K is for... Koquillion

 

A cruel and sadistic inhabitant of the planet Dido. He was a bipedal creature, of insectoid appearance.

Koquillion was acting as the protector for a pair of Earth people, survivors of a spaceship which had crashed on the planet - a badly injured man named Bennett, and a girl named Vicki. The rest of the survivors had been killed by the Dido people, but Koquillion was shielding them until their rescue ship could arrive.

When the TARDIS landed Koquillion attempted to kill the Doctor and his companions, however. He carried a jewelled club-like device which could cause explosions.

All was not as it seemed. The Doctor had visited Dido before and knew that the natives were humanoid in appearance. Koquillion was really wearing ceremonial robes to disguise his true identity - Bennett.

He had murdered a man on the space flight and engineered the deaths of the survivors, as well as the inhabitants of the nearby Dido settlement, to conceal his crime. He was posing as Koquillion so that Vicki would alibi him when they got back to Earth.

Once unmasked, Bennett tried to kill the Doctor but he was confronted by two Didonians. He thought he had killed them all, so thought them avenging spirits. In his fright he fell into a deep crevasse.

Played by: Ray Barrett. Appearances: The Rescue (1965).

• To conceal his true identity Koquillion was billed as Sydney Wilson in the Radio Times and on screen for the opening episode of this story. The name came from Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson, two of the principal architects of the series.
• Australian Barrett was a regular voice artiste for the Gerry Anderson puppet series. The voice he uses for Koquillion actually resembles the one he used for King Titan, the main villain in Stingray.
• Despite the fact that Koquillion was just a human murderer in a mask, he featured in the nightmares conjured up for the Doctor by the Keller Machine (in The Mind of Evil). It may be that the Doctor had a much more terrifying encounter with someone in similar mask and robes on his previous visit to Dido.