Doctor Who - The Savages
"The Savages" was a four-part serial, first broadcast on BBC TV between 28 May 1966 - 18 June 1966. It was written by Ian Stuart Black, and directed by Christopher Barry. It starred William Hartnell as the Doctor, Peter Purves as Steven Taylor, and Jackie Lane as Dodo Chaplet.
Materializing on an idyllic world, the Doctor, Steven and Dodo are welcomed by the apparently highly civilized Elders and taken to their capital city. However, on a tour of the city Dodo discovers that the Elders have a terrible secret. The Elders' advanced society is maintained by draining the life force and energy from a group of primitive Savages who share the planet. While the Doctor decides he must try to prevent the exploitation of the Savages, the leader, Jano, has other plans.
What a wonderful little adventure "The Savages" is! It's a shame it is often overlooked as it has a great deal going for it. On one hand it can be seen as a morality tale, which hints at ideas such as possession and control; and on the other hand it is a simple story of good versus evil (in the same vein as "Galaxy 4") . However, what it does do is succeed, largely because of its simplicity. It is essentially a story about racism and slavery, incorporating themes and situations touched upon in the first two Doctor Who stories. The idea of a role reversal by making the Savages white and the leader of the Elders black is a good one; unfortunately the message doesn't come across quite as well as it could have.
The nature of the Elders' villainy is quite well presented though; initially, it seems that the Elders are a benign, highly advanced people who have created an Utopian society, whilst the primitive Savages are an uncivilized threat to this. Indeed, the cliff-hanger to Episode 1 plays on this assumption, with Dodo screaming in terror at the sight of a Savage inside the city of the Elders. Additionally, the Elders are so technologically advanced that, uniquely in Doctor Who at this time, they are expecting the Doctor's arrival, having tracked his travels through time and space. However, our initial impressions soon prove false, as it turns out that the Savages are victims of the Elders' parasitic, life-draining technology, which creates their utopia at the cost of human suffering. Nobody dies in this story and yet there is a palpable sense of wrongness about the Elder's actions.
William Hartnell is superb, as always. The Doctor's confrontation of Jano when he realizes how the Elders' society is maintained is marvelous, and my favorite moment of the story. His impassioned "This, sir, is protracted murder!" seethes with suppressed rage. Later, after his life energy has been transferred into Jano, he spends the latter half of the story weak and disorientated, and thus we are denied the clash of personalities that we might expect; instead, as the Doctor recovers, he quietly waits for Jano to turn to his way of thinking, clearly realizing what the transference would do. This is an effective plot device, but results in the Doctor being sidelined.
Although she is the first to suss out the true nature of the Elders, Dodo has significantly less to do here than in other stories. However, she does have some shining moments: fending off the scientists when she's mistaken for a Savage, enjoying smashing the transference machinery in Episode 4, and her heartbreak over Steven's decision, which reduces her to tears.
Really this story belongs to Peter Purves, which is fitting as it is his last story. Steven has come a long way since "The Chase", and his departure here is entirely in keeping with his development into a leader and someone who clearly wants to help people. One of his finest moments occurs when he lures Exorse into the caves, as he proves to the Savages that they are capable of fighting their oppressors and throwing off the shackles of slavery under which they effectively live. During both "The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve" and "The Ark" we saw him railing against the injustices around him; now, finally, when he is nominated as a new leader to unite both Elders and Savages, he is surprised, but readily accepts. I love the moment when the Doctor tells him how proud of him he is; he genuinely believes that Steven is ready for the task ahead of him.
Frederick Jaeger's performance of the chief Elder Jano is absolutely flawless, especially when he has absorbed the Doctor's life energy and takes on his personality. Indeed, for a while, I wondered if the lines were actually being dubbed by Hartnell, until you realize Jaeger's simply doing a wickedly accurate imitation of the Doctor. The rest of the cast are less memorable apart from Clare Jenkins (Nanina) and Ewen Solon (Chal).
It's always difficult to judge a story's merits when the episodes themselves no longer exist, but the Telesnaps and production photographs reveal good set designs, and as Christopher Barry is an extremely capable director, I'm sure he made the most out of the script. The location is cleverly used, being a sandpit which actually reflects the dwellings of the Savages. One of the high points is the incidental music, with Raymond Jones' use of woodwind instruments giving the tale a sense of atmosphere and mystery.
Watching the series in order, I do find it sad that producer Innes Lloyd did away with the individual episode titles. "Episode 1" doesn't have the same sense of excitement gained from the imaginative "Guests of Madame Guillotine", "The Death of Doctor Who" or "Destruction of Time", to name a few.
All in all, "The Savages" is a great, well paced story, with an entertaining central premise, and provides a good departure for the criminally underrated Steven Taylor.
4 / 5 stars
Materializing on an idyllic world, the Doctor, Steven and Dodo are welcomed by the apparently highly civilized Elders and taken to their capital city. However, on a tour of the city Dodo discovers that the Elders have a terrible secret. The Elders' advanced society is maintained by draining the life force and energy from a group of primitive Savages who share the planet. While the Doctor decides he must try to prevent the exploitation of the Savages, the leader, Jano, has other plans.
What a wonderful little adventure "The Savages" is! It's a shame it is often overlooked as it has a great deal going for it. On one hand it can be seen as a morality tale, which hints at ideas such as possession and control; and on the other hand it is a simple story of good versus evil (in the same vein as "Galaxy 4") . However, what it does do is succeed, largely because of its simplicity. It is essentially a story about racism and slavery, incorporating themes and situations touched upon in the first two Doctor Who stories. The idea of a role reversal by making the Savages white and the leader of the Elders black is a good one; unfortunately the message doesn't come across quite as well as it could have.
The nature of the Elders' villainy is quite well presented though; initially, it seems that the Elders are a benign, highly advanced people who have created an Utopian society, whilst the primitive Savages are an uncivilized threat to this. Indeed, the cliff-hanger to Episode 1 plays on this assumption, with Dodo screaming in terror at the sight of a Savage inside the city of the Elders. Additionally, the Elders are so technologically advanced that, uniquely in Doctor Who at this time, they are expecting the Doctor's arrival, having tracked his travels through time and space. However, our initial impressions soon prove false, as it turns out that the Savages are victims of the Elders' parasitic, life-draining technology, which creates their utopia at the cost of human suffering. Nobody dies in this story and yet there is a palpable sense of wrongness about the Elder's actions.
William Hartnell is superb, as always. The Doctor's confrontation of Jano when he realizes how the Elders' society is maintained is marvelous, and my favorite moment of the story. His impassioned "This, sir, is protracted murder!" seethes with suppressed rage. Later, after his life energy has been transferred into Jano, he spends the latter half of the story weak and disorientated, and thus we are denied the clash of personalities that we might expect; instead, as the Doctor recovers, he quietly waits for Jano to turn to his way of thinking, clearly realizing what the transference would do. This is an effective plot device, but results in the Doctor being sidelined.
Although she is the first to suss out the true nature of the Elders, Dodo has significantly less to do here than in other stories. However, she does have some shining moments: fending off the scientists when she's mistaken for a Savage, enjoying smashing the transference machinery in Episode 4, and her heartbreak over Steven's decision, which reduces her to tears.
Really this story belongs to Peter Purves, which is fitting as it is his last story. Steven has come a long way since "The Chase", and his departure here is entirely in keeping with his development into a leader and someone who clearly wants to help people. One of his finest moments occurs when he lures Exorse into the caves, as he proves to the Savages that they are capable of fighting their oppressors and throwing off the shackles of slavery under which they effectively live. During both "The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve" and "The Ark" we saw him railing against the injustices around him; now, finally, when he is nominated as a new leader to unite both Elders and Savages, he is surprised, but readily accepts. I love the moment when the Doctor tells him how proud of him he is; he genuinely believes that Steven is ready for the task ahead of him.
Frederick Jaeger's performance of the chief Elder Jano is absolutely flawless, especially when he has absorbed the Doctor's life energy and takes on his personality. Indeed, for a while, I wondered if the lines were actually being dubbed by Hartnell, until you realize Jaeger's simply doing a wickedly accurate imitation of the Doctor. The rest of the cast are less memorable apart from Clare Jenkins (Nanina) and Ewen Solon (Chal).
It's always difficult to judge a story's merits when the episodes themselves no longer exist, but the Telesnaps and production photographs reveal good set designs, and as Christopher Barry is an extremely capable director, I'm sure he made the most out of the script. The location is cleverly used, being a sandpit which actually reflects the dwellings of the Savages. One of the high points is the incidental music, with Raymond Jones' use of woodwind instruments giving the tale a sense of atmosphere and mystery.
Watching the series in order, I do find it sad that producer Innes Lloyd did away with the individual episode titles. "Episode 1" doesn't have the same sense of excitement gained from the imaginative "Guests of Madame Guillotine", "The Death of Doctor Who" or "Destruction of Time", to name a few.
All in all, "The Savages" is a great, well paced story, with an entertaining central premise, and provides a good departure for the criminally underrated Steven Taylor.
4 / 5 stars