2x3. The Rescue
Writer: David Whitaker
Director: Christopher Barry
Script Editor: Dennis Spooner
Producers: Verity Lambert & Mervyn Pinfield
Synopsis: The TARDIS lands on the planet Dido, where only two
members
of a human spaceship crew remain: Bennett, who is wounded and can
barely
use his legs, and Vicki, a young woman who has been an orphan ever
since
an explosion killed the rest of the crew. The two of them are being
threatened
and controlled by Koquillion, who claims to be the last surviving
Didoan
but is actually Bennett, who has been manipulating the situation to
cover
up for past murders.
Review: After the high-stakes adventure of "The Dalek Invasion
of Earth," Doctor Who
dials it down a few notches with this low-key drama in which the Doctor
unmasks
a murderer and gains a new companion. Like "Planet of Giants," it's not
very
ambitious and thus less prone to major missteps, but it also doesn't
leave
much of an impression when it's over.
The one area in which "The Rescue" distinguishes itself is its handling
of
Susan's departure. The Doctor hasn't yet adjusted to her absence, as we
see
when he calls for her upon preparing to leave the TARDIS, and William
Hartnell
effectively lets us see that the Doctor misses her without going for an
uncharacteristic
outward display of emotion. Vicki's situation clearly plays to his
protective
instincts, and his gentle demeanor towards her is . . . well,
grandfatherly.
He has a perfectly good reason for bringing her aboard the TARDIS at
the
end, in that the Didoans will probably not allow the approaching rescue
ship
to land. But as Ian gets him to acknowledge indirectly, he does it more
than anything because he likes her and her company alleviates his
sadness
over parting ways with Susan.
Unfortunately, most of what happens in "The Rescue" doesn't amount to
much.
The plot functions only at the most literal and simplistic level: a
mass
murderer schemes against the Doctor and his companions, and at the end
he
is defeated and dies fleeing from two previously undiscovered Didoans
who
have survived. Aside from a nicely atmospheric scene in which the
Doctor
confronts Bennett/Koquillion in an underground chamber, this is little
more
than a pedestrian murder mystery, with no motivation ever supplied for
Bennett's
behavior. The Doctor's slightly loopy and whimsical behavior in some of
the
early scenes (sleeping through the TARDIS materializing, chattering to
himself
while conducting tests on a Didoan rock) is an amusing change of pace,
but
it doesn't tie into Susan's absence in any clear way. There's also some
tension
between Barbara and Vicki when the former mistakenly kills the latter's
pet,
believing it to be a dangerous monster. This also doesn't really go
anywhere,
offering only the most obvious insights into their characters.
There just isn't much else to say about "The Rescue." One could
certainly
do worse (cue up episodes 3 and 4 of "The Keys of Marinus" if you don't
believe
me), but ultimately it's a mostly inconsequential episode that seems to
have
no real point other than getting Vicki into the TARDIS by the end.
Rating: **1/2 (out of four)
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