn the TARDIS has a horizontal hold, a control familiar to lots of 1960s televiewers; Vicki chides newcomer Steven for not recognising the narrative conventions of adventure fiction when he doubts that there will be a secret passage leading out of the monastery; and the Doctor, in response to the Monk's enquiry about television, confirms (with a glance at the camera, and thus the viewer) that he is 'familiar with the medium'. Douglas Camfield likes camera angles which one member of the audience said were like CCTV, perhaps taking advantage of the viewer's foreknowledge about history, or perhaps just because this angle emphasises that the viewer isn't a silent participant in a conversation, but is looking on from a tree branch or some gantry on the TARDIS ceiling.
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