‘I don’t intend to leave these people in this oppressed state’
‘Oppose you? Indeed I am going to oppose you, just in the same way that I oppose the
Daleks or any other menace to common humanity’
The Doctor has come a long way since ‘An Unearthly Child’, his travels have been followed and celebrated by an ‘advanced civilisation’ of the future. No, not fandom, but rather ‘The Elders’ (that’s what I’m calling them anyway – not sure if they have an actual name beyond that) of another planet have been watching his adventures just as we have. To them he is ‘the Traveller from beyond time’ and the ‘greatest specialist in time-space exploration’. More than that and this has been a gradual change, over time he has become a hero, the man who stands up for the exploited and bullied, someone with the moral indignation and righteous anger to expose suffering and fight cruelty. In short, he has, by ‘The Savages’, completed a journey that more or less begins with ‘Dalek Invasion of Earth’ (there are signs earlier) and has become the Doctor. As sometimes happens in fandom though, the members of this ‘advanced civilisation’ have completely missed the point of what they’ve been watching.
I recently watched ‘Twice Upon a Time’ and thought after my reservations about the writing of the First Doctor that I would return to the real thing. But with a twist, as in ‘The Savages we also get to see Jano’s version of the First Doctor as played by Frederick Jaeger – and although brief, rather good it is too. Apparently, Jaeger had the benefit of being tutored by the man himself – to me he has both the tone and manner of Hartnell’s performance. I was also left reflecting though on the irony of seeing William Hartnell being impersonated by someone who in first sight (more later) appears to be ‘blacked up’ – it is all a bit bewildering. For Jano, a little bit of the Doctor makes an intelligent, artistic, but fatally flawed and morally compromised man a better person and force for good. There is a lesson there I think – shouldn’t our encounters with the Doctor make us better?
This is in many ways a fascinating story – probably the least known in the whole run of TV stories. The closest contender for that title is probably ‘The Massacre’, which does not have the telesnap images that this story does, but I think most fans at least know what the story is about, they know about the doppleganger aspect, they maybe know that Dodo joins at the end and they might know the Doctor’s speech as Steven leaves the TARDIS – from ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’ if nowhere else. In the anniversary DWM poll (it came 198th) – ‘The Savages’ was the least voted upon story across the whole 50 years of the show. Which speaks volumes about its standing in the world of Who fandom. I am not sure why that is, obviously all its episodes are missing – but then that applies to ‘Power of the Daleks’. Possibly it is because it doesn’t feature a monster as such, but then it does feature a companion leaving. For me it is a nice, gentle backwater of a story and ripe for further exploration. It is one I have always enjoyed on audio, but this time around I watched the recon for the first time.
One of the side effects of the story being missing is that I’ve never really thought about the cast. I’ve listened to the story quite a few times on audio over the years, I’ve looked at the telesnaps, but never noticed how many of the cast appear in other ‘Doctor Who’ stories. Apart from Frederick Jaeger who plays Professors Sorenson and Marius, we also have Ewen Solon also from ‘Planet of Evil’, the two UNIT officers – Captain Turner and Major Cosgrove. Clare Jenkins plays the admirable Nanina, the female ‘Savage’ wearing Raquel Welch’s cast-off fur bikini (actually it now appears that isn’t true – it isn’t skimpy enough apparently, but take a look at one of the telesnaps from episode 3 to see how revealing the costume was – it certainly seems to have impressed Peter Purves!). A couple of years later she plays foxy space scientist Tanya Lernov in ‘Wheel in Space’. Before watching the recon, apart from Jaeger, I don’t think I could have named a single cast member. So sometimes the recons do add something to your understanding of these stories. Talking of which..
‘The White Savages’
I’ve seen reviews criticising the story on grounds of racism. The theory I think being that it was originally called ‘The White Savages’ and maybe was a role-reversal type of story so-beloved of the 60’s and 70’s. I am not sure how much solid evidence for this – I haven’t found anything concrete. It doesn’t have appeared to have been Ian Stuart Black’s aim – when asked about the change of title from ‘The White Savages’ – he replied ‘I think they took out white, because it suggested something racial’, his character descriptions also don’t mention their colour, so if it was, maybe it was a production decision. I’m not sure that even recovering the episodes would help – as they are in black and white. The telesnaps don’t help hugely either, the Elders are clearly wearing make-up that darken their skin, but it could equally be gold or silver for all the help that they give. Cast member Peter Thomas recalls that they were painted gold. The doubt would be that the Elders also have darkened hair or wigs and Flower is wearing vaguely ‘African’ looking jewellery. Anyway, I doubt we’ll ever know (be fascinated to know if anyone does), so let’s give it the benefit of the doubt – it clearly means well. Its central theme is a society built on the direct exploitation of others, where one part of the population is segregated from another and its life force drained by the other ‘civilised’ faction can be read as a criticism of empire and colonialism or apartheid or a more general piece on the exploitation of workers – which was the way that I’ve always read it in the past before seeing the telesnaps or reading any reviews.
Ian Stuart Black studied philosophy and if you view this story through that lens and in conjunction with ‘The Macra Terror’, it is clear that the intentions are to warn us of the dangers of societies built on oppression and exploitation by the elite – both are societies with a dark, hidden secret. The message of ‘The Savages’ is simply that the end (a civilisation of great learning and culture) does not justify the means – vampirically extracting the life force of another group who you view as sub-human. It feels very much in the vein of H.G. Wells, who’s stories are inspired by his socialism.
‘Our ancestors were great artists. As time passes, we are less able to do such things. Most of our talents have been taken from us. Only our faith remains, and that they will never take.’
An aspect that I hadn’t noticed before is that the ‘Savages’ themselves clearly have their own culture – for example their art – which is slipping away every time they are exploited by the Elders and from the telesnaps their caves are clearly adorned with carvings. They also talk about their ‘faith’. This isn’t really expanded upon, but it is mentioned a couple of times, it isn’t clear if they have turned to religion to get them through their hardship (in a similar way that the inhabitants of the motorway in ‘Gridlock’ have) or whether there was a schism between the artists/religious faction and the scientists on this world. Either way the justification by the Elders that ‘They are hardly people. They are not like us.’ (a familiar use of de-humanisation to excuse your actions) simply does not wash and in any case would be morally repugnant even if it were true. In contrast to this we have the compassion that Nanina shows saving the life of the guard Exorse – it is true they aren’t like you Jano.
There are some scenes in ‘The Savages’ that are really quite disturbing. Particularly the ‘transference process’ when Nanina is captured and is put in the machine. Her screams are really quite unnerving, as is the aftermath – her being carried back out of the city barely conscious. We also get to see the effects it has on the Doctor – he is completely exhausted, barely alive, not really comprehending where he is. This really sells what could have an abstract sci-fi concept and shows us just how much this takes out of the individuals who have been ‘processed’. Added to his attack by the Toymaker and the effects of the Time Destructor, it is little wonder that only a couple of stories later The Doctor’s body is ‘wearing a bit thin’.
Against this, we have the Doctor (and his proxy Jano), Steven and Dodo. Dodo in particular gets some good stuff in this one for a change, disobeying and wandering off to discover the laboratory and seeing the process first hand. This carries on through to the denouement, which is rather gleeful. She joins in with the smashing of transference machines:
THE DOCTOR:‘You know, my dear, there’s something very satisfying in destroying something that’s evil, don’t you think?’
DODO: ‘Yes!’
Jano, possessing some of the spirit of the Doctor after absorbing his life-force, starts to question the world he has built. And as would happen many times after this, thanks to the Doctor, corrupt, oppressive regimes fall and at the end the Doctor leaves them to pick up the pieces and reconstruct their society.
JANO: Doctor, for many light years we looked forward to your arrival on this planet. We always knew of your wisdom, but we never dreamed of the miracle that it would bring us.
DOCTOR: Thank you, Jano. And if ever you need the benefit of my wisdom again, I trust and hope you will allow me to express myself with my own free will, rather than place me in an oven, and try and cook it out of me.
That last line is classic Hartnell, it feels more of an ad-lib than the line as written! New starts are made for the ‘Savages’ and ‘Elders’ and Steven leaves to become a leader. The Doctor is touchingly proud of his prodigy:
‘Well, I must say, young man, I’m very proud of you.’
I’m not sure how much Steven is actually bundled into this by the Doctor, in the manner that Susan was packed off with David in ‘Dalek Invasion of Earth’, but at least his fate has a purpose and he fares better in that regard than poor Dodo does in the next story.
‘We must go. We mustn’t look back.’
And we must, the swinging 60’s of contemporary awaits and time is up for Steven and Dodo, the Doctor himself is on the brink of change and it is almost, but not quite the end of the type of story that ‘The Savages’ represents. It manages to somehow feel new and old-hat at the same time. We would see morality tales in the likes of ‘The Dominators’ and ‘The Krotons’ which have similar themes, but Ian Stuart Black’s later offering ‘The Macra Terror’ feels more morally complex and more ‘modern’ than this. And the future lay in ‘bases under siege’ and more contemporary Earth settings, so his next story (‘The War Machines’) is more of a signal to the future than this would prove to be.
Ultimately, ‘The Savages’ might possess the title for the least known ‘Doctor Who’ story, but in the final analysis, it is an interesting story – conceived in the high-minded era of Wiles and Tosh, but delivered in the changing world of Lloyd and Davis, one of our last Hartnell stories, one which again sidelines him for part of the story, but still finds another way of showcasing all that is great about him. So much so, that more than 50 years after this story, another actor is playing his role, ‘The Doctor’ – the definite article you might say.
A Journal of Impossible Things 