Peter Purves
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Steven Taylor Peter Purves |
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A Criminally Overlooked Companion and Leading Character of Season 3? by Robert Thomas 21/8/00
It has come to my attention that a great number of people (including the actor who played him) have dismissed Steven Taylor as a bit wet. As one of my many blankspots of Doctor Who was the third season I have previously had no opinion of the character. But now that I have almost erased this blankspot and have seen or heard most of his stories I have decided to bury this myth.
First of all let's look at the near unique way that he joined the Tardis crew. After being held captive on an alien world by the robotic Mechanoids he encountered The Doctor at the tail end of The Chase. Escaping with the rest of the crew and deliriously stumbling into the Tardis on his own. After being held captive for a number of years he had walked into another prison in the shape of the then erratic Tardis.
In the next story The Time Meddler he came into his own as a man who refused to believe that he was stranded in time. Indeed when he finds evidence that shows they are not in the past this enables the plot to proceed eventually resulting in the meeting of the first Gallifreyan other than the Doctor and Susan in the show. Indeed in his first proper story he covers as the male lead for an episode when William Hartnell was on holiday.
During the third season however he developed into a fully rounded character that enjoyed some of the show's best moments in its history. For example one of the few moments of real tension in Galaxy 4 is when he is trapped in an air lock. In The Myth Makers the cliffhanger ending sees a race against time to get the injured Steven who was wounded by a Trojan soldier (Wet? I don't think so) back to the Tardis.
Indeed coming into the epic Daleks' Masterplan the Doctor was still concerned over his condition and still searching for drugs to cure him. Indeed in this story he goes through the most that any companion went through. Two companions die, he is nearly killed on a number of occasions and near the conclusion he is forced to temporarily assume the lead as the Doctor is not present.
His finest moments were definitely in The Massacre in which he excelled as a man stranded in time and again was required to take the lead. This is even better than the previous historicals as Steven along with the viewers genuinely didn't have a clue what was going on. Indeed the scenes at the end are one of the series most human moments and rank among my favourites.
His remaining four stories were full of excellent moments and character development. His speech at the trial in The Ark which was a truly unique moment. In The Celestial Toymaker where his character got more darker and ruthless when he and Dodo were pitted against two other normal people in a contest to escape (where again the Doctor was absent for most of the story). He along with Hartnell excelled in this comedy. His final story sees him battle through a city of mad intellectuals to save the Doctor and an emotional farewell scene.
During his time on the show Peter Purves was required to do many things which a lesser actor couldn't achieve. Take the lead of the program for two and a half stories is one. Oh yes this had been done before, but with a group of actors. The character gave us some excellent moments.
The rescuing of his panda Hifi.
Disbelief that he was in the 11th century.
The rescuing of the Doctor.
The finale of The Massacre - along with the rest of it.
So people, I give you Steven Taylor.
One of the best companions, certainly.
Wet, definitely not.
Season 3's leading man, maybe just maybe..........
A Review by Stuart Gutteridge 3/11/00
Apart from being the first actor to portray another part (Morton Dill in The Chase) and then go on to become a companion shortly afterwards, Peter Purves brought a breath of fresh air to the leading male in Doctor Who. A lot of this is attributed to Steven Taylor, space pilot; whose background is criminally underused, with the possible exception of The Daleks Master Plan. Instead we get a companion who not only stands up to The Doctor, but is one his female companions can stand up to as well. Certainly his stubborness is a major part of his characterisation as is his argumentative nature. Still he makes a refreshing change from Ian, who went before him.
Certainly a companion with an eye for the ladies; note his initial reaction to the Drahvins in Galaxy 4, but also a strong and independant companion, notably in The Ark and The Savages.
GREATEST MOMENT: Without question The Massacre Of St.Bartholomew`s Eve, Steven carries the story and proves his strengths and weaknesses as a companion, as Peter Purves does as an actor.
"Wherever this ship of your lands next Doctor, I'm getting off!" by Joe Ford 5/5/04
Male companions are something of a rarity in Doctor Who, especially in the later years (but then when Adric and Turlough are the best you can come up with there is a good reason for that) and I feel that many of the earlier men that the Doctor allowed to join him on his travels were quite underrated and Steven is a good example. Aside from Barbara he may well be my favourite companion of the sixties, one who was shaped by some excellent writing and a bloody good performance. It is a crime that Peter Purves does not do more acting these days because his ability to bring drama and comedy to a situation is phenomenal.
Okay so he didn't have the most inspiring of beginnings, his debut in the series was in that highly lauded, big budget blockbuster The Chase! So important is Steven he only appears in the last episode, clinging onto his cuddly bear Hifi, a prisoner of the hexagonal Mechanoids. Revealingly his character is clearly the best performed and written in the entire show and it comes as no great surprise that the climatic final episode proves to be a fan favourite. We really don't learn much about Steven here, only that he crashed landed and was kidnapped and that he comes from the future. What is immediately obvious is that the show was moving away from its educational roots and rather than introducing regular characters as links to educating the audience they were now there simply to entertain.
Another instant change with Steven's introduction is the change in Vicki's character. No longer the newbie in the TARDIS and responsible for trying to convince him that the TARDIS is in fact a time machine she seems a lot more mature and less clumsy when paired with Steven. It was a good relationship; indeed their antics in The Time Meddler as she infuriatingly attempts to prove they have gone back in time only for them to come across gramophones and canons are highly amusing. There is some chemistry there, Steven and Vicki acting as if they have known each other a long time and there on screen relationship feels very relaxed. It was nice to have somebody question the outrageous suggestion of a time travelling police box and Steven, ever the realist, requires definitive proof.
When Vicki leaves we are heading into the twelve-part epic The Daleks' Masterplan and this is where Steven truly starts to come into his own. He is responsible for two of the most emotional moments in the entire series as he angrily grieves for the two companions, Katarina and Sara. It is during Katarina's death that we realise just what Purves is capable of, the writers offer a challenge to him to convincingly play a desperate man, screaming in terror at the criminal who has his friend trapped in an airlock. It is a most adult and frightening scene and it is Steven's explosive emotions that make it so. But his quiet anger at the climax to the story where he reminds the Doctor of all the people that have died to make victory over the Daleks possible is also palpable. As I said, a realist and one who is not afraid to taint a triumph with some unpleasant facts. This is all fantastic build up for the next story, which for the first time shows some relationship cracks developing over two stories...
The Massacre is easily the best Steven story because he dominates so much of the action. It is an impressive story of religious intolerance that sees Steven trapped and alone in France. Steven befriends a group of Huguenots and gets caught up in the machinations of the Catholics to assassinate Coligny and to massacre the Protestants. Not only is the tone very serious and dramatic but this is one of the few times that a companion manages to steal the limelight and strike out on his own. Steven is wonderful, compassionate with his dealings with young Ann Chaplet, loyal to the Admiral, disgusted at the religious prejudice and shocked when the evil Abbot of Amboise appears to be his missing Doctor in disguise. It is a moment of powerful bluffing when the Abbot is found dead in a gutter and Steven's aghast reaction, fearing he is trapped in bigoted Paris, is very natural. Even better is his very human reaction to the Doctor's proposal to send Chaplet back into her household to await the massacre because that was what was always intended for her. After the murders of the last story Steven has had enough, actively sending people to their deaths was not what he signed up for. In the most dramatic scene yet for the series Steven demands to be released from the Doctor's company wherever they land next. It is such a wonderful scene because you can see it from both of their points of view, the Doctor has to pay a price for travelling in time and that is to not alter anything in history no matter how injust and Steven is just too damn human to accept sending an innocent girl to be brutally slaughtered. For once, Steven is not a realist and cannot handle the Doctor's impassioned defence for his actions.
Enter Dodo, the most ludicrously named companion of all time (well Hex is pretty awful too!). It is fortunate that Jackie Lane and Peter Purves shared some decent chemistry because her character is a non-starter, an amalgamation of Susan and Vicki with nothing new to add to the mix. But when Steven and Dodo were together they had 'something' that made her tolerable, it's there when they dress up in cowboy costumes and enthuse about being let loose in the Wild West, it was there when they played deadly musical chairs in the Celestial Toymaker's domain and it was there when they explore the City of the Elders. Unlike Vicki, Steven is now the season traveller and takes up the big brother role of protecting this naïve and slightly embarrassing friend.
Indeed his last four stories are of such varying interest it is pleasing to say the Steven was around for the most experimental period the show ever had. A hard SF tale, a surreal nightmare, a Wild West shoot out and a morality play. The last three in particular use Steven very well and make light of Purves' dissatisfaction at the lack of development for the character, he was getting some of the best material any companion ever had!
"I want to see if he has an invisible barrier around his backside!" he seethes as he is forced to play all manner of childish but homicidal games in The Celestial Toymaker. I love how devious he is in this, pretending he doesn't know there are any more dolls during the musical chairs game so he and Dodo will have a better chance of winning. He does all the action work (as is his role as the youngest male on the show) and gets to some quality snarling to.
The Gunfighters makes a delight of his character in every scene. His giddy thrill at discovering their landing in the Wild West leads to some deeply embarrassing (but hilarious) scenes as he tries to blend in as 'Steven Regret, tenor'. He gets to have lots of fun singing at gunpoint and carousing the mischievous Clanton brothers into helping to free the Doctor from prison (they intend no such thing, they are tricking Steven into freeing the 'Doc' so they can hang him). Heh! After such a run of dramatic stories it is a relief to see Steven let his hair down (so to speak) and goof about a bit. I love this story to pieces.
And in his departure story Steven gets to make a brave and dignified decision to leave the Doctor and help the Savages to rebuild their lives. It reminds me of Nyssa's departure, a totally selfless act that leaves a glowing feeling inside, Steven can see the situation between the Savages and the Elders will be a precarious one and wants to do what he can to reconcile them. It proves just how far he has come since his opening story, under the Doctor's wing he has developed into a fine diplomat and leader.
It pains me that so little of Steven's material exists and this may be why his character is somewhat ignored in favour of less likely examples during the sixties. Certainly no other character had this much genuine development in those early years for the show and it proved without a doubt that a male/male regular line up had the potential for some real fireworks. Hartnell did much of his best later work against Purves, his "what a terrible waste" at the climax of Masterplan, his beautiful speech when Steven walks out on him, even his saddened reaction to his departure.
I couldn't ask for more in a companion, someone who was easy to believe in, who fought against the tyranny of the universe, who got on with his companions (Tegan take note) and had proper doses of humanity. Peter Purves had that kind of rugged handsomeness going for him too, I might add.
A top bloke.