The Rescue is the third serial of the second season of Doctor Who. It was written by David Whitaker, directed by Christopher Barry and featured William Hartnell as the First Doctor, William Russell as Ian Chesterton & Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright with Maureen O'Brien as Vicki Pallister.
Overview[]
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Synopsis[]
When the TARDIS lands on the supposedly peaceful planet of Dido at the end of the 25th Century, the Doctor, Barbara and Ian discover a crashed spaceship waiting for help.
The only survivors have been murdered by natives apart from a young orphaned girl and a paralysed man. But who is the strange creature Koquillion that they are afraid of? And will they remain safe long enough to be rescued?
Plot[]
The Powerful Enemy (1)[]
The TARDIS materialises in a cave close to a wrecked spacecraft, designated UK-201, beaming a beacon out into space. A young girl, Vicki, rushes in to see the ships instruments detecting what she thinks is a rescue ship. She rushes in to the room of her paraplegic friend Bennett to tell him the news but he bitterly claims the rescue ship isn't due to land on Dido for another three days. He warns her of Koqullion, who is apparently due to return to day.
Vicki rushes to call the ship, but they respond that they are still sixty-nine hours away. Inside the TARDIS, Ian and Barbara are surprised to find the Doctor has slept through a materialisation. Checking the readings, he finds it safe outside on the scanner; the Doctor absentmindedly asks Susan to open the door, before remembering that she's no longer with them. He then shows Barbara how to open the doors.
While Ian and Barbara go to investigate, the Doctor goes back inside the TARDIS for a nap, taking a stone with him to examine later. The others go toward the source of light coming from the front of the cave. After they leave, Koquillion emerges from behind the TARDIS and examines it before following them.
They wind up on a cliff edge and spot the destroyed UK-201 but can't see anything else. They turn to find Koqullion blocking off the way to the cave; he questions them about who they are and how they landed them. Sending Ian off the get the Doctor, he throws Barbara off the cliff face after he enters the cave. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor confirms being the on planet Dido, having been there before. Outside the cave, Koquillion blows up the cave mouth. The Doctor rushes out of the ship to find Ian beside the rubble, they try to shift it to no avail. With the cave blocked they go and look for another way out of the cave.
Aboard the other ship, Vicki is visited by Koquillion, who interrogates her about going outside before going to speak with Bennett. He claims that the travellers on the mountain were a warlike people and hence he's sealed them in; however, after he leaves, Vicki gets Barbara out of hiding, having rescued her from the mountain foot. Vicki says that when they landed, her entire crew was invited the a grand meeting by the Dido people and killed in an explosion. Koquillion is the only one who protects them from his people, to Barbara's confusion.
Walking through the cave system, the Doctor tries to make sense of the Dido people's sudden proclivity to violence, seeing as the last time he was on the planet, the total population amounted to less than 100. Vicki cleans Barbara's cuts and bruises; she hides when she thinks Koquillion's coming, but it's just Bennett, to whom Vicki introduces Barbara.
The Doctor and Ian see the edge of the wall narrowing, forcing them to move against the wall, when they are alerted by a loud growling of a monster beneath them. Ian finds handholds to swing himself around on, but pulls one out of the wall, triggering a booby trap. Spikes emerge on both sides of Ian's path and another row emerge from the bottom, pushing him toward the edge.
Desperate Measures (2)[]
Ian uses his coat to swing around the blades and away from the trap; the Doctor starts to put the ring back in it's place, reversing the trap and allowing them to continue. On the ship, Barbara and Vicki bring Bennett back to his room, but Bennett still refuses to take any action against Koquillion. As Vicki goes outside to collect water, the monster from the cave comes outside close to where Vicki is; Barbara spots it from inside the ship. Thinking it's about to attack Vicki, she takes the flare gun and, despite her pleas, shoots and kills it.
The creature's wails alert the Doctor and Ian, who head in the direction of it. Vicki is angry that Barbara shot the creature, whom she considered a pet and bursts into tear, just as the Doctor and Ian arrive. Later that evening, Vicki gets frustrated, thinking that the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are just going to jeopardise her rescue. Sending the others outside, the Doctor has a talk with Vicki alone. He convinces her that he and the others are just going to help her.
Vicki takes the Doctor to speak with Bennett while he sends her back to wait with Ian and Barbara. While the Doctor tries to get into Bennett's room, Ian and Barbara explains their travels to Vicki, who is stunned by their departure of Earth in 1963, estimating that Barbara would be about 550 years old, to Ian's hysteria. The Doctor finally gets into Bennet's room to find it completely empty, and the warning he heard outside having been a pre-recorded message.
Searching around the room, the Doctor finds a hatchway concealed in the floor. Ian soon goes to look for him, but they burst in to find him gone as well. Outside, the Doctor makes his way to a cave entrance he and Ian found earlier, which leads to an underground temple. Ian, Barbara and Vicki head for the TARDIS, knowing that in the end, the Doctor will head there.
In the temple, the Doctor is greeted by Koquillion, who is revealed to be Bennett in disguise. Bennett explains that he'd killed a crew member of the spaceship to Astra, where the ship had been headed, when the ship crashed before his crime had been broadcast to Earth, so he arranged for the rest of the crew to be killed and the Dido people be blamed. The Doctor tries to defend himself with Koquillion's club, but Bennett gets the upper hand and attacks him. Suddenly, two strangers appears before Bennett and chase him from the temple where he falls to his death.
The Doctor falls unconscious and awakens in the TARDIS, having been placed outside by the strangers. He goes outside to speak with Vicki while Ian and Barbara wish that they could take her with them. The Doctor explains everything to Vicki, who is highly upset by the revelation that Bennett murdered her father. He offers to take her with them and leaves her to make a decision. With everybody on the same page, they invite her inside and she accepts their offer to go with them. The locals destroy the UK-201's link with the rescue ship just as the TARDIS leaves.
The TARDIS comes in for another landing on the edge of a cliff. Before the Doctor has a chance to do anything, the ship capsizes from the cliff's edge.
Cast[]
- Dr. Who - William Hartnell
- Ian Chesterton - William Russell
- Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill
- Vicki - Maureen O'Brien
- Bennett / Koquillion - Ray Barrett
- Space Captain - Tom Sheridan
Crew[]
- Writer - David Whitaker
- Title music - Ron Grainer with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
- Incidental music - Tristram Cary
- Designer - Raymond P. Cusick
- Associate Producer - Mervyn Pinfield
- Producer - Verity Lambert
- Director - Christopher Barry
- Costumes Supervised by Daphne Dare
- Makeup Supervised by Sonia Markham
References[]
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Story notes[]
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Broadcast & Ratings[]
| No. Overall | # | Title | Runtime | First Airdate | Viewers (in millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #52 | 1 | The Powerful Enemy | 26:15 | 02 January 1965 | 12.0 |
| #53 | 2 | Desperate Measures | 24:36 | 09 January 1965 | 13.0 |
Continuity[]
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Home video and audio releases[]
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External Links[]
- Official The Rescue page on Doctor Who Website