Doctor Who: The Rescue & The Romans [DVD]

A quick tale of lies and treachery introducing a charming new companion, then a Roman holiday that goes hilariously and historically wrong and involves the Doctor in giving Rome a drastic makeover... 5*After the dramatic departure of Susan at the end of ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, new companion Vicki is welcomed to the TARDIS crew in ‘The Rescue’, a well-made ‘alien world’ two parter. Then it’s straight off to Italy, 64 A.D., for a story that sends up as much history as it teaches, upset some fans (what else is new…?!) and invented a lighter style of historical that’s still alive and well in ‘Doctor Who’ today. (This review has grown almost as large as the Roman Empire so thanks if you reach the end!)But first, on the distant planet Dido, two space travellers need some help…‘The Rescue’ (2 episodes)The story as Vicki told it was tragic but very simple; young Vicki was, with her father, travelling on a starship outbound from Earth, when it crashed on the planet Dido. Many people survived the crash, but were then attacked by hostile Didonians – only Vicki and fellow passenger Bennett lived to tell the tale (though he was badly injured), partly protected, partly held captive by strange-looking Koquillion, for reasons of his own… and then the TARDIS landed…David Whitaker’s story introduces Maureen O’Brien to the regular cast as the orphaned Vicki. She’s playing several years younger than her real age and does it extremely well, with the script giving her the chance to go through all the emotions from fear, anger and sorrow, to hope, amusement and joy. She certainly had an audience to be proud of – according to the Special Features, this story was the most-watched ‘Doctor Who’ until the Tom Baker years, quite an achievement. It’s an effective character piece with some adventure added on, and some moments of humour too.William Hartnell plays a rather changed First Doctor, seemingly rather vulnerable, now without his granddaughter for the first time since they left home together. He has all the usual cleverness but now seems more humorous with his companions and is tender and consoling to Vicki – and she becomes the first person ever to be *invited* to join the TARDIS crew, a far cry from how Ian and Barbara were kidnapped! But when the Doctor has to confront evil, he shows his old steel – literally in this case, wielding a sword as well as his wits.The story is short and simple but the production values, in those tiny studios, are as excellent as the performances. I don’t understand why early ‘Doctor Who’ ever became a ‘joke’ to its critics, with results like this, and the restored DVD release looks great. Played almost live, as theatre, the effects (including falls, rock-falls and explosions) also had to be produced live, as on stage – and it works, thanks to the excellence of Raymond Cusick’s designs, Christopher Barry’s direction, evocative ‘space’ music re-used from ‘The Daleks’ and great lighting - the Dido Hall of Judgment looks impressive, done on a low budget with low lighting and high quality results. Vicki’s ‘sandbeast’ is obviously a man in a costume, wriggling along the ground, but what alternative was there?The Doctor and Ian (William Russell) have their own miniature ‘Indiana Jones’-style adventure on a narrow ledge with traps for the unwary and a strange monster, while Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) falls into the mystery of Vicki’s spaceship and her fellow survivor Bennett (Ray Barrett). But who is the alien Koquillion and what does he really want from them? Can they survive until the rescue ship comes from Earth…?Perhaps you are one of the few who does not know the solution, so I won’t spoil it here. (NOTE: If you don’t know the ending of this story, press ‘Play’ on the DVD menu ASAP and don’t look at anything else on the disc before watching the episodes, or the mystery will be spoiled!)The really important part of the ending is the part everyone now knows, that Vicki joins the Doctor, Barbara and Ian on their travels. Where next? “All roads lead to Rome”, as they say…DVD Special Features:I enjoyed the commentary with William Russell, Christopher Barry and Raymond Cusick, (moderated by Toby Hadoke), looking back to this story and the earliest days of ‘Doctor Who’ in general.‘Mounting The Rescue’ (22 min) is a very good ’making of’ documentary, with the commentary team plus Maureen O’Brien and Ray Barrett – delighted at having out-rated even the Daleks in the viewing figures!‘Photo Gallery’ (8 min) – an extensive gallery, excellent pictures of new TARDIS recruit Maureen O’Brien and also the impressive sets.If you want to build your own TARDIS set, wrecked spaceship, etc., Raymond Cusick’s original design drawings are on disc as a PDF along with the ‘Radio Times’ listings.- - - - - - - - - - - - -‘The Romans’ (4 episodes)Ave Spooner! Nos rideturi te salutamus!(‘Hail Spooner! We who are about to laugh, salute you!’… or something like that, allegedly…!)Dennis Spooner’s fabulous, farcical jaunt through Nero’s Rome was everything I’d hoped for and more. His script is brilliantly funny and very clever, but it must have seemed an odd mixture back in 1964, serious historical scenes mixed with wit, wordplay and bedroom farce and gently mocking the conventions of the programme itself. It needed a great cast to pull it off and the ‘Doctor Who’ team certainly do, showing they can play their familiar characters for comedy as well as drama, sometimes in the same scene.The production was made as a loose six-parter with ‘The Rescue’, so the same production team worked on both stories and it shows once again in the quality of Raymond Cusick’s sets, the costumes, music etc. Christopher Barry’s direction and the cast’s performances enable the story to flip from comedy to drama and back again, over and over, and their comic timing is spot-on, recorded in ‘as-live’ conditions as if on stage – very difficult to do (especially the palace chase scenes in episode 3) and great fun to watch.Lounging around in their borrowed villa (borrowed without the owner’s knowledge while he’s away at the Gallic wars – which actually finished long before!), Ian and Barbara are enjoying a rest, while the Doctor and Vicki, who are getting rather bored, decide on a quick sight-seeing trip to Rome. Of course nothing is ever that easy, and soon the Doctor and Vicki find themselves caught up in a conspiracy against Emperor Nero, with the Doctor mistaken for a famous lyrist, summoned to play at Nero’s court. And play he certainly does, playing the part to perfection and playing the imperial court for fools.William Hartnell is magnificent, displaying his considerable comic skills in witty wordplay, plentiful stage ‘business’ and even a sequence of unarmed combat! He and excellent Maureen O’Brien have an almost entirely comic storyline, where even murder, poison and assassins are played for laughs and a deadly conspiracy is a minor matter compared with the problem of having to strum his lyre at an imperial banquet – when music is not one of the Doctor’s skills. A neat idea (which the Doctor says he gave to Hans Andersen!) wins him rapturous applause, but Nero is offended by his triumph and decides to order the Doctor’s next performance to be at the circus, where he will again be lionised, but in a rather different way…Ian and Barbara are dragged into the other side of Roman life, far below the luxurious decadence of the aristocracy; a brutal world of slavery, galleys and gladiators where people are bought and sold and life can literally be cheap. William Russell has the most serious role as Ian is sold as a galley slave, escapes (in a very good studio shipwreck) and fights as a gladiator, while desperately worried about Barbara and planning her rescue. It’s a typically excellent performance and throws the comedy of the Doctor and Vicki’s story into sharp contrast.Jacqueline Hill as Barbara is perfect in both the comedy and the drama, in one of her character’s best stories, and Barbara’s romantic bond with Ian is clear and well played. She’s exposed to the misery of slavery and the murderous marital politics of the imperial court, but she’s also in the most farcical (and brilliantly played) scenes of all, dashing around the palace pursued by the lecherous Emperor.Derek Francis is superb as Nero, though definitely an older, comedy version of the young Roman tyrant. This Nero is a greedy, petulant, scheming womaniser – and an unstable, ‘artistic’ egotist with absolute power. He’s certainly played for laughs (and very well too, superb scenes with William Hartnell), but death is never far away from this monster and falls twice on those near him, once as a comedy throwaway moment and once in the only real shock of this story when, for one horrible moment, it seems the Doctor has lost another companion…The guest cast is large and very good, and not all of them are playing slave traders and decadent aristocrats etc. Representing the honest people of the ancient Roman world are Peter Diamond as Delos, a courageous slave who befriends Ian, and Michael Peake as Tavius. He is a rather mysterious official of Nero’s household, who helps Barbara the only way he can (by buying her at the slave auction) and later helps her to escape, for secret reasons of his own that are revealed in a significant and moving twist near the end. Though essentially a serious character, he too enjoys some great comedy moments (worked out with William Hartnell during rehearsal, according to the Production Notes).So there are some serious moments and they’re well done, but the emphasis is mostly on the comedy and some of the jokes are played at our expense. The opening (literal) cliff-hanger turns out to be a ‘small ledge-hanger’ and there’s a further joke that runs through the structure of the whole story, not what happens to the four regulars, but what, very cleverly, never happens until right at the end - although we expect it throughout.We are also teased with the “you can’t change history – not one line” convention of ‘The Aztecs’. History is all over the place in this script (in more ways than one); the excellent Production Notes revealed even more anachronisms than I’d realised, but you *can* change history if you’re a ‘Doctor Who’ writer! Here, Vicki does almost (accidentally but drastically) change history before the Doctor leaps in to stop her, while in one of the very best moments, the Doctor inspires (and incinerates!) Nero’s plans to give Rome a drastic makeover, with perfect comic timing.(Personally, I don’t think it was an accident. Vicki says afterwards: “I didn’t think that was going to work!” and the Doctor replies “I never had any doubt in my mind”, obviously implying a plan. Wasn’t the Doctor getting them out of trouble by *fulfilling* the history he already knew? He certainly used that trick with the Trojan Horse in ‘The Myth Makers’. This same causality idea would reappear in later stories and was seen in new series 9 (“Who wrote Beethoven’s Fifth?”), but never with more humour than here.)This is a gem of the classical world of ‘Doctor Who’ and a jovial treat for fans of William Hartnell, perfect as the imperious First Doctor and equally brilliant at playing him for comedy; five stars!Primus Doctor comicus maxime! Quinque stellae! 5*(Thanks very much for reading if you made it this far!)DVD Special Features:Another very enjoyable commentary with William Russell and Christopher Barry, looking back to a story they evidently enjoyed at the time, joined for sections by designer Raymond Cusick, Nick Evans (Didius the slave trader) and Barry Jackson (Ascaris the assassin), moderated by Toby Hadoke.‘What Has “The Romans” Ever Done For us?’ (34 min) – a brilliantly titled and very good ‘making of’ documentary, with contributions from cast and crew members and others, including an historian placing the “The Romans” in its real context.‘Dennis Spooner – Wanna Write a Television Series?’ (18 min) – an excellent feature looking at the life of the writer of ‘The Romans’ on ‘Doctor Who’ and his many other shows.‘Roma Parva’ (3 min) – Director Christopher Barry uses his original model of the studio set layout to explain how studio work was planned and carried out.‘Blue Peter’ (8 min) – the team enacts an impressive-looking Roman banquet in the studio – Val, Pete and Lesley play dining Roman aristocrats… poor John has to play their slave! A feast of nostalgia for those of us who remember it from the Seventies.‘Photo Gallery’ (7 min) – an extensive gallery with great ‘Roman’ backing music.‘Girls! Girls! Girls! – The 1960s’ (18 min) - looking at the Doctor’s many female companions from the Hartnell and Troughton eras. Some good soundbite-length ‘interviews’ but too short; I wish they had dropped the social commentary overlay and allowed the interviewees more time. And in this age of equality, why wasn’t it just ‘The Companions’, especially as William Russell and Peter Purves both contribute, talking about their co-stars? A missed opportunity; the 1970s segment of this series of features (on ‘The Three Doctors’ Special Edition) is hugely better, so perhaps lessons were learned.SPOILER NOTE:- - - - - - - - - - - - -It turns out that Tavius helps Barbara because he saw her kindness to another slave and he is a very early Christian (which in Nero’s Rome was extremely dangerous for him), explaining his secrecy as well as why he helps.

With these two stories, Doctor Who marks its first change of companion following Susan's departure and introduces us to Vicki. Here we have her first two adventures as part of the TARDIS crew, The Rescue and The Romans.The Rescue is a short but sweet little story, and rarely for Doctor Who, especially in the 60s, it's just two parts long. As an introductory story for Vicki, The Rescue doesn't get much wrong and already Maureen O'Brien shows great promise. Vicki is really fun and likeable, and although you can see how she's designed to be a replacement for Susan, she's still her own character. The rest of the story in The Rescue isn't exactly anything mind-blowing but it's a decent-enough adventure. We have a decent threat in Koquillion and I really like the detail in his costume. The only downfall to Koquillion is the fact that his identity is presented as a mystery. But when you only have one other supporting character in the story besides the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki, it's not much of a mystery is it?The following story, The Romans, takes the new TARDIS crew back to 64AD, where they take a rare holiday. The Romans is a rare Doctor Who story that's not only light-hearted in tone, but played largely for comedy. While a lot of the pure historicals from the first season of Doctor Who are more serious, matter-of-fact and educational, The Romans for the large part sacrifices the educational side for something much more enjoyable. This is an utterly charming story with so much to love about it. The comedic spin on Emperor Nero, William Hartnell's loveable portrayal of the Doctor, the fantastic sets such as the market and the feast hall. It's absolutely infectious and one of the best stories to come out of the Hartnell era.Hopefully I'll have a full, more in-depth review of Rescue and Romans up on my own film/TV review site soon (link in my profile description). However, these two stories are a great slice of early Who, and are a pretty good place to start for newcomers of the era too. A historical combined with a futuristic, sci-fi tale does a great job showing the two ends of the spectrum where the show spent most of its time in the early days. If anyone ever tells you that the Hartnell era was too serious or lacking in fun, show them these two stories and prove them wrong.

The Rescue is very interesting, with an essential hidden mystery at its core. The plot develops somewhat slowly (despite the episode count) but the role of Vicky is well done and serves to bridge the confusion well. The denouement is excellent and worth waiting for, but you do have to wait to get there.The Romans is a fun caper in Nero's time. As long as you suspend disbelief, and don't worry too much about Nero and historical realism, then you can enjoy this story. The main characters have a good time, and this is quite contagious, making it fun to watch even the laid-back scenes.The documentaries are enjoyable too

These 2 stories feature a new companion following the departure of Carole Anne Ford as Susan, Maureen O'Brien stars as Vikki and gets along great with Ian and Barbara who have stayed on with William Hartnell into the beginning of the second season. This is where you start to get used to various companions coming in and leaving the various doctors over the years to the present day.

As The Rescue is only 2 episodes long, it may be thought that you don't get your money's worth with this DVD, but the bonus features make this worth buying. The effects may be a little primitive by today's standards,but generally an enjoyable experience watching this DVD.The Romans marked a change of direction for Dr.Who at the time. This story seems to have been written more for comedy, than science fiction. Seeing William Hartnell is a more comical role, made me realise just how versatile he was as a actor.The difference between his performance as the doctor in this story, compared to the first few stories is unbelievable.Again the bonus features included on this disc, make for interesting viewing.