Serial AA, in four parts:
- Part One - 5/28/66, 4.8m viewers
- Part Two - 6/4/66, 5.6m
- Part Three - 6/11/66, 5.0m
- Part Four - 6/18/66, 4.5m
Sound Bytes:
"The Savages marked the end of Peter Purves' role as Steven, after 45 episodes in the series. New producer Innes Lloyd was keen to bring a fresh approach to the show, and this included a set of companions of his own devising. Purves himself, meanwhile, had reportedly been unhappy with the way Steven was being written for in the recent run of stories." - from the liner notes of The Savages (BBC Radio Collection, 2002)
"The overall impression left by The Savages is of a series in need of a fresh approach. Fortunately, such a change was just around the corner." - review from Doctor Who: The Television Companion by David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker (Telos, 2003)
Comments:
The Savages is easily one of the most obscure Doctor Who adventures; in fact, I knew nothing about it until I listened to the BBC Radio Collection's version today. In my twenty-odd years of being a fan, I had never even read a summary of the plot!
All four installments are lost, so naturally that doesn't help the story's reputation -- but, worse yet, The Savages just seems to radiate dullness. Nothing about this production really fires the imagination, or inspires today's fans to wonder what it was like on screen.
Ian Stuart Black's script has a nice anti-oppression message, of course, and he deserves credit for that at least. He depicts a cruel society of "Elders" who prosper by draining the life force and creativity from a group of helpless savages. This setup is intriguing at first, especially since the Elders are reminiscent of vampires and other creepy, parasitic villains. But the story goes nowhere. The savages remain faceless characters throughout, and they are so incompetent that I found myself struggling to care about them.
Take this as an example -- at one point, Steven overpowers one of the Elders and steals his "light gun." The savages are so passive and weak that they assume Steven must be a god because he managed to disarm the guard. Now, give me a break; does one really need divine power to overwhelm some jerk and nick his ray gun? I mean, come on, the savages have weapons of their own. Why haven't they managed to defeat a single Elder themselves? If the Battle of Isandlwana has taught us anything, it is that guys with spears can occasionally defeat guys with guns.
On a related note, there's entirely too much chatter about the light gun in this serial. Whenever a writer gets too obsessed with ray-beams and whatnot, it strikes me as very primitive science fiction. Get over your novelty gun and just tell the story, okay?
I'm probably being too rough here, because there's certainly nothing embarrassing about this serial. It's just boring, but maybe that's an even worse crime than being outright bad. On the plus side, Raymond Jones' music score is really excellent; it sounds more orchestral than the usual Doctor Who fare, and it really enhances the mood. Also, I think Hartnell gives a fun performance in episode one, and Dodo gets some good material when she discovers the Elders' life-draining lab.
I might be out of positive points already, though. Even Steven's departure scene, which should be somewhat emotional, is botched; I don't think Black properly sets up the companion's decision to remain behind and lead the savages. This is really just an ordinary adventure for Steven -- so why is he invested in the fate of these people? And why is he so uniquely suited to be their leader?
To me, Steven was an unfortunate casualty of the Hartnell era. The writers never took advantage of the fact that he was a space traveler from the future. He always came across as just a contemporary guy, well-meaning but hardly exceptional.
Both quotes cited above suggest that Doctor Who was a tired property at this point, and desperately in need of a "fresh approach." I must concur with this assessment, especially in light of the program's tanking ratings. Season three of the original series was hardly terrible, but it did suffer from poorly thought-out companions, and its truly imaginative serials (The Gunfighters, The Celestial Toymaker) suffered from the company of tired stories like this one.
Grade: C