The Celestial Toymaker' seems to have been largely regarded as a classic, until the soundtrack and surviving episode were released, since when praise for the story has been rather muted. This is a shame, as Doctor Who's first foray into surrealism, whilst flawed, is a highly imaginative and engaging story. 

The Toymaker himself is a great villain, played with relish by Michael Gough. The concept of a villain who is enormously powerful and immortal and whose motivation is solely to stop himself getting bored is now relatively widespread in science fiction and fantasy, but at the time it was a fairly original idea and this was the first time that Doctor Who explored it. The Toymaker captures victims simply to play games; the fact that he sadistically turns them into eternal toys and makes it virtually impossible for anyone to beat him is what makes him an actual villain. He's also one of the most charismatic villains to appear in the programme up to this point, and maintains an air of avuncular charm right up until the end; he doesn't rant because, quite simply, he doesn't need to, since he is in complete control of his world until his final defeat. Even his occasional moments of anger at his toys are focused and controlled, more like a stern (if psychotic) parent than a megalomaniac who sees his plans at risk of unraveling. Despite this charisma, he is also at times a deeply sinister foe, the most effective example being his "Make your last move" speech during 'The Final Test'. His revelation of the rooms in his doll's house prepared for Steven and Dodo is also a chilling moment, emphasizing that, to the Toymaker, his victims are not people, but playthings.

In the face of such a powerful villain, the Doctor maintains a quite dignity, even when forced to play the trilogic game, and rendered invisible, intangible and mute. His confrontation with the Toymaker at the end is one of his finest moments, as he struggles to outwit and almost undefeatable foe. As he tries to work out how to escape from the Toymaker's final trap, Hartnell's face is a picture of intense concentration, impressively conveying the impression that Doctor is bringing all of his considerable intellect to bear on he problem at hand. His eventual last-minute defeat of the Toymaker by impersonating his foe and ordering the trilogic game to make its last move is an ingenious end to the story. For most of the serial however, he is sidelined and as in 'The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve' his companions take the centre stage. 

'The Celestial Toymaker' is perhaps the best example of why Dodo is so disliked. As she and Steven are forced to play the Toymaker's games, she repeatedly falls into the trap of looking for the good in the Toymaker's servants and trying to befriend them, or at least sympathizing with them. Initially, this is an admirable character trait, but by the time she almost allows Cyril to beat them during 'The Final Test', I found myself admiring Steven's restraint at not strangling her. She seems alternatively stupid and irritating, and falling for Cyril's red ink trick is the last straw. Steven is far more resourceful and pragmatic, and Purves successfully portrays his increasing frustration and anger at being forced to play by the Toymaker's rules, but despite his and Dodo's prominent role in the story, he somehow doesn't really seem to do much here. The story seems entirely constructed to showcase the Toymaker's games, but incredibly, it manages to succeed on this basis, thanks largely to the supporting characters. 

The Toymaker's first three pairs of toys, all played by Campbell Singer and Carmen Silvera, steal the show. Admittedly, Joey and Clara the clowns don't work very well on audio, but the Hearts and Sergeant Rugg and Mrs Wiggs are hugely entertaining, as they exchange banter in their attempts to distract Steven and Dodo from their games and also, perhaps, win themselves and earn their freedom from the Celestial Toyroom. My personal favourites are the Hearts, who are very well characterised. Their constant squabbling, and their attempt to trick the increasingly suspicious Fool into trying one of the chairs, are amusing, and carry 'The Hall of Dolls' along at a merry pace. The lethal nature of the chairs nicely offsets this, maintaining the sinister edge of the story in balance to the humour. The decision by the King and Queen to risk "death" together is strangely touching and reminds the viewer that the Toymaker's servants are just as much victims as the Doctor, Steven and Dodo could become. During 'The Final test', the Toymaker decides to try a more dangerous opponent, presenting us with Cyril, an overgrown schoolboy (rather infamously) in the Billy Bunter mold. He's far more sinister than Singer and Silvera's various characters, which is possibly due in part to the incongruity of seeing an adult dressed and acting like a schoolboy. He's also easily the most ruthless and underhanded of the Toymaker's games, setting a lethal trap for Steven and Dodo which he ultimately falls victim to himself. 

The design of 'The Celestial Toymaker' is excellent, at least based on the existing photographic evidence and the surviving final episode. The incongruous mix of fairground sets and the Toymaker's weird mechanical constructs (including the Toymaker's robot) are highly effective and add to the air of surrealism already evident from the soundtracks of the first three episodes alone. In summary, 'The Celestial Toymaker' is a fascinating and enjoyable experiment in surrealism.

We Doctor Who fans, we're a funny old lot. Take our opinions of the merits of stories, for example. Everyone seems to go out of the way to disagree with each other. It would seem that, in about the 1980s, some chap, most likely Peter Haining, decreed a chunk of stories as "classics". Since then, everybody's been disagreeing with this selection, and supplying other "classics". This really came to light in the nineties as video releases began to really pick up, and people started actually seeing things like 'The Web Planet', and pointing out it wasn't a classic. Indeed, poor Mr. Haining's assertion that 'The Web Planet' was one of the pinnacles of the programme is something that some people still mock today - after, what, fifteen years of the thing being routinely slated, some people still think that they're actually being radical in pointing out that it's not this avant garde masterpiece, but actually a bunch of poor chaps in fibreglass stumbling around for two-and-a-half hours. We all like to be contrary and unique, and sometimes it seems like we're kicking against something non-existent, but we have to sound radical, so that's what we'll do.

For an example inverse to 'The Web Planet', we have 'The Gunfighters'. Both Haining and DWM contributed highly to giving this story the "Worst Ever" mantle in the 1980s, when very few fans had seen it [it did get the series' worst audience appreciation figures IIRC, but then those things don't prove a bloody thing, unless you really think 'Aliens of London' is much better than, say, 'Genesis of the Daleks']. But since then, since it entered satellite rotation and the eventual BBC video release, and copies became significantly easier to get hold of, everyone's kicked against this mantle with gusto.

I don't think I've read a negative review of 'The Gunfighters' since the early-1990s. It's been excluded from "worst ever" discussion for a while, replaced by the likes of 'Timelash', 'The Twin Dilemma' and 'Time and the Rani'. I've also read very few reviews from the past 15 years that haven't referenced this "worst ever" injustice, and none that don't declare this story a "lost classic" [which, I believe, is the classification given to any "classic" that wasn't on that fabled list back in the day; it adds mystery, and gives the reviewer a rank of explorer, daring to uncover those classics that we all feared to view.]

Nobody seems to have said that, all said and done, 'The Gunfighters' is actually pretty average. It's got that Sixties languid quality to it - there's padding aplenty, and everything just seems to take ages [this doesn't affect all Sixties stories, and is present in a fair few later ones, but that's really for another time]. It's something immeasurable, really - if you go down all the checkboxes, and most of them are checked. Great performances from the regulars: check, especially Billy and Peter; Good guest cast: check, especially Anthony Jacobs as Doc Holliday, and despite some general confusion as to whether to go for American accents or not; Good production values: excellent, especially when you consider Western wouldn't be one of the historical periods Aunty Beeb would have a vast warehouse of costumes, sets and scenery, and it looks splendid; Dialogue: a few sharp one-liners and nothing that makes you want to crawl into a hole and die; Plot: pretty good, a nice change from the more pious historical stories. "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" works nicely, a great change from the usual recycled stock music in the Hartnell serials, and it's not too intrusive.

And yet… there's something intrinsically mediocre about 'The Gunfighters'. Something about it just screams "filler story". Once you've watched enough to define it's not The Worst Story Ever [no ludicrous ham-performances, no egg-box monsters, no strings holding things up, etc.] it doesn't hugely hold the interest. There's also a rather out of character Doctor onboard. Watch this straight after the preceding "historical", 'The Massacre'. There the Doctor leaves Anne Chaplet, Nicholas Muss and the rest to their fates at the hands of the Catholics, arguing that history cannot be changed [something that is central to most of the 'historicals' - notably "The Aztecs"]. All well and good, except we get here and the Doctor's actively trying to change history by mediating between Earp and the Clantons… I've heard two different explanations for this. Firstly, that the gunfight at the OK Corral isn't an important enough event for any changes to effect the web of time. Surely that's a big steaming pile of nonsense? Firstly, it's the principle of the thing. Sure, if Johnny Ringo had lived, he wouldn't have invented the microchip or anything. But there's still someone wandering around who should be dead. Secondly, Johnny Ringo, or even someone more minor like Ike Clanton, is certainly a massively more important figure to history than Anne Chaplet. Overall, then, changing history depends on how the Doctor's feeling, right? Of course, most of this is sadly rendered null and void by the historical inaccuracies in the script… Still, they really don't bother me that much, as a) I'm not particularly well-versed in the real history of the Old West (I only knew of the inaccuracies from the excellent video sleeve-notes) and b) as Graham Williams once said "It's all about telling stories, nothing else matters".

Overall, 'The Gunfighters' isn't an especially fascinating story. It deserves credit for trying something a bit different for a historical setting, and for creating a wide group of characters that hold the interest. There's at least one laugh-out-loud moment for the first episode cliff-hanger, and in most measurable terms it's pretty good. However, it's not actually hugely interesting or involving; it seems to be drawing most of its' suspense from whether the Doctor can stop the gunfight happen which doesn't really work, and from who'll win the scrap - and Doc Holliday's just far too self-confident to put much doubt into the outcome. If you're a Hartnell fan, you'll like this as much as you'll like any of the more minor stories. If you're not, despite what others might have told you, this one won't talk you round. Probably the thing that sums 'The Gunfighters' up is that writing this review, getting to go on a tangent and then discussing the implications about changing history was considerably more fun than watching the story itself.

I have never been much of a fan of Westerns. Whenever I’ve caught a Western film on the television I have always found it to be a curiously soulless and depressing experience, and it’s probably the one genre that I go out of my way to avoid watching. This, as you can imagine, presented something of a challenge when it came to The Gunfighters, but overall I have to admit that I did end up enjoying myself.

I think one of the reasons the story is effective is because there is not much else you can compare it to in the rest of Doctor Who, either as a television series or anything else you care to throw into the ‘canon’, be it audio, novel or otherwise. Historical stories were common enough in the era of the First Doctor it’s true, but rarely did we get one that was a) set outside of the UK, or did not at least involve British characters in some shape or form, of b) was predominantly played for laughs.

Donald Cotton is of course well remembered now as a Doctor Who scribe who often enjoyed playing his subject matter for laughs, and in this respect he seems to have tuned in well with the desires of William Hartnell, who was always keen to bring more humour to the part. Right from the recording of the pilot episode Hartnell was looking for ways in which to soften the character, having had a background in comedy films yet always being frustrated by having to play the straight man. The Gunfighters allows him to cut loose from the slightly gruff image the First Doctor sometimes had in his stories, although it’s fair to say that he always had that humorous spark to him anyway. This story plays that to the full though, and you can tell that Hartnell is having a whale of a time playing the character in that manner, which makes his performance a delight to watch on the screen.

Peter Purves also shows us another side to Steven Taylor in this story, although of course here he’s operating under the slightly ludicrous alias of ‘Steven Regret’. It’s often pointed out that the Doctor never makes it clear really what was wrong with Dodo and Steven’s real names for this story, although the fact that he gives them such larger-than-life monikers is in keeping with the slightly unusual tone of the whole story. Steven singing is a sight to behold, and like Hartnell Purves seems to be enjoying bringing a more light-hearted touch to the series. It has to be said though that after the first couple of episodes, there are so many supporting characters wandering around the place that Cotton seems to pretty much run out of things for Steven to do, and there’s never much for Dodo to do at all. In fact, the whole story probably would have been able to work almost as well had the Doctor landed in Tombstone companionless, although we do at least get to find out that both of his associates are, coincidentally, proficient piano players. Another error Cotton makes, although this is somewhat pickier, is that in the same episode he has the Doctor tell Steven the gun he has is from his “favourite collection”, he says he deplores violence and doesn’t want to use one. It seems somewhat odd that he would collect guns at all, especially when he confesses this distaste for them in the same episode, although I suppose he could collect them just to look at. Seems odd though.

It seems almost a shame to have to mention the American accents of the supporting cast, given that it’s the most obvious thing anyone can ever bring up about this story. It’s such a glaring problem though that it’s impossible to ignore, even for me as a British viewer and thus normally less sensitive to that sort of thing. Even I had to wonder though at the very beginning whether the Clanton brothers were even supposed to have accents, some of which at times sound more Australian or Irish than anything. I suppose given this accent problem it’s actually hard to tell how good the guest cast really are, although none of them stood out for me as being particularly stunning. Apart from Anthony Jacobs, that is, whose performance as Doc Holliday I did enjoy, having the ability as he did to make the character by turns the drunken comic and at other times actually quite serious.

I am aware that the story is based on a rather famous real-life happening, and I am also aware that it is apparently rather creative in its portrayal of said story, but then when has there ever been a Doctor Who historical that let the facts get in the way of spinning a good yarn? I don’t know all the ins and outs of the real life events myself, and I suspect that most of the watching audience in 1966 didn’t either, and at the end of the day suggesting there were a bunch of time travellers in Tombstone at the time already suggests the event is not being rendered with pinpoint accuracy.

Something that is often praised about The Gunfighters if nothing else is the quality of the sets, and I have to say I agree with that assessment. Barry Newbury was always one of the more talented designers the series was blessed with down the years, and his recreation of a Western town within the confines of a BBC television studio is very impressive. Nevertheless, the whole thing inevitably looks a lot more impressive when it’s out on film with more time and space for the shooting – in all senses of the word!

Rex Tucker – the man who was initially chosen to produce Doctor Who before moving on, of course – brings a good eye to the camera, and I was especially taken with the raised camera he has in the bar room scenes throughout the studio videotape material. The ability to look down at the action from above cannot have been easy with the clunky great beasts of cameras they were using at the time, but the effort to achieve such shots is worth it.

The Gunfighters possesses storytelling flair not just in terms of its camerawork, however. There is also the infamous Ballad of the Last Chance saloon, and using music as a narrative device is something very much unique to this story. On paper the idea sounds absurd, but on screen I think the effect is actually quite charming, and I have to confess I rather liked the song anyway. It’s not the sort of thing you’d want the show to do every week, but as a one-off occurrence it was well worth doing and just goes to show that the programme was sometimes capable of using the infinitely flexible premise the fans have always boasted it possesses.

Such an assessment probably covers The Gunfighters overall, in fact. Comedy historicals with linking songs are not the sort of thing you would have wanted Doctor Who to come up with each and every single story, but it’s always nice to get something new and refreshing from time to time, and I think the production team are to be applauded for having made the effort. While what they come up with doesn’t always work perfectly, it’s never less than enjoyable and I wouldn’t wish it out of the history of the series at all.

Okay, I'm reviewing this because no one else wanted to. Basically this is one of my least watched episodes because... No, I don't want to say it yet. Because once it starts, it can't stop. 

The story starts out when the Doctor, Steven and Dodo land in the Wild, Wild West; Tombstone to be precise, right next to the O.K. Corral. The Doctor has a toothache and so they decide that the best thing to do is to get it fixed right where they are because the Wild West is known for its hygiene and dental technology. They can go anywhere in time and space, but decide to stay in a place where the only anesthesia is a bottle of the ol' rot gut. So they go across town to look for a dentist and...So fill up your glasses/ And join in the song/The Law's right behind you/ And it won't take long. So come, you coyotes/ And howl at the moon/Till there's blood upon the sawdust/ In "The Last Chance" Saloon.

Stop it! I'm trying to tell the story here! Well, as I was saying, the Doctor gets his tooth pulled by none other than Doc Holliday, whom the Clantons are gunning for and...With rings on their fingers/ And bells on their toes/ The girls come to Tombstone/ In their high-silk hose. They'll dance on the tables/Or sing you a tune/For what's in your wallet/At "The Last Chance" Saloon.

I said stop! Anyway the Doctor is mistaken for Doc Holiday and the Clantons...There's gamblers from Denver/ There's guns from the South/And many a cowboy/With a dry, dry mouth. There's a ragtime piano/ And a small back room/ For to sleep off your troubles/ In "The Last Chance" Saloon.

CUT IT OUT! So the Doctor is thrown in jail after he single handedly, while Steven is on his way to be lynched...You've a good chance of swinging/ It's your last chance to hide/ And your last chance of singing/ Till your last long ride. It's your last chance of cussing/At your hard-earned doom/ It's your last chance of nothing/ At "The Last Chance" Saloon.

AAAAAUUUUGGGHHHH! Stop it! Please, please stop! 

And that's pretty much the story. You follow the action, and then they force that song on you. It's torture! TORTURE!

When it comes down to it, if you can skip the song (and the incredibly bad western accents), it's really a great little story. It's all a case of mistaken identity and revenge in the Wild West. It's important to note that the episode is obviously a broad comedy, which is undermined by that awful song "The Ballad of the Last Change Saloon". It was written as a follow-up to the tongue-in-cheek "The Myth Makers" as that was a pleasurable experience for both producer John Wiles and story editor Donald Tosh. 

It starts out with Steven and Dodo realizing they're in the Old West, then dressing up in the most god-awful, stereotypical western clothes that you might find a small boy wearing at the Universal City Walk on Halloween. It's hysterical! In fact, one of the funniest moments of the entire series of Doctor Who is at the end of Episode One where the Clantons force Steven to sing at gunpoint as Dodo plays the piano. I was reminded of Buster Keaton, it's that funny. Peter Purves is a comic genius as he reluctantly sing that awful song...Johnny Ringo has found her/ Johnny Ringo's found Kate/The gunslinger's got her/Now what is her fate?/Johnny Ringo has seen her/She's coming his way/Johnny Ringo and Katie/Were lovers, they say.

That doesn't mean I want you to sing it! 

Really the thing that ruins this episode for me is the production values. It's a very funny episode, but it isn't produced that way. The reason why is that both Wiles and Tosh left Doctor Who, and were replaced by producer Innes Lloyd and story editor Gerry Davis. They disliked the historical genre, and disliked comedic episodes more, as they had a more serious vision of Doctor Who. They deliberately try to portray a Bonanza episode, but it's totally not what the script calls for, and writer Donald Cotton wasn't happy about it. And in inserting that incredible annoying song...So the cards they are drawn and/The chips they are down/Them outlaws and lawmen/Are headin' for town. So them bad cruel outlaws/ Are meeting up soon/ And they've had their last drink in/ "The Last Chance" Saloon.

Don't you start! The song really takes away from the story. It's incredibly annoying! Especially in episode one where they play it every two minutes, and that's the problem. It is played so much. But you have to give them kudos for trying something new and different. It's a very different format for Doctor Who, especially at that time when the other stories surrounding it are very much regular Doctor Who stories. But it would have been a much better, tighter episode without the song.

The episode is not historically accurate as the idea was to portray the mythical version of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral that everyone knew. According to the website Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel) (http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/drwho.html): "In truth, Earp was not the sheriff of Tombstone, and in fact had failed in his attempts to bribe his way into that position (his brother Virgil had become deputy marshal of Cochise County, which included Tombstone, in the same manner). Earp and Doc Holliday were both gamblers, and the Clantons were essentially a rival gang. After Wyatt's efforts to frame the Clantons for murder failed, he confronted them outside the O.K. Corral with Virgil, their brother Morgan, and Holliday, and gunned the Clantons down -- although Ike Clanton (and possibly one other member of his gang, which included Billy Clanton, Frank and Tom McLaury and, according to some sources, Billy Claiborne) escaped."

It's worth it to see at least once, just keep the remote handy to mute that terrible, terrible song-So beware all you cowboys/ Who's a-yearning' to sin/If the Earps is the lawmen/You ain't gonna win

I give up.

Back when I was at school, I got my first access to a Doctor Who episode guide, in the form of Peter Haining's Doctor Who – A Celebration. According to this tome, 'The Gunfighters' is the worst Doctor Who story ever made, and was both "bad" and "ugly". Given this fact, and its negative opinion amongst many fans, I feel that I should discuss its bad points first.

Some of the accents are atrocious, mainly those of the Clantons and Charlie.

OK, that's the bad out of the way. 'The Gunfighters' is in my opinion the single funniest Hartnell story, and possibly the single funniest television Doctor Who story of all time. 'The Romans' and 'The Myth Makers' are quite funny, but this is very, very funny from start to finish. This is due almost entirely to Peter Purves, Anthony Jacobs (Doc Holliday), and, most of all, William Hartnell (and of course, the script). 'A Holiday for the Doctor' contains my favourite scene, in which the Doctor, still suffering from toothache after eating one of Cyril's sweets at the end of 'The Celestial Toymaker', goes to Doc Holliday's surgery to have a tooth pulled. Without anaesthetic! The look on Hartnell's face speaks volumes, especially when Holliday offers him whiskey as an anaesthetic, gets a refusal, and smoothly takes a long swig himself before commencing work. The next time we see the Doctor, he's looking very rueful and notes that it's a good job that he didn't have to have his tonsils out. From here on in, the one-liners flow thick and fast, mostly from Hartnell and Jacobs. The Doctor blusters constantly when threatened, keeps getting unwanted firearms ("all these people are giving me guns, I do wish they wouldn't!"), and postures magnificently when he's holding the Clantons at gunpoint in the bar even though he is clearly out of his depth and completely dependent on Kate for advice on what to do. Throughout all of this, Hartnell's timing is spot on, from his sudden "Oh dear" when introduced to the Clantons in episode one, to his exclamation of "disgusting habit" in episode three, when Johnny Ringo spits in Steven's face. And the Doctor constantly calling Wyatt "Mr Werp" somehow manages to be funny even after the third time he says it. Anthony Jacobs vies with him for the best lines and scenes, most notably when rather gentlemanly "surrendering" to the petrified gun-toting Dodo. Purves' contribution is more visual; note the filthy look he shoots at the Clantons when he is forced to sing The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon yet again, and his double takes on being surprised first by Charlie's presence and later by Charlie's corpse. His facial expressions speak volumes, from the opening scenes when the Doctor introduces him to Wyatt Earp as Steven Regret, tenor. His ridiculous costume and deliberately bad accent (which of course keeps slipping at inopportune moments) add to the general riotous air. Oh, and he sings quite well, too. 

Accents aside, the supporting cast is rather good, with Lawrence Payne as the deliberately clichйd Johnny Ringo of particular note. Jackie Lane however, is a revelation. Whilst nowhere near as good at comedy as Purves or Hartnell, after her fluctuating accent in 'The Ark', and her character's irritating portrayal in 'The Celestial Toymaker', here she is on fine form, and proves to be an excellent foil for the obstreperous Holliday. She's pretty plucky too, tackling the homicidal Ringo without hesitation in a bid to help Holliday. 

The production is admirable too, with a perfectly adequate representation of the Wild West in a studio-bound set. This is no mean feat, I suspect. The costumes look good too. And of course, I couldn't discuss 'The Gunfighters' without mentioning The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon, which narrates from the start and gets gradually funnier as the story progresses. I gather that it really annoys some fans, but I'm not sure why. It's an interesting addition from a series point of view actually, since it continues the experimental feel running through 'The Ark' and 'The Celestial Toymaker'. It has been noted that 'The Gunfighters' is proof that we Brits can't do Wild West stories, but I think this is missing the point. It isn't a serious attempt to recreate the OK Corral, it's a spoof, and as such it succeeds because ultimately, it is hilarious. I sincerely hope that the Hartnell VHS box set will expose 'The Gunfighters' to a wider audience, because it is deserving of reassessment. Have a beer, sit back, and enjoy.

Of all the First Doctor stories, 'The Savages' is perhaps the most overlooked, since no clips exist and the soundtrack has yet to be released commercially. It also lacks a monster, which can help to make lost stories such as 'Galaxy Four' better known to fans. It is notable primarily for the departure of Steven, who as my previous reviews have made clear, is one of my favourite companions. The question remains however, is 'The Savages' any good? 

The answer to the above question is yes, although I wouldn't describe 'The Savages' as a lost classic. At its basic level, it is a nature of evil parable, with a Beauty-and-the-Beast subplot similar to that of 'Galaxy 4', but whilst it has a simple premise, it executes its plot with some charm and is well directed and acted. Initially, it seems that the Elders are a highly advanced people who have created a utopian society, whilst the primitive Savages are an uncivilized threat to this. Indeed, the cliffhanger to episode one plays on this assumption, with Dodo screaming in terror at the sight of a Savage inside the city of the Elders. Additionally, the Elders are so technologically advanced that, uniquely in Doctor Who during this era, they are expecting the arrival of the Doctor, having tracked his travels through time and space, which immediately makes an impression on both Doctor and viewer simply because it is so unusual. As in 'Galaxy 4' however, our initial impressions soon prove false, as it turns out that the Savages are victims of the Elders' vampiric, life-draining technology, which creates their utopia at the cost of human suffering. However, whereas in 'Galaxy 4' the Drahvins ultimately proved to be unremittingly evil, 'The Savages' differs because the Elders are not beyond redemption. Whilst their actions are evil, they themselves are not evil per se, merely misguided. Crucially, when Jano absorbs the Doctor's life-energy and with it his morals, he realises what has happened to him, but rather than fighting against it, he accepts this new view point, seeing his people's actions as cruel and resolving to make changes. This is important, because it shows Jano deciding to embrace this new way of thinking, rather than simply being brainwashed, which would deny him the ability to chose to do good, but rather have it forced upon him. Exorse, who is captured by the Savages with Steven's help, also demonstrates the ability of the Elders to change. Early on during the story, he dismisses the Savages as, well, savages, but after he is captured, he is forced to change his views somewhat. Despite the desire for revenge by some of the Savages, Nanina, whom he captured early on in the story and took for processing, insists on sparing his life and cares for him. Whilst this does not prompt quite the reversal of attitudes that Jano undergoes, he nevertheless starts to appreciate that the Savages are people too, and accepts his planet's new leader at the story's end. This basically summarizes the strength of 'The Savages', which is the characterisation of the supporting characters. 

Of the regulars, neither Hartnell nor Purves disappoint, as usual. The Doctor's confrontation of Jano when he realises how the Elders' society is maintained is marvelous, and my favourite moment of the story. His impassioned announcement that "This, sir, is protracted murder!" seethes with suppressed rage, and forms part of an exchange that deserves fan recognition almost on a par with that accorded his moving speech during the final episode of 'The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve'. Later, after he is forcibly submitted to the Elders' technology and his life energy has been distilled into Jano, he spends most of the last two episodes weak and disorientated, and thus we are denied the clash of personalities that we might expect; instead, as the Doctor recovers, he quietly waits for Jano to turn to his way of thinking, clearly realizing what the transference would do the leader of the Elders. This is an effective story device, but results in the Doctor being sidelined for the latter half of the story. Instead, this again gives centre stage to Steven. Steven has come along way since 'The Chase', as I've noted when reviewing the previous few stories. His departure here is entirely in keeping with his development into a leader and someone who clearly wants to help people. The scene in which he lures Exorse into the caves is one of his finest moments, as he proves to the Savages that they are capable of fighting their oppressors and throwing off the shackles of slavery under which they effectively live. It has been suggested by some commentators that the Doctor abandons Steven without warning, but I feel that this is missing the point. During both 'The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve' and 'The Ark', we saw him railing against the injustices around him; now, finally, when the Doctor nominates him as a new leader to unite both Elders and Savages, he is surprised, but readily accepts, as the Doctor tells him how proud of him he is. I don't think this is said lightly; the Doctor seems to genuinely believe that Steven is equal to the task ahead of him. Steven's departure is actually one of my favourite companion leaving scenes, and hopefully one that will be more widely appreciated once 'The Savages' is released on CD. 

Dodo gets very little to do in 'The Savages', and despite tackling armed and dangerous gunfighters during the previous story, she is here reduced to a generic screamer, reacting rather hysterically to the sight of a Savage in the Elder's city. For the rest of the time, she plays sidekick to either the Doctor or Steven and is virtually superfluous to the plot, except when she discovers the Elders' processing centre and tells her companions about it. Even then though, the Doctor has already deduced what is going on. Of the guest cast, the most notable is Frederick Jaeger as Jano. His impersonation of the Doctor, for which Hartnell apparently coached him in rehearsals, is very impressive, and makes him a memorable character. The main problem with 'The Savages' is that, despite some decent scripted characterisation, his is the only memorable guest performance. The rest of the guest cast is adequate enough and there are no cringe-worthy performances, but nobody else particularly stands out. Having said that, they may have fared better on television, although I get the impression that 'The Savages' transfers quite well to audio. What does stand out is the incidental score, which creates a magnificent air of tension and is very sinister in places.

In summary then, 'The Savages' is not a classic, but is a decent enough story and provides a decent departure for the criminally underrated Steven Taylor. The release of the soundtrack will hopefully improve its reputation (and will be a welcome replacement for my rather poor quality bootleg recording!).