Crashed On Dido

Koquillion (left) facing a frightened Vicki (right)        In my eyes, Vicki's introduction is when the series truly shifts from being "early Doctor Who " finding its footing into the show we all know and love today, because despite the large gap in time, The Rescue is one of the classic stories that most resembles what the show would become in the 21 st century. Whilst being one of the only two-part stories in the standard format of 25 minutes episodes makes for an easy comparison in runtime, the connection is more than skin deep.      Something that can often feel lacking or underplayed in the classic series are the emotional journeys companions can go through, this is not a problem The Rescue has as the story focuses on the distress Vicki faces: having crash landed on the planet Dido, dealing with the loss of her father and being held captive by the sinister Koquillion, as one of the two survivors of the UK-201 spaceship. The people of Dido threa...

     Beginning this flight through eternity, some preamble is perhaps required. Vicki Pallister is - in my opinion - one of Doctor Who 's greatest companions. Many fans will tell you all about how Patrick Troughton had the hardest job of any actor to take the leading role, having to bring a whole new audience aboard the TARDIS, while convincing old fans that the passing of the key was something to embrace rather than to reject. Yet strangely you never seem to hear the same said about Maureen O'Brien and the character of Vicki, despite doing the same thing for the assistant role nearly two years earlier.      At the time of her introduction, viewers had just said farewell to Susan Foreman - the Doctor's granddaughter and a character present from the very beginning - with no precedent for what would come next, and introducing a new main character into an established series is often a controversial move, nevermind when it's been a weekly fixture for thirteen m...