Day 120: The Savages Episode 2

The Savages is an odd story. This is because it is both unremarkable, and completely remarkable. On the one hand, the story seems relentlessly familiar: the TARDIS crew arrives on an alien world where a society seems to be perfectly kind, until a dark secret is revealed: they are exploiting lower class members of their race for their own personal gain! It feels clichéd, as an audience we are now used to walking into scenarios and thinking that 'Things are not as they seem'. And yet, it somehow works. Each character is well written by Ian Stuart Black, such that their motivations are made clear and we are able to connect with them. The way that things are treated is also of note, it's not mad scientists working in labs, a hidden dark secret, instead it's just some average people who happen to take people's life force away from them. And while the story is well written and presumably well directed, it is still tricky to get away from the fact that the story just feels clichéd. It's not a bad story, it's just one that's unremarkable.