‘THE RESCUE’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

Hello Vicki and Welcome to the TARDIS with the First Doctor, Ian and Barbara

For William Russell

The third and fourth stories in Season 2 of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series were released in a DVD box set in February 2009. I’ve fond memories of ‘The Rescue’ and ‘The Romans’ DVD box set when it came out. I enjoyed checking out the DVD special features that detailed the making of these stories.

‘The Rescue’ and ‘The Romans’ are the first two stories in the classic TV series that feature the introduction of Maureen O’Brien as Vicki, who becomes the next ‘Doctor Who’ companion following the departure of Carole Ann Ford who played Susan. I enjoyed checking out the two stories in turn. 🙂

Both ‘The Rescue’ and ‘The Romans’ excel in unique measure. ‘The Rescue’ happens to be a strong two-part story that introduces Vicki, whilst ‘The Romans’ is a terrific four-part comedic story set in Earth’s past. Some might disagree with me about the latter story, which I’ll cover in my review for it.

I didn’t anticipate I would like these two ‘Doctor Who’ adventures from the William Hartnell/First Doctor era when they came out on DVD in 2009. I assumed that I would give them a pass and that they’d be okay. But after seeing them for the first time on DVD, I rewatched them again and again. 🙂

I became invested in the stories via the DVD documentaries, DVD audio commentaries and info-text commentaries to appreciate the process of how they were made. It’s also very fascinating that one story is penned by an outgoing script editor whilst the second story is by an incoming script-editor. 🙂

Also fascinating is that the two stories were directed by Christopher Barry, who previously directed four episodes of the first ‘Daleks’ story whilst Richard Martin directed the rest. ‘The Rescue’ and ‘The Romans’ were directed in one block, almost making it become a six-part adventure in the TV show. 🙂

I’ll endeavour to share why ‘The Rescue’ and ‘The Romans’ appeal to me so much as ‘Doctor Who’ stories in these updated reviews based on the Season 2 Blu-ray box set. After all, it’s been a pleasure to revisit the two stories on Blu-ray, especially with the new special features provided on their discs.

Anyway, let’s get started. In ‘The Rescue’, the story takes place on the peaceful but desolate planet of Dido in the 25th century. A spaceship has crash-landed on the planet with only two survivors. There’s Vicki, a young girl, and a man called Bennett. Apparently, the spaceship is called the UK-201.

Vicki and the passengers were on their way to the planet Astra. Her father was with her too. Unfortunately, everybody, except Vicki and Bennett, were presumed killed by the Didoans. Bennett seems to have severely injured himself, since he’s lying on his bed in his quarters once we meet him.

Apparently, Vicki was ill whilst everyone attended a meeting between them and the Didoans before they got killed. She’s been sending out a distress call for a rescue ship to come and collect her and Bennett. Both live in fear, as the monster-like Koquillion comes and inspects them aboard their ship.

The Doctor, Ian and Barbara end up on Dido and discover the predicament that Vicki and Bennett are in. But it turns out there’s more to this situation than meets the eye. Did Koquillion kill the passengers of the UK-201? Was everything that Bennett said accurate? Can our heroes save the day?

‘The Rescue’ is a two-part story by David Whitaker. This is the second time that we’ve had a ‘Doctor Who’ story be a two-parter. The first time was ‘The Edge of Destruction’ and that was penned by David Whitaker himself. I prefer ‘The Rescue’ more than ‘The Edge of Destruction’ as a two-parter. 🙂

For those unaware, David Whitaker script-edited ‘Doctor Who’ since the TV show began in 1963. He was the script editor for the whole of Season 1, and he did the first two TV stories of Season 2 – ‘Planet of Giants’ and ‘The Daleks Invasion of Earth’. He’s usually an unsung hero, behind-the-scenes.

David Whitaker returned to write more ‘Doctor Who’ stories after he penned ‘The Rescue’. This includes ‘The Crusade’ in Season 2, ‘The Power of the Daleks’ and ‘The Evil of the Daleks’ in Season 4, and ‘The Enemy of the World’ and ‘The Wheel In Space’ in Season 5. That’s more than I expected.

Initially, he wrote ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ for Season 7 before it was completely rewritten. There’s no denying that David Whitaker’s contribution to ‘Doctor Who’ as the TV show’s first script editor has been very significant, especially when Verity Lambert was the first producer of the series.

David Whitaker has also penned a couple of ‘Doctor Who’ novelizations that soon found their way to the Target novelization range, including ‘The Daleks’ and ‘The Crusade’. He also provided additional material for the ‘Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.’ film and he did some projects with Terry Nation. 🙂

This includes ‘The Dalek Book’, ‘The Dalek World’ and ‘The Dalek Outer Space Book’ anthologies. David Whitaker also wrote the stage play ‘The Curse of the Daleks’ in 1965. His contribution to the TV series is far more than we’ve realised once you dig deep into his on-screen and off-screen credits.

It should be noted that whilst David Whitaker wrote ‘The Rescue’, the story itself is script-edited by newcomer Dennis Spooner, who’s uncredited for this story as far as I’m concerned. Dennis Spooner previously wrote ‘The Reign of Terror’ in Season 1. His impact on the series in Season 2 is significant.

That’s something we’ll get into more once we’ve reached my review for ‘The Romans’. But yes! As established, ‘The Rescue’ was a story made after Carole Ann Ford as Susan departed from the TARDIS in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’. This was due to Carole’s concerns over her character’s development.

I suppose not many people anticipated Carole Ann Ford’s departure, following the success of ‘Doctor Who’s first TV season. William Hartnell was particularly upset about Carole’s leaving, and even he wrote a letter to her, trying to persuade her to reconsider her decision over departing the TV series.

In the end, rather than have the Doctor travelling with just Ian and Barbara in the TARDIS, it was decided by the production team to add a new young companion in the same vein as Susan to maintain the already established four-regular cast team. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing here.

After all, the TV show was in its infancy stages and the idea of William Hartnell’s Doctor travelling alone with just one companion hadn’t been considered. It’s also the tradition of maintaining the professorial figure, the young man, the almost maternal young woman and the teenager girl set-up.

That was what Sydney Newman, the Head of BBC Drama at the time and ‘Doctor Who’s co-creator, established when he set the premise of the TV show from the beginning to producer Verity Lambert and other parties involved. So, it makes sense for the tradition not to be changed much at this point.

With that said, I wonder what it would have been like to have just the Doctor, Ian and Barbara in the TARDIS once Susan had departed. I know over the years Big Finish have attempted to tell a few stories featuring just those three, including ‘The Revenants’, which I’ve reviewed on my blog already.

But it’s a shame that the TV show didn’t consider doing just one story featuring the First Doctor, Ian and Barbara before they did the next story that introduced Vicki and she joins the TARDIS crew. There needs to be a respite for audiences to process the realisation that Susan has left the TV show.

Years later, producer Philip Hinchcliffe adopted this approach somewhat when he and his production team did one story with the Fourth Doctor alone in ‘The Deadly Assassin’ after Sarah Jane left. This is before they did the next TV story introducing Leela before she joined the TARDIS in ‘The Face of Evil’.

I’m not saying these things to imply that the way Verity Lambert and her production team did things was wrong with introducing Vicki in ‘The Rescue’ immediately after Susan’s departure in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’. I’m just pointing out what could’ve been done differently in the show’s structure.

The series started with Ian and Barbara’s journey to finding Susan, her grandfather and the TARDIS in ‘An Unearthly Child’. So, it’d be interesting to have a story focusing on Ian and Barbara reflecting on their time in the TARDIS so far. In a sense, that’s what ‘The Revenants’ as a story did quite well. 🙂

But regardless of that, the question becomes: Would the new ‘Doctor Who’ girl work well? Would she provide a sense of stability once she joined the First Doctor, Ian and Barbara in the TARDIS? Would she provide a good impression and end up being really likeable for viewers and fans to enjoy?

Well, she worked well for me as far as I’m concerned. Maureen O’Brien makes a very good first impression as Vicki in this two-part story. I enjoyed the enthusiasm she delivered through her performance as Vicki, which is ironic, considering how much Maureen wasn’t initially keen at first. 😐

Maureen graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London in 1964 before she returned to her home city of Liverpool to become a founder member of the Everyman Theatre. It’s amazing to discover that as well as acting, she worked as an assistant floor manager for the company. 🙂

Eventually, Maureen was offered the chance to appear on TV once the search for a new ‘Doctor Who’ girl came. Initially, she was content to just being in the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, but she was soon persuaded and joined William Hartnell, William Russell and Jacqueline Hill in the TV series.

Whilst Vicki may have filled Susan’s shoes following the end of ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, I think it’s fair to say that she doesn’t exactly replace her in the TV series. Vicki has her own unique identity and is so wonderful to watch when she has scenes with the Doctor, Ian and Barbara in the TV series.

Compared to Susan, who was a mystery girl and the Doctor’s granddaughter, Vicki is a young girl from the 25th century. It’s fascinating that Verity Lambert and her production team decided to go for a girl from the future compared to Ian and Barbara who were contemporary back in the 1960s. 🙂

I suppose it connects to Susan in a way, as she was ‘born in another time, another world’ (or the 49th century in the original pilot episode). Vicki is a character from the future in that same regard, albeit being from the 25th century. Despite this, she connects so well to Ian, Barbara and the Doctor.

I like how Maureen O’Brien plays Vicki as a somewhat straight-forward girl from Earth with not too much of a mystery about her. She also plays the cheeky side of Vicki’s character very well, and she’s able to display sides of happy, angry and sad in Vicki, which works well especially in her introduction.

It’s intriguing how different names came up for Maureen’s character before the production team decided on Vicki. At certain points, Vicki was originally going to be called Valerie, Millie, Tanni and Lukki or Luckky (pronounced Lucky). A couple of these names are very familiar like Valerie and Millie.

I mean, we have a Millie playing a ‘Doctor Who’ companion in the latest TV era in 2024 with Ncuti Gatwa. But I don’t suppose Tanni or Lukki would be very familiar to people back then and perhaps nowadays. It’s interesting how the production team wanted Vicki’s name to be futuristic as possible.

When Barbara asks Vicki if her name is short for Victoria, she replies, “No, just Vicki.” I suppose 25th century naming conventions will change significantly in the future, but it’s unusually fascinating that Vicki doesn’t seem to be derived from Victoria when it could have easily been in the classic TV series.

Once Vicki appears in the story, she comes across as a very plucky young girl who tries to positive, especially when she’s happy to discover that a ship has landed and she thinks it’s ‘marvellous’, believing it to be the rescue ship. This is a contrast to Bennett, who seems less enthusiastic than her.

I like it when Bennett warns Vicki to ‘watch out for Koquillion’ and she’s understandably afraid. I like how Maureen displays the emotions that Vicki has once hearing Koquillion’s name. The scene where she’s with Barbara and she recalls what was told about her father and the passengers is so effective.

Just to say, I have met Maureen O’Brien briefly at a convention in Newcastle in October 2015. The ‘Dimensions 2015’ convention, in fact. It was a brief meeting and I wish I could have chatted to her more, but I found my encounter with Maureen to be very pleasant and we even shook hands then. 🙂

I don’t think Maureen does many conventions compared to people like Sarah Sutton and Sophie Aldred, but I’m sure many people are pleased to see her when she attends them. It’s also amazing Maureen has gone to be an author of many crime novels, which I’m sure have been really successful.

It’s fascinating that Vicki assumed the rescue ship had already landed to come and pick her and Bennett up from the planet Dido. I suppose that optimism is likely to blind you from questioning how a ship can arrive early when it’s meant to arrive on Dido in about three days, according to Bennett. 😐

At least it gives Tom Sheridan the chance to speak as the Space Captain (Commander Smith, according to Ian Marter’s novelization) of the rescue ship when Vicki communicates with him. Tom Sheridan also plays the Sand Beast in this story. I do wonder if he preferred the Space Captain more. 😀

But of course, it’s the TARDIS that has landed on Dido and not the rescue ship, as the Doctor, Ian and Barbara exit to explore the place. It’s intriguing, with this story being set after ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, to see how the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are coping with the recent exit of Susan in their lives.

As I’ve established, thanks to Big Finish audios and book stories like ‘Venusian Lullaby’, there’s a gap in-between ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ and ‘The Rescue’ where our heroes have been able to get over Susan’s departure. But of course, TV audiences who saw this in January 1965 wouldn’t have had that luxury.

It’s clear that the Doctor, Ian and Barbara still miss Susan whilst continuing to travel without her. I liked that moment where the Doctor calls for Susan, forgetting she’s gone from their lives before realising his mistake, and Barbara offers to open the TARDIS doors for him as a way to distract him.

It’s a lovely moment, well played out between William Hartnell, Jacqueline Hill and William Russell. You’re able to register the expressions on their faces, as Ian and Barbara quietly communicate with each other, understanding that the Doctor still hasn’t quite got over the loss of Susan in their lives. 🙂

Thankfully, the Doctor, Ian and Barbara meet up with Vicki aboard the crashed spaceship. Beforehand, Ian and Barbara were separated for a bit before they meet Koquillion. Ian went to find the Doctor whilst Barbara got attacked and thrown off a cliff by Koquillion. Gosh, that’s nasty of him.

Fortunately, Barbara is saved by Vicki and brought back to the spaceship whilst Ian and the Doctor meet up and try to find a way out of the cave the TARDIS has landed in, as there was a cave-in caused by Koquillion. The Doctor and Ian also escape the menace of the Sand Beast and booby traps.

Barbara kills the Sand Beast, whom Vicki had named ‘Sandy’ as a pet, with a gun. Vicki is upset and angry before Barbara reunites with the Doctor and Ian, who come aboard the spaceship. The TARDIS trio do their best to help Vicki with the menace of Koquillion, but she’s reluctant to accept their help.

I truly like how ‘The Rescue’ is a character study of introducing Vicki as a new ‘Doctor Who’ companion in the TV series. It’s also nice how she meets the Doctor, Ian and Barbara. Initially, tempers flare on Vicki’s part, but she grows to like her new-found friends once they meet her in this story.

This two-part tale is quite straight-forward and easily engaging to get into. There’s an argument about whether ‘The Rescue’ would work well as a four-parter instead of a two-parter, but I don’t think that’s a major issue, as this story does the job well with introducing Vicki as a new companion.

I’d have to read Ian Marter’s novelization of ‘The Rescue’ to find out whether the story is more in-depth and compelling to make it worthy as a four-parter compared to a two-parter. At this point, I’ve yet to check out ‘The Sontaran Experiment’ novelization by Ian. I’m sure both are very engrossing reads.

Going back to what I said about me preferring ‘The Rescue’ more than ‘The Edge of Destruction’, at least we get to go to more than one location rather than be stuck inside the TARDIS for an entire story. Not that ‘The Edge of Destruction’ is bad, but I wouldn’t want to be in one place in every two-parter.

William Hartnell delivers a superb performance as the Doctor in this adventure. It’s clearly evident that the Doctor misses Susan a lot, but I like how he quickly warms to Vicki when he meets her. It’s almost like he’s looking for someone like Susan to fill in the gap that he’s missing when he meets Vicki.

It’s also worthy to note, and this is noticed by some members of the ‘Behind the Sofa’ cast for Season 2 of classic ‘Doctor Who’ on Blu-ray, that Vicki is actually the first ‘Doctor Who’ companion whom the Doctor chooses and invites to join them in the TARDIS. That’s quite amazing to think on. 🙂

Ian and Barbara weren’t invited to join the Doctor and Susan in the TARDIS, as they were brought along against their will, almost being like prisoners initially in ‘An Unearthly Child’. I don’t think Susan really counts on being invited first since she’s the Doctor granddaughter when they left home.

I truly like the scene where the Doctor tells Vicki what happened when her people were killed by Koquillion (more on him later) and how he invites her to join him, Ian and Barbara in their travels. The interaction between the Doctor and Vicki is pretty good, especially since she makes him laugh. 🙂

I also like how the Doctor encourages Vicki to trust him and his friends when they meet her aboard the crashed spaceship. This is especially after Vicki is upset and angry with Barbara for killing Sandy. The Doctor tries to persuade her to see things from Barbara’s point of her, as she was afraid for her.

At this point, it’s quite rare to see William Hartnell’s Doctor connecting with his companions on a gentler, kinder level, although that was something seen between him and Barbara at the end of ‘The Edge of Destruction’. It’s also very nice how the First Doctor makes friends with a new companion. 🙂

It almost echoes the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series to a certain level when new series-like Doctors like Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant make friends with potential companions like the Ninth Doctor making friends with Lynda with a Y as well as the Tenth Doctor making friends with Martha. 🙂

I also like how the Doctor becomes curious about why the Didoans should be hostile, since he visited Dido years ago and found their people to be friendly. I also enjoyed the confrontation scene the Doctor had with Koquillion, as it’s rare to see our hero tackle the villain head-on in the series so far.

William Russell is great as Ian Chesterton in this ‘Doctor Who’ story. I like the early scenes featuring him and Barbara when they reflect on Susan’s departure and how the Doctor is coping without her in their TARDIS travels. They also both discuss the idea of Vicki joining them in their TARDIS travels. 🙂

In ‘The Rescue’, Ian gets to share a lot of scenes with the Doctor, especially when they’re tackling booby traps and avoiding the Sand Beast. It’s lucky that Ian gets to be the action hero in the series so far, especially with managing to avoid being pushed over the cliff and ending up with the Sand Beast.

I don’t think this story is a great one to showcase Ian as a character, especially as the focus is on introducing Vicki as a new companion, but I think he fares well, and William Russell continues to play to his strengths, especially when he and Barbara get to know Vicki and warm to her in the TV series.

It was funny when Ian laughed out loud after Vicki deduced that he and Barbara were 550 years old once they declared they came from 1963. Ian is good when he, Barbara and Vicki realise something is wrong once Bennett’s quarters are empty and the Doctor’s gone when he was going to meet him.

Jacqueline Hill is equally great as Barbara Wright in this ‘Doctor Who’ story. I like how she interacts with Vicki, treating her in an almost maternal-like manner. That’s part of her nature, which I don’t think has been replicated in the same manner in future companions, and Jacqueline Hill does it well.

I mean, the closest to a maternal-like companion I’ve seen in future seasons after Barbara is Nyssa, even though she’s from the planet Traken. I like how Barbara interacts with Ian. It’s clear how close they are as friends. I would like to write a story featuring Ian and Barbara meeting Nyssa and Billy. 🙂

Barbara does make a mistake, albeit with good intentions when firing a gun on Sandy, Vicki’s pet, whom she managed to tame in her time on Dido. Barbara of course didn’t know that and understandably killed Sandy out of protecting Vicki. I like she’s forgiven by Vicki at the story’s end. 🙂

A behind-the-scenes fact to mention is that Jacqueline Hill got injured when she fired the gun the first time, as the fired shot ended up in her face. That must have been nasty, and quite understandably, Jacqueline would have been startled and shocked upon receiving a shot in the face.

Ray Barrett guest stars as Bennett, Vicki’s fellow traveller aboard the crashed spaceship. It was astonishing to find Ray Barrett in this ‘Doctor Who’ story, as he’s well-known for being the voice of John Tracy and the Hood in the ‘Thunderbirds’ TV series. I truly loved watching that series as a kid. 🙂

As well as ‘Thunderbirds’, Ray Barrett has also voiced Commander Shore and Titan in the Gerry Anderson-produced ‘Stingray’ TV series. ‘The Rescue’ is the first time I’ve seen Ray Barrett in the flesh, and it’s amazing to see him ending up being a villain in this ‘Doctor Who’ adventure. Oh yes! 🙂

Initially, Bennett seems to be a dishevelled person who’s not as enthusiastic as Vicki is about the rescue ship coming to their aid. He keeps reminding her of the threat of Koquillion, as he told her what happened when most of the spaceship crew, including her father, were killed by the Didoans 😐

But it’s later revealed that Bennett is actually Koquillion, since he was responsible for the deaths of the spaceship crew and the Didoans when they had their meeting. When Bennett unveils himself to the Doctor, he admits that he killed a crewmember on the spaceship on its way to the planet Astra.

He was arrested, but by the time the ship crashed, Bennett’s crime hadn’t been reported to Earth. Thus he got rid of the other crewmembers except Vicki and made to put the blame on the Didoans. He dressed up as Koquillion to provide the cover story needed to stop him from being discovered. 😮

Incidentally, when Koquillion was credited in ‘Part One’ of ‘The Rescue’, he happened to be played by Sydney Wilson. Sydney Wilson is of course a pseudonym to cover the fact that Bennett and Koquillion are the same person and are played by Ray Barrett. That must have been a shock in 1965.

Sydney Wilson is actually a pseudonym derived from Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson, both whom were contributors in the creation of ‘Doctor Who’ as a TV series in 1963. This was before false actor’s names were a common thing in ‘Doctor Who’, especially in the 1980s with Anthony Ainley. 😀

It should be noted that Ray Barrett used a high-pitched voice when playing Koquillion, which apparently is similar to the high-pitched voices he uses for characters featured in ‘Stingray’. Ray Barrett is an Australian actor and it’s amazing how he’s able to play a variety of voices in characters.

Koquillion’s design as a ‘monster’ in this ‘Doctor Who’ story is interesting. Carole Ann Ford described it as an ‘electrified cat’ when she saw ‘The Rescue’ with Maureen O’Brien and Peter Purves in the ‘Behind the Sofa’ item. The Doctor claims what Bennett is wearing is only for ‘ceremonial’ occasions.

So, I suppose Bennett was giving the impression to Vicki that what Koquillion looked like in monster form is what Didoans look like in reality so that he can convince her they’re hostile and she’d confirm his story once they returned to Earth. Therefore, the Didoans are humanoids in appearance.

This is confirmed when actual Didoans appear at the story’s end. Apparently, Bennett didn’t kill them all as he intended. Two of them, played by John Stuart and Colin Hughes, turn up and advance on him during his fight with the Doctor. The fight that the Doctor has with Bennett is actually decent.

I mean, it’s short-lived and interrupted when the Didoans arrive, but it’s the closest we get to see William Hartnell’s Doctor in an action sequence. After all, William Hartnell’s Doctor isn’t usually the action man in ‘Doctor Who’. This predates Jon Pertwee’s Doctor, who’s renowned for action scenes.

The action role in William Hartnell’s era is mostly reserved for William Russell as Ian and later on, in the series, for Peter Purves as Steven. I know things were done differently in how the TV show began with William Hartnell, but it’s quite a contrast compared to how action-packed recent Doctors are. 🙂

Going back to the Didoans, they seem to be human-like when they appear in the story’s second episode, although they don’t get to say a line of dialogue at all. This is a shame and very peculiar when watching this story. I would have at least expected the Didoans to say “Hello!” to the Doctor. 😀

They’re uncredited both on-screen and in the Radio Times during the story’s initial TV transmission. Their appearance is also never explained, especially in terms of how they survived the attack made by Bennett during the meeting between the spaceship passengers and the Didoans. It seems rushed.

Perhaps it’s made up for in Ian Marter’s Target novelization. 🙂 I must say, ‘The Rescue’ is well-designed by Raymond Cusick, who previously did design work for the first ‘Daleks’ story, ‘The Edge of Destruction’, ‘The Keys of Marinus’, ‘The Sensorites’ and ‘Planet of Giants’. I applaud his efforts here.

That’s not just in terms of the set design, but also for the model work, especially for the crashed spaceship that definitely has the ‘Thunderbirds’ feel, according to Bonnie Langford in the ‘Behind the Sofa’ item, which I enjoyed. The model spaceships were designed and created within ten days. 🙂

That’s courtsey of Shawcraft Models, who previously did work for the first ‘Daleks’ story and ‘The Keys of Marinus’. They would go on to do more work for ‘Doctor Who’ in later stories of the 1960s. It’s no surprise their ingenuity in creating model spaceship designs inspired the show’s later seasons.

The Sand Beast is also unusual in terms of a monster design. We don’t get to see it much, but it’s quite pathetic in some respects, despite having sharp teeth. I think the Sand Beast should have been bigger in order to show off how a big threat it can be in perhaps attacking Ian who’s about to fall off a cliff.

An interesting fact to mention is that ‘The Rescue’ got higher ratings compared to ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’. Whilst the sixth episode of ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ got 12.4 million viewers, the second episode of ‘The Rescue’ got 13.0 million viewers. Wow! That’s really impressive indeed. 🙂

Even Ray Barrett was impressed by that revelation when he was interviewed for the ‘Mounting the Rescue’ making-of documentary that was originally released on ‘The Rescue’ DVD. I suppose the viewing figures for ‘Doctor Who’ were getting better around that time in the series’ infancy stages. 🙂

‘The Rescue’ ends with the Doctor, Ian and Barbara taking Vicki with them in their TARDIS travels. However, our heroes soon find themselves in trouble once the TARDIS materialises on the edge of a cliff. It was funny to see the story finish on that note, as the TARDIS topples and falls over the edge…

The original DVD special features were as follows. There was the ‘Mounting the Rescue’ making-of documentary with behind-the-scenes cast and crew interviews, a photo gallery of the story, a dual mono sound audio mix option of the story to enjoy, and an audio commentary with William Russell, director Christopher Barry and designer Raymond Cusick, moderated by Toby Hadoke. There was an info-text commentary option to enjoy and PDF materials, including a ‘Radio Times Listings’ of the story and ‘Raymond Cusick’s Original Design Drawings’. There was also a ‘coming soon’ trailer for ‘Attack of the Cybermen’, starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant.

On Disc 3 of the ‘Doctor Who – The Collection – Season 2’ Blu-ray, the ‘Mounting the Rescue’ making-of documentary, the dual mono sound audio mix option and the DVD audio commentary can be found on there. The photo gallery and the info-text commentary option have been updated for 2022 on the Blu-ray.

The new special features on Blu-ray include the ‘Behind the Sofa’ feature on ‘The Rescue’ with Maureen O’Brien (Vicki), Peter Purves (Steven) and Carole Ann Ford (Susan) as well as Janet Fielding (Tegan), Wendy Padbury (Zoe) and Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) as well as Bonnie Langford (Mel) and Sophie Aldred (Ace). There’s the ‘Maureen O’Brien: In Conversation’ interview conducted by Matthew Sweet, and ‘The Storyteller’ Season 2 Blu-ray trailer.

On the PDF front, as well as the ‘Radio Times Listings’ of ‘The Rescue’ and ‘Raymond Cusick’s Original Design Drawings’, there are production documents, one draft script and two camera scripts, studio floorplans for ‘The Rescue’, and photographer John Cura’s telesnaps of the story. You need a special Blu-ray computer drive for that.

‘The Rescue’ is a great introduction to Vicki as the new ‘Doctor Who’ companion with William Hartnell’s First Doctor, Ian and Barbara. I enjoyed this two-part story very much, as it’s strongly well-written by David Whitaker and is well-directed by Christopher Barry, despite a few flaws to be found.

The twist with Bennett and Koquillion being the same person and being played by the same actor – Ray Barrett – is well-handled in this story, and I greatly like how Maureen O’Brien plays Vicki in her introductory story. But of course, ‘The Rescue’ is an appetiser, as we venture off to Earth’s past next.

‘The Rescue’ rating – 9/10

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