2.3: The Rescue
- Doctor: William Hartnell
- Companions: Vicki, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright
- Creators: Verity Lambert (Producer), David Whitaker (Writer)
- Season 2
What's the rating?
Worth Watching.
What's interesting about it?
At two episodes, this is an unusually tight and concise story. As a fan of concision, I approve.
This is the first ever story after a companion has left show -- Susan, The Doctor's grand-daughter, in this case -- and we see The Doctor struggling to deal with this fact, calling out to her involuntarily when he needs her help. And we find The Doctor seeming to need an extra-ordinary amount of sleep; in an unprecedented move he sleeps through the landing of the TARDIS, then instead of launching into their next adventure, decides to immediately take a nap. Then he comments on how his hand-writing "gets worse and worse" -- it's as if this Doctor is preparing for the end of his run, though that's not the case.
Upon landing on the planet Dido, the time travelers encounter a broken space ship. The story is mysterious, with an impenetrable alien and two human survivors of a space ship crash who are being kept prisoner of the alien. As in The Sensorites, again we have the theme of people being held prisoner and treated like Children.
But, The Doctor has been her before, so he's not concerned, as he knows the natives are completely peaceful...but something has happened in the meantime that makes the locals dangerous.
This is the introduction of Vicki, the replacement companion for Susan -- Vicki, by the way, is not short for Victoria, as she makes clear.
Overall this is a fine episode, setting up plenty of meaty mystery that makes us want to see what exactly is going on with the planet Dido. The solution is satisfying, and the new companion is promising.
The "Making of" documentary on the DVD is quite interesting as well, and worth watching once you've seen the story.
How has your opinion changed?
I originally rated this as Must See and The Romans as just Worth Watching. What was I thinking?
Well, after getting much more of the show under my belt, I realized that there was no question I would tell someone new to the show that they must see The Romans but no longer found this one as compelling.
Unfortunately, it's largely a sign of how the show ended up treating companions. Early on it seemed a big deal to have departures and arrivals, but given that the show stopped acting that way, it quickly becomes commonplace to have companions appearing and disappearing and so it's harder to treat an episode as special just for that reason.
What are others saying?
How can I see it?