The TARDIS, carrying The Doctor (William Hartnell), Ian (William Russell) and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill), materialises in a cave on the planet Dido.A spacecraft has previously crashed on Dido and the two surviving passengers, young Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) and
bed-ridden Bennett (Ray Barrett), are being held prisoner by a mysterious, masked alien called Koquillion.
The Rescue is a fast-paced two-parter, clocking in at 49 minutes, with some decent character work, that serves primarily as an interesting introduction of a new TARDIS crew member (Vicki).
The previous story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, had seen the first departure of a TARDIS crew member, The Doctor's granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford), and thus the plucky Vicki is a perfect substitute.
This isn't a story that has aged particularly well, as the model shots of Vicki's crashed spacecraft look like they were built by Blue Peter presenters using the middles of toilet rolls, sticky-back plastic and masking tape and the creature costumes are pretty unconvincing, even with a large dose of suspended disbelief.
A lot also goes unexplained in the story. The Doctor has been to Dido before and is adamant that the natives are very friendly and peace-loving, which rather runs contrary to the elaborate Indiana Jones-style booby traps he and Ian later encounter while travelling through the cave systems.
David Whitaker has some clever ideas in his script (such as Koquillion's motivation and Barbara's accidental killing of Vicki's pet), but there's not much else going on.
This makes The Rescue seem quite light-weight when it could have had more emotional impact: for instance, little is made of the impact of Susan's departure from the group dynamic or Vicki's trauma at the loss of her father.
The Rescue is a fast-paced two-parter, clocking in at 49 minutes, with some decent character work, that serves primarily as an interesting introduction of a new TARDIS crew member (Vicki).
The previous story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, had seen the first departure of a TARDIS crew member, The Doctor's granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford), and thus the plucky Vicki is a perfect substitute.
This isn't a story that has aged particularly well, as the model shots of Vicki's crashed spacecraft look like they were built by Blue Peter presenters using the middles of toilet rolls, sticky-back plastic and masking tape and the creature costumes are pretty unconvincing, even with a large dose of suspended disbelief.
A lot also goes unexplained in the story. The Doctor has been to Dido before and is adamant that the natives are very friendly and peace-loving, which rather runs contrary to the elaborate Indiana Jones-style booby traps he and Ian later encounter while travelling through the cave systems.
David Whitaker has some clever ideas in his script (such as Koquillion's motivation and Barbara's accidental killing of Vicki's pet), but there's not much else going on.
This makes The Rescue seem quite light-weight when it could have had more emotional impact: for instance, little is made of the impact of Susan's departure from the group dynamic or Vicki's trauma at the loss of her father.
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2 persons have something to say about this!:
The image of a spaceship crashing into Dido fills me with glee.
Is this wrong?
Slightly ;-D
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