The Savages

New writer to the series, Ian Stuart Black, wrote this story, and it’s a very interesting one too. Since ‘The Daleks Masterplan’ every Doctor Who story has been four parts, and the series really is really benefiting from shorter stories and a regular pattern and pace. ‘The Savages’ starts with a lot of location work, and it continues throughout the story. This was something I really noticed, and it occurred to me that to this point the amount of location shooting  throughout the series had been extremely limited.

Apart from ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ and ‘The Myth Makers’, location shooting had only been the occasional linking shot or something like that. Nearly the end of the third season, ‘The Savages’ provides us with the first alien planet shot outdoors – in a quarry naturally! There is a fair bit of outside stuff shot on film for this one, possibly the most to date. It represents a shift in the way the show is produced – now with Innes Llyod at the helm and script editor Gerry Davis. I thought the previous team of Wiles and Tosh were doing some very interesting things with the series, but from watching Donald Tosh interviewed on ‘The Gunfighters’ DVD I see that Lloyd’s ideas for the show were quite different from Tosh and Wiles’, who didn’t have a good crack at the series in all fairness to them. Not all of their stories hit the mark but they were always trying to do something different.

William Hartnell gets all scientific as savages watch on.

Lloyd and Davis took over from ‘The Celestial Toymaker’, however I think this was the first story they commissioned and really had their mark on. And it’s a good start! Sadly, not existing at all in the archives, I realise now that the next couple of seasons’ worth of stories will be hard to get through as there will be a lot of reconstructions. My friend Andrew told me he had never watched the full reconstruction of this one before. He has now!

It’s very much a (well executed) ‘ideas’ story. The concept is interesting, and political too. I’m not sure if it was inspired by apartheid or colonialism in general, but the theme is taking things off others to make you strong. The elders take the life force from ‘the savages’ on this world. They have found a way to take this life force from the savages making them smarter and healthier, whilst the savages are left to live in caves and run around in skin. Perhaps the story is representing the concept of the poor making rich people rich?

Presumably this world is some sort of human colony far in the future, but it wasn’t 100% clear to me. It is mentioned that the savages are the same as the elders – they are both the same race in other words. It’s quite an horrific idea really, and a very adult concept for the show to deal with. I wonder what the children watching back in the day would have made of it.

It's a sad farewell to Steven
and Peter Purves

It is also Peter Purves’ final story as Steven Taylor. Lloyd and Davis had decided to move on both companions as soon as they could, and wasted little time in moving on Peter Purves sadly. At least it was a decent story to go out on for Steven, staying behind to help rebuild a society that couldn’t see that what they were doing was wrong. The leader of the Elders, Jano, is well played by  Frederick Jaeger.

The Doctor and Jano

It’s a nice twist to the plot and the character of Jano when they drain the Doctor of his essence and transfer it to Jano. He can suddenly see that what they have been doing is wrong. Destroying the machines may have been an effective way to stop the plundering of innocent people, but I’m not sure it would have effectively changed the planet. Most of the Elders were far from convinced that what they were doing was wrong.

It’s a good little story. It has a good look to it, with effective use of location work and some nifty looking corridors. Broadcast in 1966 it would have been the sort of story to get people thinking. Also the first story to abandon individual titles for each episode and just have a title for the whole story. An effectively told, interesting story.

7/10

The Gunfighters

I have been led to believe from my good friend Andrew that ‘The Gunfighters’ has a bad reputation. Some of it based on supposedly the lowest ratings to that point – which is not true, several episodes before ‘The Gunfighters’ rated lower (such as ‘The Ark’). It did have the lowest, to the time, audience appreciation score. Apparently this is one of the reasons that the new production team decided to cut the historical stories.

The Doctor meets Wyatt Earp. Or is that 'Mr Wearp'?

Anyhoo, ‘The Gunfighters’ is a refreshingly enjoyable Doctor Who tale after the previous two which were rather hard work. There’s a light-hearted feel to the piece, filled with a talented guest cast and an outstanding performance from William Hartnell. He knew exactly where to pitch this performance, which he generally does, however, there’s barely a slip of the tongue in this story from our beloved Doctor. The same can’t be said for Anthony Jacobs who took on the role of Doc Holliday. He stumbles and repeats several lines, and looks about 50 whereas Holliday was supposed to be around 30 at the time, and indeed died at 36. However, he is well cast apart from those two minor quibbles.

The strongest of the guest cast is John Alderson as Wyatt Earp, he plays straight man to the Doctor who keeps calling him ‘Mr Wearp’ brilliantly. This joke is brilliantly expanded on when Steven accidently calls him ‘Mr Wearp’ and corrects himself in embarrassment. I liked Peter Purves’ performance as well in this story, although the actor did not. Steven is very weak and ignorant of the surround he is in, which is fair enough as he comes from the far future. It works wonderfully well I think. And Jackie Lane shines as Dodo in her best story thus far, with wonderful interactions with Jacobs.
Americans don’t tend to do British that well (and don’t get me started on their Australian accents!) but it’s fair to say that the British aren’t that great at American accents either. There’s a real mix in this story of good and bad accents. The guys playing the Clantons are not very convincing, and fade in and out and sometimes go a bit British. David Graham gives a great performance as Charlie the barman, however his accent is rather stagey – by that I mean it’s reminiscent of an American accent used by non-Americans on stage. It seems a little too strong, a little too ‘worked on’ perhaps. Generally, the main characters are very good. Reed De Rouen as Pa Clanton probably had the best accent.

Kate sings 'The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon'

This story probably can’t be reviewed without at least mentioning ‘The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon’ – a song that does appear far too frequently in the production. It was written for the production, but why they couldn’t write a couple of other tunes I don’t know. It fits in well with the piece, but it just pops up all the time. On top of that it is sung as part of the story as well as being used as the soundtrack which is mighty confusing. The latter verses of the soundtrack version tells the story as it’s being played out, which I liked. I think they needed to have Kate, Steven and Dodo singing a different tune though. They could have checked the later verses and seen what was going to happen!

The shoot out in the final episode.

The sets are great for ‘The Gunfighters’. The stuff shot on film (mostly just the shootout) looks wonderful in the bigger studio with wider streets and a less claustrophobic feel. Everything looks quite authentic and much of the set seems to be interconnected to itself. They managed to put sand on the ground so we didn’t see a shiny black studio floor too which really helps. Very well done.

Dodo is is held hostage by Johnny Ringo

One last nod to the cast – Laurence Payne as Johnny Ringo. Wonderful casting, played him very dark and his introduction to the third episode changes the mood of the entire piece leading up to the shootout. In reality he wasn’t at the shootout, Pa Clanton was already dead and many other things didn’t happen as they did in this piece. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story. And despite what others may say, this is a good story.

8/10