Today’s companion spotlight focuses on space pilot Steven Taylor, a well-written character in Doctor Who who worked very well against William Hartnell’s Doctor.
One character that I think gets slightly overlooked from time to time is Steven Taylor from the First Doctor’s era. Played by Peter Purves, Taylor was pretty different to previous companions. Like Vicki, who was also travelling with the Doctor when they first met, he was also from the future.
In fact, he had been a space pilot, before he crashed landed on Mechanus and was quickly captured by the Mechanoids. He had been a prisoner there for two years, until he met the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki in The Chase. However, the character seemed to disappear by the end of that serial.
It wasn’t until the following story, The Time Meddler, that the TARDIS crew found out that they’d had a stowaway. (Before then, they were more focused on the departure of Ian and Barbara, who had finally found a way back home.) Steven had snuck on board the TARDIS at the end of The Chase, and that was the beginning of his many travels with the Doctor and Vicki.
A character with drama
Steven Taylor was quite an interesting character. He’s highly intelligent (as a space pilot of the future, he pretty much had to be), and has a very strong sense of morality. One that’s sometimes challenged by his travels with the Doctor.
Along the way, he’s also faced some terrible times, too. Especially during the twelve-part epic, The Daleks’ Master Plan. He saw a lot of good people die in that story, including two companions – Katarina, a handmaiden from Troy, and Sara Kingdom, an agent of the Space Security Service. (The latter might be a little more debatable as being a companion, as she was there for just that story only, but she essentially filled in that role.)
So unsurprisingly, Steven was given a lot of dramatic moments. Perhaps one of the very best examples was the ending of The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve, in which he angrily leaves due to the Doctor’s seemingly casual attitude to death.
It’s a powerful scene, and one that could have made for a wonderfully dramatic companion exit…but then it’s instantly undone when Steven suddenly comes back into the TARDIS, along with new companion Dodo. Still, before that point, the scene is one of the best and most dramatic of that era.
The Sontarans, a kind of “introduction story” for the iconic monsters, is just one of the many great adventures Steven’s had on audio.
Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish
Image obtained from: bigfinish.com
Further adventures
But it’s not just his era on television that helps to make Steven stand out. He’s also been served well in the expanded universe, particularly by Big Finish’s audios. The character’s had many excellent stories in both The Companion Chronicles and The Early Adventures, including The Anachronauts, The Perpetual Bond, An Ordinary Life, The Sontarans and many others.
Along with providing the characters with excellent stories, the audios have also explored Steven in a generally deeper way than what we saw in the TV series. His high level of intelligence and knowledge, particularly when it comes to travelling in outer space, has been explored in stories like The Cold Equations.
Equally fascinating is what happened to the character after he left the Doctor, which The War to End Wars explored. Stories like these have helped to add a lot of depth and history to an already great character.
Peter Purves
However, I can’t talk about how great Steven is without mentioning Peter Purves. He often gave a lot of energy and power into his performance on television, and really helped to make Steven feel like a real, fleshed out character.
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And he’s only gotten better with age. With some actors on audio, you can tell rather noticeably that they’re not as young as they once were. While not having the visual element helps, it has been several decades, and their voices have changed noticeably as a result.
You don’t get that problem with Peter Purves. Somehow, he sounds almost exactly as he did over fifty years ago. And he still brings a lot of youth and energy to the part, somehow.
It probably helps that he really loves the scripts he gets from Big Finish. It isn’t just clear from behind the scenes interviews, but from his performance, too. He was given a decent amount of drama to work with on television, but this has only increased on audio, and he really throws himself into it. As a result, it’s incredibly easy to picture him exactly as he was five decades ago in brand new stories.
Steven Taylor is a great example of how strong the early male companions were. He was intelligent and could handle himself in a fight, but he still had a lot to learn from the Doctor. An absolutely fantastic companion, especially to William Hartnell’s Doctor.
Are you a fan of Steven Taylor? Do you enjoy his television or his audio stories? What’s your favorite story featuring the character? Let us know in the comments below.