The Rescue by: Ian Marter

 

The Rescue was written by Ian Marter, based on the television story of the same name by David Whitaker.  It was the 127^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

The fact that several First and Second Doctor serials weren’t adapted until the 1980s means that when they were adapted, some of the stories were approaching 20 years from original airing and generally repeat viewings hadn’t happened.  There was also a high chance that the archive was missing these serials so authors may not have had visual references for drawing the story.  The Rescue is one such novel where while the archival status was there, author Ian Marter was tasked with adapting a two episode serial in a full-length Target novel.  The Rescue on television is a story that works because it is simple: the Doctor and company land on a planet where an orphaned girl is terrorized by an alien, there’s a twist, the Doctor saves the day and the orphan joins the TARDIS in its travels.  That isn’t actually a lot and writer David Whitaker knew it, it served its purpose and entertained for less than an hour, not overstaying its welcome.  This mean that Ian Marter had to ensure that the novelization doesn’t overstay its welcome and somehow he managed to do that while expanding things to work as a full length novel.

 

In becoming a full-length novel, The Rescue easily could have diverged from the television story with rearranging of events to drag things out, but Marter doesn’t do that.  Instead of stretching events, new events of the novel are inserted in the narrative in a way that reflects a lot of the ways the world had changed from 1965’s original airing.  Much of David Whitaker’s dialogue remains in tact, but here there is almost more of it just to ensure that the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and newcomer Vicki are all given some time to shine.  The climax on television is just the Doctor facing off against Bennett and then escaping with Ian, Barbara, and Vicki in tow, while in the novel Ian, Barbara, and Vicki have their own plot trying to find the Doctor in parallel.  The Doctor is also less of an action hero in the novel, with Bennett physically overpowering him, but the Doctor’s cunning gets to the bottom of why Bennett would murder the crew but not just kill Vicki.  The sequences in the caves really create a bond between the three companions that wasn’t quite there in the original version, especially after Barbara kills Sandy the Sand Beast and Vicki forgives her after a quick conversation.  While that happens in the novel, there is an undercurrent of tension which resolves when they are in the caves together and it lifts completely when Vicki joins the TARDIS.

 

Marter also does a brilliant trick in adding in extra worldbuilding about the futuristic setting, the planet Dido, and the people of Dido.  The actual rescue ship have scenes which essentially bookend the novel, creating characters that are all complete Marter originals.  They are essentially the 1980s idea of what an astronaut will be, with added patronization to the child Vicki, and condescension to the new member of the team which ends up being a lot of fun.  There’s even a point where the TARDIS nearly crashes the ship and the novel ends with a report on the mysterious findings of wreckage and death on Dido.  The people of Dido also don’t just appear right at the end of the story, but interact with the character much earlier, even if they are just observers.  There is also an added danger of the planet entering a cycle that already kills off most of the population which rebuilds itself once the planet reaches a certain position in the galaxy.  It’s why life evolved the way it did and while there isn’t really a scientific basis, it’s still a lot of fun for Marter to explore.

 

Overall, The Rescue adapts a little story perfectly into a novelization that expands a story without dragging it down in minutia.  The characters are given more focus and the small cast allows so much insight into what makes them work and takes some of the lacking elements of the serial and brings them into an almost modernization.  10//10.