The Monk (Doctor Who)
| The Monk | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who character | |
 |
|
| First appearance | The Time Meddler |
| Last appearance | The Daleks' Master Plan |
| Portrayed by |
Peter Butterworth (Television) Graeme Garden (Big Finish Productions Rufus Hound (Big Finish Productions)) |
| Information | |
| Affiliated | First Doctor |
| Species | Time Lord |
| Home planet | Gallifrey |
The Monk is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Played by the British actor Peter Butterworth, the character appeared in two stories, The Time Meddler and The Daleks' Master Plan, as an adversary of the First Doctor. They were written and co-written respectively by Dennis Spooner.
Other than the Doctor and Susan, the Monk was the first member of the Doctor's race to appear in the programme, and the second Doctor Who villain (after the Daleks) to make a return appearance.
The Monk was the possessor of a stolen Mark IV TARDIS – superior to the Doctor's and with a fully functioning Chameleon Circuit. The Doctor hypothesised that the Monk left the Doctor's then-unnamed home planet, Gallifrey, some 50 years after the Doctor did.
At this early stage in the history of the series, the name Time Lord and the details of the Doctor's origins had not yet been devised.
The Monk liked to meddle in history and to change it for his own amusement and for what he considered to be the better: lending mechanical assistance to the builders of Stonehenge; giving Leonardo da Vinci tips on aircraft design; making money by using time travel to exploit compound interest; and, when the Doctor first encountered him, attempting to prevent the Norman Conquest as part of a plan to guide England into an early age of technological prosperity. On that occasion he wore the guise of a monk in order to gain the trust of the 11th-century locals of Northumbria, hence the name by which he became known.
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