Doctor Who “Checkmate”

So, here we are at the end of the second season of Doctor Who.

Season three’s write-ups will be a bit short.  Explanation for that below.

So, yeah, it seems the Doctor’s random mutterings, plus vikings hiding in the monastery, puts the local Saxons on edge, and that should be the end of the Monk’s plans.  What are the Monk’s plans?  Kill some vikings, let King Harald meet William the Conqueror with fresh troops, prevent the Norman invasion, and then see England get much further ahead technologically enough for Shakespeare to be a TV writer.

Yeah, the Monk makes it a habit of fiddling with time.  He and the Doctor are the same species, and while the Monk is smart enough to get the vikings to help him out in wiping out their own invasion, the Saxons aren’t as interested in helping the vikings kill themselves (oops), and the Doctor can  sabotage the Monk’s TARDIS with a little help from Vicki and Steven.  It’s actually clever in that the Doctor yanks out a part, resulting in the interior of the Monk’s TARDIS being too small for anyone to fit into.  And, as villains go, the Monk seemed too genial to be a real villain.  I’d rather like the guy to come back, especially since he does.

But there’s a problem:  many of the early Doctor Who episodes are, of course, lost to history.  And that means many episodes from the third season are missing.  This is actually the last Vicki episode because the episode where she quit the TARDIS’ crew is among the lost episodes.  That’s too bad.  I actually like Vicki as a companion character.  Steven is fine, but I don’t know if I’ll be seeing his last episode right now either.  Heck, I’m not even sure I’ll see the First Doctor’s regeneration into the Second.  I did a quick count, and Britbox only has three or four serials from the third season for a grand total of 12 episodes.  During that time, the TARDIS has a revolving door for companions.  And when season three ends…we get a new Doctor.

So, let’s move on.