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Ian Stuart Black was a well-established television writer, having penned episodes for numerous

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programmes since the early 1960s. These included classics such as H. G. Wells' The Invisible

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Man and The Saint. He also wrote for and co-created Danger Man, starring Patrick McGowan.

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As a regular viewer of Doctor Who, Black thought that a Doctor Who writer's credit would

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impress his children. So, around December 1965, on an impulse following a script conference

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at the BBC, Black visited the Doctor Who production office and enquired about writing for the

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series. Script editor Gerry Davies commissioned Black to write The White Savages on January

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19th 1966. For a time, it was considered as a replacement to Donald Cotton's comedic The

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Gunfighters. In the end, however, Black's script would follow it into production. Since

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The Gunfighters was serial Z, the alphabetical method of assigning production codes had now

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been exhausted, so The White Savages was designated serial AA.

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Peter Purvis' character of Stephen was scheduled to leave in this serial, so Black was asked

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to incorporate his departure into the script. It was planned that Stephen's replacement,

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who was provisionally named Richard or Rich, would join the Doctor and Dodo in the next

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serial The War Machines, also written by Black. Christopher Barry, whose last Doctor Who work

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had been on The Romans, was assigned as the director, and filming started at Ealing Studios

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at the end of April 1966. By now, the story title had been truncated to The Savages.

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Location filming began on April 29th at Shire Lane Quarry near Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire

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for scenes set in the craters. May 1st saw cast and crew visit Callow Hill Sandpit in

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Virginia Water Surrey, which doubled as the ravine.

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A few production photos survived showing the cast and crew taking a break during location

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filming. Studio recording at Riverside One began on May 13th, and as usual, each instalment

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was taped on consecutive Fridays. One change instituted by producer Innes Lloyd

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was to stop giving each Doctor Who episode its own title. This tradition had run from

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an unearthly child the first episode of the first story, through to the OK Corral, which

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was the last episode of the previous story. From The Savages onward, each episode would

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receive an episode number caption instead, a practice that continued until the programme's

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relaunch in 2005.

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Unusually the first eight scenes of Part 4 were recorded immediately after the completion

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of the third episode. This was done to save having to remount the sets and dry ice effects

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in the studio the following week.

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Particularly noteworthy is Freddy Jaeger's performance of Jano. When Jano takes on aspects

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of the Doctor's personality, Jaeger produces a wonderful emanation of Hartnell's characteristics

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and mannerisms.

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Ian Stewart-Black went on to write a further two Doctor Who stories. The first of these,

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The War Machines, immediately followed The Savages, and a year later Black penned The

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Macra Terror for Patrick Troughton's first season.