A pretty good concept held back by a lack of worldbuilding.

 

The Savages sees our party land on a planet that houses 2 groups of people: Scientific and prosperous futuristic folk that live in a domed city, and scraggly savages that live in the caves. The future folk have long tracked the movements of the Doctor, and are delighted to have him finally arrive. However, something is brewing under the surface. How have these people built their advanced society? And what role do the savages outside play?

 

First off, watchability. This story is missing with no animated replacement, so your options are either the target novel, the narrated soundtrack or the Loose Cannon reconstruction. For a companion exit, I usually like to go with the most visual option. In this case the Loose Cannon reconstruction, which isn’t brilliant, but does the job pretty well. Anyway, Moving on:

 

The pitch for this story is pretty solid! Very sci-fi! I’m always down for a good commentary on inequality. The problem with this story, however, is in its presentation. Within the four episodes, there is mostly a focus on intrigue: Is there something going on? What is going on? Oh, maybe nothing is going on? Or is there? Most of the focus is put on deepening the feeling of mystery.

 

Problem is, this is a Doctor Who episode. Of course something is going to happen. In general, I’m not that excited by the concept of “Something is going to happen”, but rather “What is going to happen?”.

 

And the story only answers that second question very flatly. It turns out the futuristic people are stealing the savages’ life force to fuel their way of life. Capturing them, sucking them dry, then releasing them again.

 

But they don’t really play around much with that concept. The entire idea raises quite a few questions, but the story had no answers. This is apparently all we needed to know. I would’ve liked to know exactly how the life source was used. Or how one group became so advanced, while the other became (or always was) primitive. Some history on this society would have helped it loads.

 

Another angle would be a harder focus on the scientific side. What method are they using to drain life force? Why let the people go after capturing them? What are the long term effects of sapping life force? Are they ever going to run out of savages? Is there a plan for that?

 

But the story never gave any answers. We leave it at absolute base level knowledge. After that, it is running around to both sides until compromise is reached. Which quickly makes the story very generic.

 

Because it has no deeper focus, it has nothing to really call its own once the twist is revealed. The setting is a jungle and a hi-tech dome, just like the Ark from 3 stories ago. It uses the idea of a doctor duplicate, which was done in the Chase last season. It’s all stuff we’ve seen before. Interesting ideas, but ideas that have already had their spotlight. Some as recent as 5 episodes ago.

 

Maybe it would’ve been better if we still had the full visuals for this story, but that’s speculation. What’s available now mostly looks like the Ark, but without any memorable setpieces like the statue or elephant. Sure, visuals will always help an originally visual performance to some extent, but I doubt it would turn this story into a hidden gem.

 

Still, even though it does present it very flatly, the story does come up with interesting ideas it can call its own. Stealing the Doctor’s life source to inspire morality in the villains is a clever way to start a revolution. Even if his morality has been particularly twisted this season. The light guns that work as freeze rays are pretty new for this show as well. So there are ideas that do work. The overall presentation is just not very inspired.

 

Before all is said and done, though, let’s pay some attention to the ending.  Savages and Future Folk come together to destroy the laboratory, which is the source of their inequality. This is fine, if a bit questionable. Certainly a society so advanced that they can track time travel has heard of ‘Backups’ before? Then again, this episode itself is missing, so….. maybe not.

 

As they’re destroying the lab, they decide they’ll need a leader to unite the two groups together. They ask the Doctor, but he’s not interested. He instead recommends Steven for the job. Leading into his exit.

 

While I do have no doubt in my mind that Steven could do it, I don’t love the way this story presents this ending. First of all, the main villain has basically gained the personality of the Doctor, so there’s no reason he couldn’t do it himself. Second, I don’t like how the Doctor makes the call to leave it to Steven.

 

It's a bit reminiscent of the ending of “Return of the Rocketmen”. The same thing happened there. Steven described that he made a choice, but when we’re finally shown the choice, it was actually the Doctor that made it. Like he wants to get him out of the way.

 

Meanwhile, Steven has been a very important character in this season. He has been our connection to the show. He has had more screen time than the Doctor. So this really should’ve been made his call. Or maybe it should have been presented as a last heroic deed.

 

That would work great in context! Steven was shown as very capable when with the Savages. Managing to steal a light gun from a soldier, which had never been done before. This could’ve been a great moment to call back to. Make the savages choose him as a leader, based on their earlier experiences with him.

 

Same goes for the other side. The leader of the future folk has the Doctor’s personality and memories, so play with that a little. Make it shimmer through that the Doctor always saw Steven as capable, but never really said it out loud. Maybe this copy version doesn’t shy away from saying it.

 

The story could’ve chosen to be a bit more bombastic about his departure. Because this is a big moment. Not “They need a leader! Steven, you do it.”, but “Steven, we want you as our leader”. That little difference would have done so much.

 

Compare this farewell to those of earlier companions. Let’s skip on Vicki, because there’s really no footage of her departure left. Susan got a speech, one of the most famous ones in the show. Ian and Barbara got a montage that is still memed on to this day. I can’t think of a clearer sign of quality :P.

 

But Steven….. he just gets a handshake. That’s it. Goodbye. Shaky shake. Done. Left behind. And for someone of his caliber, who carried the show this season, that’s absolutely not enough.

 

As a whole, “The Savages” is like a puddle of glitter. It looks good at a glance, but has absolutely no depth in any aspect. It has a spark, and some unique traits, but it barely plays around with anything it offers. This not only comes to the detriment of the story, but also damages Steven’s departure. I’m still glad I’ve seen it, but there’s absolutely no reason to get back to this.