Profiles Steven Taylor by Tony J Fyler

Tony Fyler charts the arc of one of the First Doctor’s more often-forgotten companions

Steven Taylor is very often dismissed as a relatively forgotten companion – he wasn’t there at the start of the First Doctor’s time on our screens, and he wasn’t there at the end either. What’s more, only three of his televised stories exist in their entirety, so like the female companions who shared his time, Vicki and Dodo, he tends to be one of those companions that people technically know was on the Tardis for a while, but don’t really remember.

That’s a crime, because Steven Taylor is essentially the ‘Second Chesterton.’ With Susan having left the Tardis, and Ian and Barbara following at the end of The Chase, the show was about to experience its first full rotation. The Doctor had picked up Vicki in the very next story following Susan’s departure, meaning her role as ‘curious young person’ was filled, but arguably the leaving of Ian and Barbara was far more significant. What would the Doctor be like without his two modern grown-ups to keep him in check and get him out of trouble?

Steven Taylor, the space pilot with a teddy bear, appeared in the final episode of The Chase, set on Mechanus, and escaped a long incarceration there with the Tardis travellers. The Doctor seems to accept his presence on the ship with far better, more grandfatherly grace than he initially showed to the Coal Hill teachers, and even a degree of humour. And with that, the new team took off, heading into the final story of the second season, The Time Meddler.

Steven was good at his job, but he was young, dashing but a little full of himself, and ready, like Vicki, with a mischievous grin or a sarcastic comment. And Steven changed the dynamic of the Tardis team utterly. While Ian and Barbara were still there, the dynamic was still essentially the same from Susan to Vicki – grandfather figure, two ‘parental’ figures, and a smart young girl.

Steven blew that out of the water – the dynamic became a grandfather figure with two rascally ‘perishing kids’ laughing and joking about, and as such, his own persona began to change to accommodate these strange young people in his life. The softening had been happening over time, and took a distinct turn when Vicki joined the Tardis crew, the Doctor realising perhaps what he had lost, and determining to be kinder to the next young person in his life. But the arrival of Steven made for fun, for laughter and banter (some of it notably arch), as well as Steven fitting strongly in the mould of Chesterton before him, and McCrimmon and Sullivan after him, the physically powerful man on board the Tardis. By the time of The Myth Makers, Steven is beginning to make his own mark, impersonating Greek heroes with a deadpan chutzpah that Ian would possibly have balked at, and crossing the plains of Asia Minor with good if exhausted humour. In the epic that is The Daleks’ Master Plan, he begins to stretch the role further, his futuristic origins meaning less of a need for “What’s that, Doctor?” acting, and more direct involvement in the plot, though to some extent, his role as the Second Chesterton is the sum of the characterisation he is really given to work with.

It is at the end of the Massacre that Steven gets perhaps his best character moment. As Ann Chaplet, the sweet girl with whom they had become friends, is revealed by the Doctor as very probably having been murdered in appalling circumstances, and the Doctor essentially shrugs, bringing his alien objectivity to bear on the experience, Steven loses all his considerable cool, accuses the Doctor of heartlessness, declares that if that’s the sort of man he is, he wants nothing to do with him and storms out of the Tardis, seemingly forever. It’s a scene that feels decades ahead of its time, and foreshadows the likes of Tegan’s “It’s stopped being fun,” and even Amy Pond’s more direct question when the Doctor says he doesn’t save everyone – “Then what is the point of you?”

We’ve asked uncomfortable questions about the Doctor’s character before, but not since the very early days, not since Ian and Barbara were new in the Doctor’s life and he essentially kidnapped them. Almost, it’s tempting to think, not since the pilot of An Unearthly Child, which was re-shot entirely because the Doctor was too unsympathetic and harsh. Since then, the Doctor has been getting progressively more cuddly to his Tardis companions, the relationship changing to a more familial dynamic. Steven’s hit of moral outrage at the alien’s objectivity about time and people makes us question the Doctor’s motives and personality for the first time in what feels like a long time. When Dodo Chaplet then wanders into the Tardis looking for a policeman, and Steven comes running back, it’s an uneasy moment that ultimately melts when he realises what the young girl’s massively convenient surname might just mean. But in that explosion, Steven Taylor’s character really comes to the fore.

Sometimes, you never quite know the value of what you have until it’s gone. That’s true of Steven Taylor, who had gamely tackled adventure after adventure, and who had made us remember that the Doctor was an alien to our understanding. His final story, The Savages, is actually far better constructed and plotted than much of the rest of season three, with its grim storyline of social and genetic experimentation, its unilateral enforcement of a class structure, its essentially chemical vampirism, and its crackingly-paced revolution story, in which, to be fair, Steven does his usual Steven thing – gets stuck in, fights the good fight, worries about the Doctor and Dodo and ultimately wins through. Sometimes too, in life, as in drama, we do not know what we are looking for until we find it. So it is with Steven, who has not seemed lost or in search of purpose, nor especially lacking in responsibility, until ‘the savages’ need a leader, and he – unwillingly at first, but quickly growing in his enthusiasm – decides to stay behind and make a more permanent kind of difference. Steven had always displayed a need for a kind of order, a need to know where his ducks were and a need for them to be in a row – one of his more regular, semi-despairing cries during his adventures was “Well now where’s he got to?!” It is pleasing to think of the space pilot putting both his own experience and character, and the pragmatism he learned during his time on the Tardis, to use as a leader, diplomat, warrior, architect and society-builder, uniting the Elders and the Savages and taking them forward to a new combined and equal future.

Big Finish of course has massively rounded out Steven’s character, both during his time with the Doctor, and after we leave him at the end of The Savages. The hope with which we leave him as he becomes leader is never entirely that easily realised. But certainly at Big Finish the character of Steven Taylor, lightly sketched on TV, is delivered fully, boldly and high definition, particularly in stories like The Perpetual Bond, The Cold Equations, The First Wave and The War To End All Wars. Steven Taylor may be an almost invisible companion on screen to us now, but he’s vital to the spirit of change, both in terms of the Doctor’s personality and the ability of the format to adapt. Without Steven, we might still be stuck with two parental figures and a young girl. Steven Taylor, space pilot, brought youth, fun, fire, strength and fundamental dynamic change to the Tardis, and for that, he should always be celebrated.