The Rescue (Doctor Who)
| 011 – The Rescue | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Doctor Who serial | |||
.jpg) "Koquillion" | |||
| Cast | |||
Guest
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| Production | |||
| Directed by | Christopher Barry | ||
| Written by | David Whitaker | ||
| Script editor | Dennis Spooner | ||
| Produced by | Verity Lambert Mervyn Pinfield (associate producer) | ||
| Executive producer(s) | None | ||
| Production code | L | ||
| Series | Season 2 | ||
| Running time | 2 episodes, 25 minutes each | ||
| First broadcast | 2 January 1965 | ||
| Last broadcast | 9 January 1965 | ||
| Chronology | |||
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The Rescue is the third serial of the second season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts on 2 January and 9 January 1965. The story is set in the future on the planet Dido and introduces Maureen O'Brien as the Doctor's newest companion, Vicki.
Plot
The TARDIS crew is still missing Susan Foreman when the ship lands on a planet the Doctor eventually recognises as Dido, a world he has visited before. The trio soon encounter two survivors of a space crash, Vicki and Bennett, who are awaiting a rescue ship, due to arrive in three days time. Vicki and Bennett live in fear of Koquillion, a bipedal inhabitant of Dido, which is stalking the area. Koquillion encounters the time travellers and attacks, pushing Barbara over a cliff and temporarily trapping Ian and the Doctor. Vicki finds Barbara injured and rescues her from Koquillion, and they share reminiscences. Vicki’s father was amongst those who died when the survivors of the crash, save Bennett and Vicki, were lured to their deaths by the natives of Dido. She is evidently very lonely, having befriended an indigenous Sand Beast for company. However, when Ian and the Doctor reach the ship, tempers are fraught because Barbara mistook the Sand Beast for a threat and killed it.
The Doctor enters Bennett's room, and finds things are not as they seem. The supposedly crippled Bennett is missing, and a tape recorder hides his absence. He finds a trap door in the floor of the cabin and follows it to a temple carved from rock where he unmasks Koquillion as Bennett. Bennett reveals he killed a crewmember on board the ship and was arrested, but the ship crashed before the crime could be radioed to Earth. It was he who killed the crash survivors and the natives of Dido to cover his crime. He has been using the Koquillion alias so that Vicki would back up his story. Just as Bennett is about to kill the Doctor, two surviving native Didonians arrive and force Bennett to his death over a ledge. With no living family and nothing left for her on Dido, Vicki is welcomed aboard the TARDIS.
Production
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The story had the working title Doctor Who and Tanni, which was the original name for Vicki. The 1973 Radio Times 10th anniversary special called the story The Powerful Enemy, as it titled all the early stories by the title of the first episode.
To preserve the mystery of its true identity, Koquillion was originally credited as being played by "Sydney Wilson" — a name made up by the production team in tribute to two of the creators of Doctor Who, Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson. This was the first instance of an alias being used, in the credits, for a cast member in order to conceal a plot twist in Doctor Who. Other uses of this strategy include Castrovalva (1982), in which the role of the Portreeve was credited to "Neil Toynay" (an anagram of Tony Ainley) to stop viewers from realizing that the Portreeve was actually the Master.
In print
A novelisation of this serial written by Ian Marter was published by Target Books in August 1987, nearly a year after his death. Marter died soon after completing the manuscript. It was subsequently edited, with some new material added, by Nigel Robinson, editor of the Target Books line.[1] Template:Doctor Who book
VHS and DVD releases
This story was released in 1994, on a double VHS with The Romans. It was released on DVD on 23 February 2009.
References
External links
- The Rescue at BBC Online
- Template:Brief
- Template:Doctor Who RG
- Target novelisation The Rescue at On Target
- Fan reviews
- The Rescue reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- Template:DWRG