The Rescue (1965)

The Powerful Enemy is the first episode to feature a new companion since An Unearthly Child and it introduces Maureen O’Brien to the show as Vicki. It’s the first time that we don’t have Carole Ann Ford and it must have been weird watching this in 1965 to not see her with the rest of the regulars. O’Brien is the first person that we encounter in the episode. She hears a noise on the scanner which she thinks is rescue. She is stuck with Bennett who is bed ridden and is determined to be a killjoy when Vicki comes in with so much energy.

Koquillion is introduced into this story as a mystery figure. Both Bennett and Vicki are afraid. When we do get to see him the costume is rather good. The music helps create the menace and its good that we don’t hear anything from him at first. It’s a first good impression. Sadly when he does speak to Barbara and Ian it’s a little disappointing. No electronic effect is used and it’s a shame really.

It’s nearly four minutes before the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are introduced. The Doctor is asleep when the TARDIS lands and his behaviour is very unusual. At first there is no real effect of Susan’s departure until they are about to leave the TARDIS and I like how the Doctor is embarrassed that he made the slip. The interaction between the Doctor, Ian and Barbara is rather sweet. It’s almost like a small family.

When Koquillion is left alone with Barbara its clear that something bad is going to happen. She falls of the side of the cliff and is only saved after clinging onto a branch and she manages to survive. Before long she is helped by Vicki. Bennett then tells Vicki after his ‘meeting’ with Koquillion that they have died and Vicki tells him that one survived and the look on his face is priceless.

The Doctor has visited the planet Dido before and remembers it’s as a nice place and there is a lovely scene where he reminisces to himself and has a nice chuckle about whether he can convince Ian that it was done on purpose. William Hartnell seems to be different in this episode and it’s a wonderful performance. The scene where the Doctor comes out of the TARDIS after the explosion in the cave and there is no smoke or dust yet the Doctor is acting like there is seems to be a slightly odd moment. It seems like the dust was suppose to move quicker than it did.

This a good episode by Christopher Barry. The bit where the Doctor is choking on no dust is a bit of a letdown but there is a good moment where Ian and the Doctor are walking along the ledge and see the monster below. The shot where Barry fits both in I thought was a good camera effect and it set up the cliffhanger rather well. This is a good episode as it sets up a new character but doesn’t make it obvious. I also like the small cast as it gives the characters more on screen time and even though this is the first of two episodes, it still feels like they are taking their time in telling this story. This episode is about setting up the mystery and the menace of Kaquillion and its done very well.

The final part of this all too brief adventure which introduces Maureen O’Brien to the Doctor Who world resumed with the Doctor and Ian about to be a late lunch for a monster that doesn’t look to dissimilar to the slither from Dalek Invasion of Earth. The way that Ian gets around the sharp knifes is quite clever. The story moves back to Vicki, Barbara and Bennett where Bennett continues the pretence that Ian and the Doctor are dead. When Barbara comes up with a plan to surprise Koquillion the look on Bennett’s face is great.

Barbara does a very bad thing in one scene where she shoots the monster after she thinks that Vicki is in danger. Vicki is angry and doesn’t appreciate what Barbara thought was a good deed. It’s a typically Barbara thing to do to instinctively try and do whatever she can to help someone else. However on this occasion she read the situation wrong and killed something that wasn’t going to cause harm. The first encounter between the Doctor and Vicki is a bit more grandfather/granddaughter than we had with the Doctor and Susan. He talks down to her far more than he ever did with Susan. It’s a worrying moment when this happens because this is pretty much why Carole Ann Ford left the show.

The story starts to take shape when the truth starts to emerge when the Doctor tries to speak to Bennett. When he finally gets in he discovers a room with audio equipment and also a trapdoor. Its simple but effective and its low-tech enough to believe that it could fool Vicki and not make her look like an idiot. There’s a funny scene where Vicki works out that Ian and Barbara are 550 years old. It’s funny because of the reaction of Ian and Barbara who feel old all of a sudden.

The Doctor is the one that works things out and slowly starts to put things together. This is William Hartnell’s best episode for a while as he becomes the smart one of the group The scene where the Doctor meets Koquillion is a great scene and its lit well and the atmosphere make it’s the best scene of the two episodes. It helps that its filmed in Black and White and not colour as I always think that monochrome adds so much to a story. The truth about Bennett is that he is a criminal that killed the crew and tried to blame it on the locals. It’s a good enough story and it works in the context of this story. In the fight that they have the Doctor is quite energetic and it’s the quickest I think we have seen him move for sometime. The battle end when two of the locals come out and force Bennett off the cliff. Quite why they waited until this point to come out of hiding is never made clear.

With her parents and Bennett dead, it’s the perfect opportunity for Vicki to join the crew. It’s nice how the Doctor, Ian and Barbara all come up with the same idea and it shows what a stronger team they are. The final shot on Dido is of the two Dido people smashing up the equipment. Not really getting that this wont really stop the rescue ship from coming.

The cliffhanger is literally a cliffhanger with the TARDIS materialising on the edge of a cliff and falling. It was a really good way to end the episode because it must have raised questions in peoples mind about what was going to happen. As an episode it was good because it did exactly what it needed to do. It solved the mystery of what was going on and found a constructive way of introducing Vicki As a story its just the right length and doesn’t get bogged down in trying to put padding into it and there are just the right number of characters in it to make it work. I thought that it was a good introduction for Vicki and a good story which isn’t that hard to believe considering its written by David Whittaker.