Day 62 — March 3rd 2021
The Savages Episodes Three and Four
The Savages — Episode Three
This one feels a bit like an Episode Three, doesn’t it? Regular readers will know that I tend to find third episodes the weakest of the bunch, and I think that hold sup here, despite my overall enjoyment of the story. This feels like one which would be very enjoyable to watch, though, because the tele-snaps for this third episode look fantastic.
There’s several lengthy cave sequences throughout this one and I’m surprised by just how dark and moody they appear to be. It means that the tele-snaps are largely hard to make out — being either too dark or the action too over exposed by comparison, but I reckon it would have been especially dramatic in motion. It’s not often you get sequences shot quite as starkly as this.
The other oddity about this episode is William Hartnell’s role in it. He doesn’t have any dialogue, and only interacts with other actors during the cliffhanger. For most of the episode he’s simply required to lie down a bit! It’s another thing that seems to bolster the idea that he was a particularly unwell man by this point, but it appears to have been written this way from the off, and he was certainly well enough the previous week.
Instead, this feels like another dry-run for writing Hartnell out of the series, having Frederick Jaeger copy his mannerisms having extracted Doctor Who’s life energy. It’s strange to think that there was a time when a potential Second Doctor Who would be played in exactly the same manner as the first, but that’s what I think they’ve got in mind when writing things like this.
I think the whole final sequence and cliffhanger, with Doctor Who stumbling down the corridor is terrifying — it’s certainly one of the scariest things we’ve been given in the series up to this point. There’s something about seeing our hero so altered by something his enemies have done which makes it feel closer to home. It’s bizarre how much simply undoing Hartnell’s tie and shirt can have such a scary effect — I’m used to him looking a certain way, and to disrupt that feels wrong.
Yesterday, I quoted a bit from the Doctor Who Magazine tele-snap special, and their introduction to this story. On the subject of Steven’s departure in this story they said;
‘[The Savages] does Steven a disservice; Steven is not developed or given anything particularly interesting to do and there’s no foreshadowing of his departure at all. When Chal and Tor declare they want Steven as their new leader, Steven isn’t the only one for whom this comes completely out of the blue.’
At the time this was one of the criticisms I agreed with, but listening today I think there’s more set up than I remembered. It’s perhaps not obvious, but the reaction of the Savages in this episode when Steven overpowers a guard and takes him hostage is definitely the moment they decide they revere this man, and I think there’s a direct link from there to them wanting him to stay behind. They’ve never seen someone stand up and fight for them like this, and from that moment on there’s no way Steven is going to be allowed to leave them.
A typical Episode Three, then, but with flashes of brilliance and horror. I think if we could see this one it would score higher, but for now a 7/10.
The Savages — Episode Four
I might think there’s enough set up for Steven’s departure, but I can’t say that makes me any happier about it. Steven — and Peter Purves — has been such a central part of the series for the last 50-or-so episodes, and I’m going to miss him massively from now on. I think he feels even more embedded in my mind because of the episodes he’s featured in, I’ve listened to 28 of them with his narration on the soundtrack. It makes his presence in the stories feel even more important.
And then of course there’s the fact that he’s had to take the lead so often while behind the scenes battles have conspired to reduce Hartnell’s role in the series. Purves has effectively been the lead character in an episode of The Time Meddler, the last two episodes of The Daleks’ Master Plan, two episodes of The Massacre (and technically in most of the remaining ones, too, so let’s call it two and a half!), most of The Celestial Toymaker, and again in this one. No other companion has felt as vital to the structure of the show as Steven over the course of this season.
I’m thrilled that so many moments of his actual departure survive in the form of off-air 8mm clips — there’s something genuinely touching about being able to see them, and the emotion comes across even in this brief format. The handshake between Steven and Doctor Who is an especial highlight. Purves has said in the past that Hartnell wasn’t pleased to see him leave, and you feel that he would be missed by the team as much as he will by me.
The 8mm clips also capture — very briefly — some of Jackie Lane’s brilliance in this episode, too, as she smashes up the laboratory. On audio this scene sounds pretty impressive, with everything crashing down around them, and it looks like the cast really went for it during recording! This has been one of Dodo’s best stories, and I wonder if she’d be somewhat reassessed as a companion if we could see her standing up to the bad guys more clearly?
Doctor Who himself continues to be more like the character we’ll know from here on, telling Dodo at one point ‘There’s something very satisfying in destroying something that’s evil, don’t you think?’. He remains looking dishevelled throughout this one, and that appeals to me. Right back in An Unearthly Child I said how much I loved it when it looks like the adventure has had a real impact on the characters, and that’s especially true here.
I’m giving the last episode of The Savages an 8/10, and the average score across all four episodes works out the same. That means this is tied with The Time Meddler as my second favourite story so far (with The Aztecs out ahead holding an average of 8.75). I’m thrilled that my opinion on this one doesn’t seem to have swayed much since I last experienced it, and I really wish it could be rediscovered. I think it’s probably just shot right up to the top of my ‘most wanted’ list. Partly because I’d love to see it, and partly because I think that Doctor Who Magazine introduction is right — this one is overlooked, and it deserves to be seen and appreciated all over again.
