Synopsis:
Looking for a way out of the mountain caverns, the Doctor and Ian are moving along a narrow ledge when they accidentally trigger a hidden trap. Sharp blades emerge from the tunnel wall and push Ian towards a ravine, in which a savage-looking creature lurks...
Ian uses his jacket to protect himself from the blades as the Doctor manages to reverse the mechanism. They continue their journey and spot daylight ahead. The creature is moving in the same direction, slightly ahead of them.
At the spaceship, Vicki has gone to fetch water while Barbara helps prepare a meal. She notices a flare pistol in a cabinet. As the Doctor and Ian near the mouth of the cavern, the creature is already out in the open, moving towards Vicki. Barbara sees this and grabs the flare pistol, shooting the creature dead.
Vicki is left distraught. She explains that "Sandy" was a pet, a herbivore which she had trained to come for food. The Doctor and Ian arrive to find Vicki in tears, shunning Barbara.
Koquillion emerges from a door in the tunnel and sees the footprints of the Doctor and Ian.
After they have eaten, the Doctor speaks with Vicki and assures her that Barbara had acted in her best interests, thinking she was going to be attacked, and had not meant to upset her. He announces that he is going to go and speak with Bennett.
He enters the bedroom to find it empty, yet it had been locked from the inside. He finds a tape recorder with Bennett's pre-recorded messages, and an intercom which allows him to listen to what is going on in the crew room.
He listens in as Vicki explains her story to the two teachers - of how her father and she were travelling to make a new life on the planet Astra after her mother died. They left Earth in 2493. The ship crashed on Dido. The locals invited the survivors to a great feast one night which she was unable to attend due to illness. A massive explosion occurred which killed all the spaceship survivors - including her father - as well as the natives. Only an injured Bennett survived the blast. Since then Koquillion has been protecting them from the rest of his people. Vicki is amazed to learn that the two teachers come from the 20th Century, and that the Doctor is a time-travelling alien.
The Doctor finds a hidden trap door which leads to the door in the caverns. Beyond is a great chamber which he recalls was the Hall of Judgement. He waits here for Koquillion. When the creature arrives, he announces that he knows that he is Bennett in disguise. The people of Dido are humanoid, and only wear insect-like masks like his during their ceremonies.
Bennett reveals that he committed a murder on the spaceship. He then engineered the explosion at the feast to cover this up. Vicki has been kept alive to provide him with an alibi.
He attacks the Doctor but is stopped by the sudden appearance of two Dido people. Terrified, he tries to flee into the caverns but plunges into the ravine to his death.
The Doctor passes out, and wakes to find himself by the TARDIS.
Ian and Barbara ask him if they can take Vicki with them. He has had the same idea and so puts it to her to decide. She accepts and enters the TARDIS - astonished by its massive internal dimensions.
After the ship has departed, the two Dido people enter the spaceship and destroy the radio, so that the rescue ship will never arrive...
Soon after, the TARDIS materialises and the Doctor confirms a perfect landing - but Ian and the others notice definite movement. The ship has landed on a narrow ledge. It rocks back and forth for a few moments then tumbles down the slope...
Next episode: The Slave Traders
Written by: David Whitaker
Recorded: Friday 11th December 1964 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:40pm, Saturday 9th January 1965
Ratings: 13 million / AI 60
Designer: Raymond P Cusick
Director: Christopher Barry
Additional cast: John Stuart & Colin Hughes (Dido People)
This episode sees the first occasion in which someone has entered the TARDIS for the first time since An Unearthly Child - so we get the first proper "it's bigger on the inside" show of amazement. When Ian and Barbara first entered the ship, we - the audience - were too busy being amazed ourselves to fully appreciate their reactions. Vicki is also the first person to be invited into the TARDIS by the Doctor, whereas Susan was already travelling with him, and the teachers forced their way in.
This first sight of the console room will become a sort of rite of passage for all new companions from this point on.
Despite only being two episodes in length, Whitaker has left a few plot holes - or apparent inconsistencies.
The backstory to the crash is left unclear. It is not known if Bennett engineered the crash, or if it was simply coincidental and he capitalised on it. If the crime had been discovered before the crash as he claims, you have to question how he was then allowed the freedom to go about setting up the explosion which killed all of the other survivors, save for Vicki, and the Dido people.
It is also odd that Vicki's father should leave his sick daughter all alone on a potentially dangerous planet to attend a feast.
The exact nature of the two Dido people is left up in the air as well. Where have they been all this time? Are they ghosts - as Bennett seems to think, judging by his reaction? If they are real, and the last of their kind, then what possible future can they have? Are there other survivors hidden somewhere?
Technically, the TARDIS crew didn't need to take Vicki with them. The Doctor already knows that the Dido people are benign - they didn't harm him after killing Bennett - and the rescue ship is now less than 72 hours away. Vicki could simply have stayed with the Doctor and his companions until it arrived.
One of Whitaker's main failings was his science. (It will reach its nadir with The Wheel in Space). Here he has a spaceship less than three days away from a planet, unable to locate that planet without some sort of radio beacon.
Would the rescue ship simply turn round and go home again once the signal was lost, or would it check out the local planets anyway since it had come all this way?
If it found evidence of the crash site but no Vicki and a dead Bennett, wouldn't that make things worse for the Dido people? With no-one to explain what really happened, the Earth people might take reprisals against the Dido survivors - blaming them for the murders of the Astra ship crew.
By running off with Vicki before the ship arrived, the Doctor might have left the Dido people in a real mess.
The use of the Dido construction tool in the fight between the Doctor and Bennett in the Hall of Judgement was unscripted, but added late in rehearsals.
Cusick's design for the Hall made great use of dry ice and low lighting to hide the fact that it comprised mostly pillars and black drapes.
During the studio rehearsals, Jacqueline Hill was slightly injured by the flare pistol. The charge was more powerful than she thought when it went off in her face. On the recording, you can see the charge simply fall off the end of the prop.
William Russell's description of Koquillion as "cockylickin" was an ad-lib.
Christopher Barry elected to reuse some of the sound effects from The Daleks, which he had also directed. He also re-employed some of Tristram Cary's music from that story.
The dying Sandbeast noise was an adaptation of a dying Dalek sound effect.
- This episode saw a one million rise in viewing figures - beating the previous Dalek story - as well as a three point increase in the audience appreciation figure. It remains one of the highest rated episodes ever, and was the first to enter the Top 10 TV programmes of the week.
- Many guidebooks call the natives of Dido "Didonians", but on screen they are only ever referred to as "the Dido People".
- Having voiced the spaceship captain and played the Sandbeast in the first instalment, Tom Sheridan had hoped to play one of the Dido People as well, but this was rejected.
- The TARDIS tumbling off the ledge was the first thing filmed for this story - on Monday 16th November at Ealing Film Studios.
- When the Sandbeast emerges from the cave, just before Barbara spots it, you can see someone moving around in the background - presumably William Russell or Hartnell.
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