Friday, 13 September 2013

The Savages - Episode 3

The third part of this story picks up from the life force being sucked out of him and it seems like William Hartnell is going to feature in this episode less than he had done. This is a tad bit frustrating as he seemed to be more involved like he had been in previous stories. In fact as a result of this being on audio you wouldn’t know that he had actually been in the episode. The story meanders along quite well but it isn’t until Jano wakes up after having some of the Doctor’s life energy and starts to mimic Hartnell. It’s a great impression of him and I almost wish that it had carried on a bit more. The episode allows Peter Purves to lead the story and moves things along which is what he has been doing for several episodes now. However due to the fact that this is his final adventure it seems to take on a new meaning and its shows what a good leader he has been to the show and what a good leader he will become. Peter Purves puts in a solid performance whilst Jackie Lane seemed to give a rather mediocre performance.

In terms of plot its safe to say that its not a particularly strong one as it seems to lose some of its pace which is a shame after the previous two episodes. I don’t know why but I just found myself being less interested in the situations featuring the locals. I just wish at times like this that the whole thing or at least a snippet of it existed on video so that we could get a sense of what a good story this appears to be. However the fact that its on audio does mean that my enthusiasm is somewhat reduced.

The Doctor is motionless when Dodo and Steven try and rescue him and its quite a nice image to think that whilst Dodo and Steven are choking to death the Doctor is something that would have looked quite good on tv because the Doctor is someone who wouldn’t let any harm come to his friends so it’s a great way to end the episode. I think that half the episode is perfectly fine and its only the latter part that makes the episode any good.

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