E arly in the final episode, the Monk tells the Doctor that, thanks to his ‘improvements’, “Shakespeare’d be able to put Hamlet on television” by the time the Elizabethan age rolls around. In fact, the Doctor witnessed the genesis of Shakespeare’s Tragicall (sic) History of Hamlet Prince of Denmark (circa 1599-1601) via his own “time television” just a day or so ago, relatively speaking, in the first episode of The Chase – but that’s not all. Much later, in City of Death (pictured far left, 1979), the Fourth Doctor will claim he pers onally handwrote the first draft of Hamlet after the credited author had sprained his wrist writing sonnets. Later still, in The Shakespeare Code (pictured left, 2007), Shakespeare will crib the line “The play’s the thing” from the Tenth Doctor (but initially dismiss “To be or not to be”, thinking it pretentious). It gets worse. Sneaking a look at the Monk’s secret diary, Vicki reads how he’d “Met Leonardo Da Vinci and discussed with him the principles of powered flight…” The Doctor doesn’t see the diary – so it’s galling to observe how, sometime between The Masque of Mandragora (1976) and City of Death, the Fourth Doctor will himself become a personal friend of the Renaissance polymath – and finds blueprints for a helicopter on da Vinci’s desk when he drops by 16th-century Florence during the course of the latter adventure. So who’s the real time meddler here?
