Doctor Who/The Rescue

The Rescue
011
Airdate	January 2, 1965
Production Number	L
Written by	David Whitaker
Directed by	Christopher Barry
← 010 The Dalek Invasion of Earth	012 → The Romans
Doctor Who — Season Two

Plot Overview

The Powerful Enemy

A young woman, Vicki, detects a ship landing. Believing it to be the rescue ship they were expecting, she rushes to tell her only human companion, Bennett (an injured crewmember). He informs her she is wrong -- the rescue ship isn't due for three more days. He advises her to watch out for Koquillion though -- if he finds out about the rescue ship, he'll kill them both. When Vicki contacts the rescue ship, they confirm to her that they have not landed; in fact, they are still 69 hours away.

Meanwhile aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor has set a bit of a precedent: he has slept through the landing. Ian and Barbara wake him and inform him of just that. He stirs and goes to the center console, where he deactivates the time circuits and checks the outside environment. Out of habit he calls for Susan, catches his mistake, and pauses to reflect for a moment. Susan isn't there. She was recently left behind on 22nd century Earth to begin her new life with David Campbell.

At his direction Barbara opens the doors, and they go outside. They are in a cave. Oddly enough, the Doctor recognises the smell. He notes that he has been here before, and then without elaboration he goes back into the TARDIS to have a nap. Still outside, Ian remarks to Barbara that the Doctor is getting old. They are a bit embarrassed, when the Doctor reminds them that he can hear them from inside the ship.

Together Barbara and Ian leave to explore the cave. After they have gone, a creature steps out of the darkness and examines the TARDIS. The creature, Koquillion, follows them outside the cave, where it confronts them, asking if they came from Earth and how they came to be here. They tell him that they came from the TARDIS. He asks them to fetch the other crewmember. He will take them all to the city. Ian re-enters the cave the get the Doctor.

Barabra moves to follow, but Koquillion blocks her way. He begins to act strangely to the point of being creepy: giving unsolicited promises not to harm her and the like. When he moves toward her, Barabra reflexively backs away, losing her footing and falling off the cliff edge. After Barbara falls, Koquillion seals the cave's entrance using a powerful device that looks like a jeweled club with a head shaped like a spanner.

Hearing the noise, the Doctor comes out to help. Ian begins to tell the Doctor about the creature, but the Doctor finishes Ian's description for him. After all, he has been here before. He admits he knew the people, and they were quite friendly at that time. The total population of the planet, during his last visit, had been barely 100. They treasured life -- violence was unheard of. The jeweled device Koquillion had was not meant as a weapon, but as a construction implement. Koquillion's hostility is very much out of place.

Back at the crashed rocket, Koquillion enters. He knows Vicki left the ship earlier. He tells her that she is to stay within 50 yards of the ship from now on. Then he goes to talk to Bennett in his cabin. Barbara, who has been hiding, comes out from under the blankets at the foot of Vicki's bed.

Vicki tells her that the entire crew of the rocket was killed at a great meeting they were invited to by the native Dido people. She was very, very sick at the time and stayed behind that night. She thought she heard thunder, but it was days before she was well again. Bennett, the only survivor, was barely able to make it back from the meeting alive. Everyone else was killed by a huge explosion at the meeting. Vicki's father was among those killed.

As Vicki tends to Barbara's wounds, she tells her that Koquillian, the only alien they ever see, protects them from the others who killed the crew. Barbara is forced to hide beneath the blankets again as Koquillian passes through on his way out. A moment later Bennett emerges from his quarters, proclaiming that he was strong and didn't reveal anything. He informs her that Koquillian killed all of the people in the mountain cave. Taking comfort in the notion that Koquillian can be mistaken, Vicki reveals to Bennett that Barbara has been hiding in her room.

Still in the cave, the Doctor and Ian are moving along a narrow ledge that is getting narrower. Growling from below is a creature with spikes and green eyes. They reach a door with what appears to be a large iron ring. When Ian pulls on the ring, it comes loose, pulling wires out with it. This causes swords to issue from the wall, trapping Ian. To make matters worse, more spikes appear, forcing Ian toward the edge of the pit and an unwanted encounter with the creature below.

Desperate Measures

Using his coat to protect his hands, Ian grabs the swords, swings out over the pit, and back onto the ledge with the Doctor. After a moment of fiddling with the ring which started all of this, they are able to get the swords to retract.

Back outside, Barbara sees a lizard-like creature approaching Vicki. She fetches a gun and rushes to defend Vicki. Vicki sees the weapon and pleads for Barbara not to shoot, but Barbara shoots anyway, killing the creature. Vicki is heartbroken. The creature was not attacking her. It was coming to her, becuase Vicki was giving it food. It was a pet of sorts.

The Doctor and Ian, having made their way out of the cave, are reunited with Barbara at the rocket. There they meet Vicki for the first time. The Doctor listens intently to Vicki, and ultimately convinces her to take him to Bennett. He also urges her to give Barbara a second chance: to forgive her for killing her pet.

When Bennett doesn't answer his door, the Doctor forces his way into his quarters, prying the hatch open with a small section a girder. His quarters are empty. Further inspection reveals a hidden trap door that would allow Bennett to leave the ship undetected. He follows the passage and finds that it leads to an underground chamber with ceremonial costumes and some sort of altar.

Outside at the rocket, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki realise that the Doctor is missing, so they go to the TARDIS to wait for him there.

The Doctor waits calmly with his back turned as Koquillion enters the chamber. The Doctor addresses him, calling him Bennett. He admonishes him, saying that he should know that the monster costume was for special ceremonies only. Bennett admits that he was imprisoned for killing a crewmember. The ship crashed and, at that time, his crime had not yet been transmitted back to Earth.

When the people of Dido invited everyone to a grand meeting, he saw his chance. He killed everyone, including all Dido inhabitants -- he killed an entire race just to save himself! Suddenly, the Doctor grabs the Dido construction device (the one Bennett has been using as a weapon). Bennett hears it power up and is able to fend off the attack. It's force beam misses Bennet and instead hits a wall on the far side of the chamber. The two of them fight, but eventually Bennett gains the upper hand, grabbing the Doctor and choking him.

Suddenly out of the shadows, unlooked for, Dido men -- human in appearance and dressed in white -- advance toward Bennett. They heard the whole confession. Bennett shouts in disbelief: he thought he killed all of them. He backs away in fear, and accidentally falls into the pit just outside the chamber.

The Doctor collapses. The last thing he sees are the two Dido men looking down at him. He awakens on the TARDIS. The two men must have brought him to the TARDIS.

The Doctor goes outside and explains to Vicki that it was actually Bennett who killed everyone. He disguised himself as Koquillion in order to establish an alibi.

With her parents dead, Vicki has no one to look after her. The Doctor asks her to come with them, and promises her an abundance of adventure. He asks her to wait outside the TARDIS for a moment and think about it. Inside, Barbara and Ian both like the idea of taking her with them. He invites her to come in. Even though she was born in the 25th century, she is nonetheless surprised that the TARDIS is so large on the inside. She agrees to come with them. With that settled, the Doctor activates the time circuits, and the TARDIS dematerialises.

With the TARDIS gone, the two Dido men board the crashed rocket and destroy the radio equipment that the rescue ship was to have homed in on, helping insure that no more humans will come to the planet.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Vicki becomes the show's first new regular "companion".

Trivia

The Show

• Vicki left Earth in the year 2493, shortly after her mother died.
• The Doctor instructs Barbara (in lieu of Susan) to open the doors using the number four switch.
• The identifying number of Vicki's crashed rocket is number 201.

Reviews

• Overall Grade: no reviews yet
• Review Breakdown: A+: 0 A: 0 A-: 0 B+: 0 B: 0 B-: 0 C+: 0 C: 0 C-: 0 D: 0 F: 0