PRODUCTION CODE

AA

 

WRITTEN BY

IAN STUART BLACK

 

DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER BARRY

 

RATINGS

4.9 MILLION

 

WORKING TITLE

THE WHITE SAVAGES

 

RECOMMENDED 

PURCHASE

'THE SAVAGES' AUDIO CD (ISBN 0-563-53502-7) RELEASED IN NOVEMBER 2002.

 

CLICK TO ENLARGE IN COLOUR

  

BLURB

When the TARDIS

materialises on an alien planet, the Doctor insists that he and his companions have arrived in the far  future. Steven and Dodo think otherwise, however, after they encounter a band of cave-dwelling primitives who are terrified of strangers. The travellers soon discover that the planet’s population is divided into two castes, and that the professed idyll of the Elders – who inhabit a technologically advanced city – seems oddly dependent upon the unsophisticated savages.

 

 

BBC ARCHIVE

ALL FOUR EPISODES ARE MISSING.

 

The Savages

28TH MAY 1966 - 18TH JUNE 1966

(4 EPISODES)

 

 

                                                       

 

 

With its four episodes missing from the BBC’s archives, The Savages is a classic Doctor Who serial that is often overlooked - a great shame considering that it is much better than some of Season 3’s more celebrated missing stories. Ian Stuart Black’s story is clever and compelling, and buoyed throughout by the exposed bum cheeks of Clare Jenkins’ Nanina (which have been immortalised through John Cura’s telesnaps).

 

 

I love the ambiguity of this serial. The state of affairs on the Savages’ and Elders’ planet is uncertain, to say the least – it takes a long time for the audience to truly get to grips with which faction has the moral high ground. If we contrast, for instance, the first episode’s cliffhanger, in which Dodo screams at the mere sight of a Savage lost inside the Elders’ city, with the scene later on in the serial where Nanina tends to an injured Elder who had mistreated her earlier in the story, we can appreciate how expertly Black turns our prejudices on their heads as his narrative unfurls. Compare this against Galaxy 4’s sledgehammer approach and note the difference.

 

The Savages also marks Peter Purves’s final appearance as Steven Taylor, the Doctor’s fifth television companion deciding to remain behind at the story’s conclusion to take charge of the Savages’ and Elders’ troubled planet. It’s a unexpectedly decent dénouement for Steven, which Purves plays very well, and so it’s fitting for him to provide the linking narration for the serial’s surviving soundtrack here. William Hartnell is also on fine form in this story despite his failing health, particularly in the serial’s final episode which also houses Frederick Jaeger’s unintentionally hilarious impression of Hartnell’s Doctor as his character is unwittingly infused with the Doctor’s traits.

 

 

Ultimately the loss of The Savages is never going to be mourned with the same passion as many others, but thanks to its almost non-existent reputation one is at least able to listen to it without any lofty preconceptions – and, more often than not, be pleasantly surprised.

 

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2006

 

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Design

 and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

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