Doctor Who: The Crash of the UK-201

I have to be honest; of all the TV stories from the First Doctor's era I could think of doing a sequel to, The Rescue would not have been top of my list. Not that it's one of the weaker stories, mind you; it just doesn't seem suited to such a thing. Yet that's exactly what we have here - and it's very good.

After something goes wrong on the TARDIS, Vicki wakes to find herself back on the UK-201 just hours before it crashed and set up the events of the TV story. The first 30 minutes deal with the immediate ramifications of that and of having the chance to prevent her father's death. From there on, however, things get increasingly timey-wimey. There are at least some parallels to Father's Day, not to mention the film Groundhog Day, but the focus is on exploring the effects on Vicki and, in particular, how her life might have turned out had things been different.

It's not a simple story, especially towards the end, where the exact sequence of events matters. O'Brien is the lynchpin of it and does a fantastic job voicing different versions of Vicki throughout her life, helping to bring things to life without the prosthetics that a TV show would have to use. Obviously, it's not the sort of thing that the show would have done in the '60s (The Space Museum has some similar themes, perhaps, but not to the extent used here) and it isn't one for those who dislike the “timey-wimey” trope. Furthermore, it's worth mentioning that the Doctor is barely in it, leaving this more like one of the Companion Chronicles where the focus is on Vicki and, to a lesser extent, Steven.

But if, like me, you don't mind those issues it's a great story with strong acting and an intelligent and emotional plot.