We are living in a strange time as while there is confirmed to be a new episode of Doctor Who to be broadcast this Christmas there's no actor confirmed to play The Doctor. Yet just because that's the case it doesn't mean that we can't look back on some older adventures and as luck would have it there is a new animated reconstruction out on DVD and Blu-Ray and well you all just knew that I had to take a look at this episode the very first chance that I got and so then join me as I review the episode that slowly marks the end of the first doctors era on the show with the episode in question being called simply just "The Savages" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is when The Doctor , Steven and Dodo find themselves on an unnamed planet they find themselves caught up in a war between the seemingly peace loving Elders and the seemingly harmful savages. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot thats actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good with it being made obvious that this episodes plot whilst it is still a really good plot it's also one of the more forgetful Doctor Who plots as this is a plot that does get picked up and dropped alot of the time so much so that it does make it hard to remember what the actual plot of the episode is even meant to be in the first place this being despite the fact that the episode was written by Ian Stuart Black who wrote the episode The Macra Terror and yet whilst that episode did have a fairly solid and fun plot to it here you get the impression that Doctor Who as a show was running out of steam as the ideas that the episode has feel underbaked at best and at worst just straight up watered down to the point where they might as well as not even be there in the first place but in saying this tho you can tell that there was some effort put into making this episodes plot as a good as it was as it does have that magic there that makes for a good Doctor Who plot and yet for one reason or another this episodes plot isn't allowed to be as good as it could have been with the plot of this episode also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this episode is William Hartnell as The Doctor , Peter Purves as Steven Taylor and Jackie Lane as Dodo Chaplet. Also starring in this episode is Frederick Jaeger as Jano , Norman Henry as Senta , Patrick Godfrey as Tor , Ewen Solon as Chal , Peter Thomas as Captain Edal , Geoffrey Frederick as Exorse , Robert Sidaway as Avon , Kay Patrick as Flower , Clare Jenkins as Nanina and Edward Caddick as Wylda.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. With all of the actors in this episode really turning in some good performances something which is to expected from the series regular actors as they would have had more time to really get to know there respective characters but the same thing is also true for the episodes guest actors as well as they all get there characters down perfectly right from the moment that they appear on screen and while the episode is largely either forgotten about by alot of people or just straight up forgettable ne can't deny the fact that the actors in this episode really do give some really good performances and whilst it would be super easy to say that William Hartnell is the best actor in the episode the fact is that the best actor in this episode is Peter Purves as he does get alot of screen time in this episode and therefor gets more of a chance to show us just what it is that he can do as an actor something which he does take full advantage of as as well as having the more action scenes that his character would usually get he also gets alot of the episodes more dramatic scenes as well which he does pull off really well with the acting that's in this episode really being helped by the fact that the script for this episode is just so good that all this episodes actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very episode.
For once I really cannot list who did the animation for this episode as there is no animation company listed anywhere online. Now then interms of what u personally thought / felt about the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad with the episode having what can best be described as being a rather simplistic animation style something which was no doubt due to the fact that these animations never really have a huge budget for them and yet that simplicity is something that does work well enough in this episodes as while you can tell where they cut alot of corners as you never see the characters legs move when there walking for example you do get some really nice looking backgrounds out of it due to how simple that they look with the characters designs looking as close to there real life actors as they could possibly get them altho if truth be told The Celestial Toymaker has the better animation to it as that episode really takes full advantage of the fact that it's being animated by giving us weird and unique looking visuals where as this episode due to it's plot and setting really can't do that and therefor the animation does come across as being a bit on the weak side this is despite the fact that this episodes director AnneMarie Walsh has worked on some of the better animated Doctor Who adventures with her even directing a fait chunk of them herself and yet here everything about the animation just looked cheap this is of course of no fault of the animators rather it's the fault of the BBC for not giving them a big enough budget in the first place.
This episode actually slowly starts the end of William Hartnells run in the show as this episode sees the departure of Steven with the following episode seeing the departure of Dodo and the episode after that being the episode where his doctor regenerates. With Steven leaving the show being something that actor Peter Purvis hated with him quoted as saying "I was unhappy to leave it, actually, I didn’t particularly want it to stop there, but the policy of the programme had changed and they’d decided that they were not going to keep the companions onboard for longer than a year, or so I understand." with the departure of his character being something that was rushed as it only gets brought it up in the literal final moments of the episode and is never mentioned at all during the rest of the episode whereas you could have made an entire episode about Steven wanting to leave the TARDIS for whatever reason and have it be this nig impactful thing and yet it's something that gets treated as an afterthought but he gets the goldstar treatment when compared to Dodo as he actually leaves the show on screen whereas with her she disappears for half of the episode and then decides off screen that she wants to leave the TARDIS but on a much more happy note this episode does also mark the first time that the episode had just one one title as all of the episodes up until the previous episode each had individual titles to them with this one even being one of the very few episodes of classic Doctor Who that was mostly filmed on location with the crew even making of a quarry for the first time in Doctor Who history and yet even with all of those first it's the fact that a key character is disregarded this badly that does bring the whole thing down as Steven would never willingly leave The Doctor it would take something truly special for him to leave the TARDIS and acting as the middle man while two sides gets used to living with each other isn't a good enough reason for him to leave the show for good.
Like a shockingly lot of classic Doctor Who this episode is still missing as we only have the audio for the episode some tele snaps and a few brief bits of footage recorded on an eight millimeter camera and that's it. As all of four of these episodes just don't exist anymore which is still a sad thing to see as this episode as forgettable as it can be is still one that is very enjoyable and should be available for all to watch as the makers of the episode had originally intended it to be viewed and heck we don't even have a production file for this episode as the BBC just never bothered to keep alot of the documents for this episode it is possible that the missing episodes are still around in someone private collection somewhere which would be a good thing as it would mean that alot of this third series of Doctor Who would be found and yet it won't change the fact that the BBC chose to wipe the episode after possibly selling the tapes around the world as it would be interesting to see this episode as the makers of this show had originally intended for it be seen as the makers of these animations do make changes to the character designs alot of the time and therefor they aren't the truest representation of what the original episode would have looked and yet for now it is the closest we will ever get to seeing this episode at all as there's not been news on any missing Doctor Who episodes being found for quite some time now which is sad as alot of shows not just this one do deserve to have all of there episodes be found so that new generations can discover them and watch them and with a show like Doctor Who which does have this huge fanbase already that spans generations it would be a great way to get the fans of newer Doctor Who into classic Doctor Who as well.
The villains of this episode are The Elders who are this seeming peace loving group of people who have evolved to the point where they allow there artists and there scientists to do whatever they want which usually results in them creating masterpieces. Yet underneath this bright exterior lies the truth of the matter as while they present themselves as having free will and are able to do whatever they want they are unable to go into certain parts of there home and are unable to leave there city's ground with The Elders being more controlling then what they let on and with the Savages they are more free despite not having as much as the Elders have with the Savages basically used as ways for The Elders to remain young as they suck the life force out of the Savages something which Dodo quickly catches on to as she does catch them doing this to one of the Savages as they just have to take it due to the Elders having a gun that makes them do whatever they want yet even with this cool idea for villains the episode really doesn't go all the way with it as the elders themselves don't really have an end goal in mind with it seeming like they are evil just for the sake of being being evil whereas an episode like this would have worked all the more better if they did have an end goal like for example as they see the savages as being inferior to them it would make sense that they were doing this to get rid of them entirely something that they wouldn't have known would effect them in a negative way as they believe themselves to be these perfect people and yet the makers of this episode chose to not really give them any kind of motivation which is something that does make them feel like a waste of a really cool idea.
Now then whilst I cannot for the absolutely life of me remember whatever this episodes grand total running time was I do know that this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of roughly one hour and thirty eight minuets. With this episode being a shockingly small four episodes which yes granted is a decent episode count for Doctor Who but this is an episode that really should have been five or six episodes long as the final two episodes throw so much at you that it doesn't have enough time to fully develop them whereas if the episode was just an episode or two longer all of those ideas could be more fleshed with the episode having more then enough plot there to cover that amount of running time and yet even so the episode doesn't use it's running time all that wisely a it doesn't develop it's plot at all with this mainly due to the fact that the episode has to rush from plot point to plot point to fit that four episode limit which does mean that the episode can't have enough time to breathe and let it's plot develop with this even affecting the episodes characters as well as none of them get any character development which is fine for the main series characters as you could argue that they get there development in the episodes but for the episodes guest characters there really should have been some character development given to them with this being something that they could have gotten if the episode ha more episodes in it as then we'd get the chance to find more about them and even Steven who leaves at the end of this episode gets nothing interms of character development either but I really will admit that this episode really does have some really bad pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is an action show that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. While classic Doctor Who was always more of an adventure show that never really had that many great action scenes in it which is something that is still the case for this episode what little action that they did have did look good and was more impactful because of the fact that there was an action scene every five minuets which again is also true for this episode as while the episode really only has the two action scenes they both work as well as they could have done because of the fact that there wasn't alot of action scenes in the episode and yet this episodes action is one that could have been so much better as it just felt more tame when compared to action scenes in other classic Doctor Who episodes with the best action scene in the whole episode being when The Doctor and his allies destroy the Elders main lab as it was just a simple scene and while nothing cool happens in that scene it was fun seeing our heroes really just destroying and breaking things in there just for the sake of it and while the attack of the Savages cave was a good scene there was nothing really to that scene outside of one cool shot with Steven only just dodging the Elder light gun and that was really it but it was still a really good action scene in it's own right in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall it i easy to see why this serial is forgettable at best as outside of the departure of Steven there's really nothing all that memorable about the episode itself as alot of it does feel like that they were running out of steam when it comes to this era of Doctor Who in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Tardis . Wiki and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very review being the really great Tardis . Wiki really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very episode with alot of them really being really better quality then what you'd really think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on Tardis . Wiki really are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.



























