The Savages (Doctor Who)
The Doctor confronts a society sustained by draining life force.
The Savages is the ninth serial of the third season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on BBC1 in four weekly parts from 28 May to 18 June 1966. Written by Ian Stuart Black and directed by Christopher Barry, it features the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his companions Steven (Peter Purves) and Dodo (Jackie Lane). The serial is notable as the final appearance of Purves as Steven and for its anti-colonialist and pro-democratic themes.
Quick Facts
- Number
- 026
- Serial name
- The Savages
- Doctor
- William Hartnell – First Doctor
- Companions
- Peter Purves – Steven Taylor; Jackie Lane – Dodo Chaplet
- Director
- Christopher Barry
- Writer
- Ian Stuart Black
- Script editor
- Gerry Davis
- Producer
- Innes Lloyd
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The First Doctor, Steven, and Dodo land the TARDIS on a far-future planet. They find two populations: the Elders, who live in an advanced and peaceful city, and roaming groups called savages. The Elder leader, Jano, greets the Doctor warmly, claiming to have followed his adventures and expected his arrival. He offers gifts and praise. The Doctor soon doubts this perfect society, and Dodo uncovers the truth: the Elders sustain their energy by siphoning the life force from the helpless savages. Horrified, the Doctor tries to reason with them and stop the practice. Jano, wanting the Doctor’s intelligence, forces him into a transfer device that drains his life force into Jano. This plan fails when Jano absorbs the Doctor’s personality, morals, and mannerisms, leaving him conflicted. Outside the city, Dodo and Steven meet the savage leaders, Chal and Tor. These savages are the degraded descendants of a once artistic and skilled race, their creativity crushed by centuries of energy theft. Chal hides the two in deep caves while a guard named Exorse pursues them; Steven overpowers Exorse. They return to find a weakened but resolute Doctor and help him flee. The time travellers join the savages in fighting back. The Doctor concludes that the Elders will not change through persuasion alone; they must be compelled. His mixed consciousness influences Jano to aid the savages. Jano and Exorse, now reformed, begin dismantling the technology that powers their society, with help from the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo. The destruction ends the oppression, and Jano and Chal start talks about building a new society together. The Doctor surprises Steven by asking him to stay as a mediator. Both sides agree, so Steven remains. The Doctor and a grieving Dodo say goodbye and leave in the TARDIS.
Production
Ian Stuart Black, who was working on the BBC2 series Ransom for a Pretty Girl in late 1965, walked over to the Doctor Who production office and asked producer John Wiles and story editor Donald Tosh if he could pitch a story. He had been watching the show with his children from the very first serial and wanted them to see something he had written. Instead of relying on violence and action, Black aimed to engage the audience’s intellect with a plot where human energy was drained to sustain a society of artists. Tosh and Wiles gave the go-ahead, and Black signed a contract for a four-part story in December 1965. He turned in his storyline on 13 January 1966. The team briefly thought about swapping Black’s scripts with the troubled serial The Gunfighters, but the problems were sorted out and the original order stood. Wiles described Black’s synopsis as “very exciting.” Both Tosh and Wiles left the series in January, and their replacements, Gerry Davis and Innes Lloyd, took over. Davis commissioned Black to write Doctor Who and the White Savages on 19 January, with the production code AA. The four scripts were due weekly from 21 February but arrived ahead of schedule: the first on 26 January, the next three on 8, 10, and 23 February. Christopher Barry, an old friend of Lloyd’s who had directed The Daleks and The Rescue/The Romans, was brought in as director. He found the script uninteresting and thought the programme had grown stale.
Reception
The Savages aired on BBC1 across four weekly installments from late May to mid-June 1966, shifted to a 5:35 p.m. slot. It clawed back some of the audience that had drifted away during The Gunfighters, but its ratings stayed weak, averaging 4.975 million viewers per episode—the lowest of the third season. The fourth episode hit a series low of 4.5 million, the smallest audience since Doctor Who’s debut in 1963. This serial broke new ground by dropping individual episode titles, using a single story name split into numbered parts instead. An audience report for the final episode found children enjoyed it, while adult reactions split between praise for the excitement and complaints of dullness; performances by Solon, Jaeger, and Thomas earned specific commendation. The Appreciation Index edged up from The Celestial Toymaker, scoring 48 for three episodes and 49 for the second. Doctor Who Magazine readers have consistently placed The Savages in the lower half of First Doctor stories and the bottom quarter of all serials. It gained a reputation as forgettable and inconsequential; Peter Haining suggested a monster would have made it stick in the memory. Jamie Lenman of DWM praised William Hartnell’s “bursts of fiery indignation” in the second episode as “amongst his finest performances,” while Radio Times’ Braxton highlighted how Hartnell’s “vehement anti-authoritarianism” made the Doctor so endearing.
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