The Rescue



Ian and Barbara are faced with Koquillion

Next story along came this little two-parter – and now my blog has caught up with what I have been watching. I realise now that to finish all of Doctor Who by the end of the year I need to average a bit more than two episodes a day. I have watched four in the last five days so I am in a bit of trouble there!



Anyways onto the story which sees the Doctor replacing his grand-daughter Susan with the new Vicki (Maureen O’Brien). I have to say, Vicki is a decided improvement in my eyes. She is smiling and interested by most things, and generally bubbly and happier than Susan. This little story is well done. A very simple plot in David Whitaker’s functional script. Functioned to introduce Vicki and fill two episodes that is. Set on the planet Dido, Vicki and Bennet (Ray Barret) are waiting for a rescue ship to take them off the planet, where they crashed. They are monstered by the strange looking Koquillion, who has a magic spanner that can blast things. Turns out Bennet was responsible for the murder of the entire crew of the ship, and was disguising himself as Koquillion performing an amazing double act.

Ray Barret as Bennet.

The story is simple and easy to follow. The Production must have had a very small budget, but they did very well with the money they had. The space ship looks good and the model shots I think are far better than those in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’. William Hartnell as the Doctor has a very good story, almost without a fluff. The finale is shot in the Hall of Judgement or some such place, and that set is simple but very well done. The only thing that doesn’t quite look right is the presence of a reel to reel tape recorder, which I doubt will be in use a couple of hundred years into the future. Your future that is, not mine. I’ve been there but I would be contravening one of the laws of time if I was to tell whether they were or were not in use definitively here on this 21^st century blog.

Wonderful combination shot using inlay. Very difficult for the time.

I must admit I thought that Barbara and the Doctor were a little callous towards Vicki after Barbara killed her pet ‘Sandy’. Vicki screamed out to Barbara not to kill Sandy, but she shot it with a flare anyway! Surely Barbara would have known by now that just because it looks like a monster, it’s not necessarily hostile? Then they try to pass it off (Barbara and the Doctor) as something that couldn’t be helped. Well, thanks a lot!

Not much else to talk about here. Ray Barret, an Australian, did a very fine job as Bennet who was doubling as Koquillion, a stand out performance. All the regulars were good too, Ian had a slightly quieter role in this one. I liked it.

8/10