Escape To Danger 2.0 No.10

The last time I turned my attention to "The Rescue", I made a rather sarcastic but well-meaning off-the-cuff remark about how this largely overlooked brief character piece was a pivotal moment in the history of Proper Who.

So, I'm naturally going to labour the point here.
 

 

"The Rescue" is often described as being a brief character-driven plot created for the sole purpose of introducing a new "companion" (as they were eventually described) to the series. In the process of doing that, Maureen O'Brien is given probably one of the best acting showcases in the run of the series. There isn't much emotion she isn't called on to articulate at some point, and it's quite incredible to watch her in action.

It's a shame that the tropes of the still-malleable young series were soon to condemn her to the standard role of peril-monkey and (in the case of Hartnell's Doctor) grand-daughter substitute.

But at least she got her tit groped by one Sydney Wilson...
 

 

And speaking of Koquillion, isn't that costume and headpiece simply fucking amazing? Raymond Cusick again, if anyone's counting...

 

 

In addition to making a big thing of a new companion, the other main characters get their chance to shine as well. It's unclear just how much time has passed since the conclusion of "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", but relationships between the members of the TARDIS crew seem to have relaxed considerably.

Ian and Barbara are by this point probably shagging (obviously off-camera in those days, kids), and if they're not they almost certainly are in the next story when they've had a few weeks in a Roman villa together.

 

 

The Doctor has also mellowed noticably since the departure of his grand-daughter, and seems to take genuine pleasure in the company of Ian and Barbara. (He's also had a change of clothes, which probably pleased his friends no end).

And in a surprising twist, it's not Barbara that plays the mummy role and wins the trust of Vicki, it's the Doctor who does all the avuncular stuff. That and duffing up the bad guy, in this busy little story.

 

 

Oh look, there's Bennett. He can't walk much unaided, and seems genuinely shit-scared of Koquillion. So like I said last time, it's a mystery to me why some people persist in the view that "The Rescue" is rendered worthless by the assumption that he is the obvious villain of the piece. (It's halfway through the second episode that the Doctor starts to twig, and in dramatic terms this goes for the viewer too. Of course, many reviewers had thirty years of plot synopses to study before they reached their own conclusions...)

 

 

As a deliberate character piece, "The Rescue" works much better than David Whitaker's previous attempt at a similar concept. While the production history of Serial C probably doomed it to being a bit rushed and muddled, it was coincidentally also at a pivotal moment of the series' history (being commissioned for a longer run, in the case of "The Edge of Destruction").

Despite being the third story of the second season of the series, Serial L was the start of the second production block. There's an understandable atmosphere of freedom and freshness, a brash confidence that the future is a lot less uncertain than the piecemeal commissioning that the previous production block suffered.

 

 

The second season of Verity Lambert's Doctor Who rode the wave of popularity caused by Dalekmania with a verve and enthusiasm that allowed the series to stretch its format in ways that would truly set the series on its initial twenty-six year joyride.

And it all started with a stranded teenage girl on Dido...