Steven Taylor is a supporting protagonist in Season 2 and the main deuteragonist of Season 3 in the Classic series of Doctor Who. He was a human space pilot rescued by the First Doctor and Vicki, and joined them on their travels. However, after Vicki left, he and the Doctor went through several traumatic adventures, which put a strain on their relationship.
He was portrayed by Peter Purves, who has also voiced the character for Big Finish.
Biography[]
Steven was an astronaut at an unspecified period in the future. He crashlanded on the planet Mechanus and was kept prisoner by the Mechanoids because he didn't know the codes that would identify him as a colonist. He remained a prisoner for three years until the Doctor and his companions Ian, Barbara and Vicki were also captured. With their help, Steven was able to run a cable from the top of the Mechanoid City but, although the others quickly escaped, he was believed to have been trapped in the city when it was destroyed by a battle between the Daleks and Mechanoids. In fact, he survived and stumbled into the TARDIS, not being discovered until the Doctor and Vicki had departed.
Steven initially disbelieved their claims to be time travellers and made several attempts to disprove their claim to be back in 1066 before finally encountering the locals. He quickly discovered the pitfalls of time travel when he had to help the Doctor defeat the plans of the Meddling Monk to change history. He became involved in the conflict between the Drahvins and the Rills, where he nearly died after the Drahvins trapped him in an airlock. He later became caught up in the Trojan War, where he posed as a Greek soldier named Diomede to get into Troy and rescue Vicki. During the Greek assault, Steven was badly wounded by a Trojan soldier and, with Vicki choosing to stay behind with her new love Troilus, the Doctor and the servant girl Katarina took Steven to the safety of the TARDIS.
Steven survived the incident but he and the others quickly became caught up in SSS agent Bret Vyon's attempt to expose a massive conspiracy against several galactic leaders, including senior Earth official Mavic Chen, to aid the Daleks in conquering the solar system. Both Katarina and Bret were killed, and Steven and the Doctor teamed up with SSS agent Sara Kingdom, managing to flee in the TARDIS with the core of the Daleks' Time Destructor. After a chase through history, they ended up back on the Daleks' base planet, Kembel, where Steven and Sara freed the imprisoned galactic leaders and convinced them to warn the galaxy of the Daleks. The Doctor then activated the Time Destructor, destroying the Daleks' army, although Sara also died from its effects.
Following this incident, Steven became separated from the Doctor in the Paris of 1572 and became caught up in a plot by Catholic leaders to assassinate Admiral de Coligny, befriending the local girl Anne Chaplet. When the Doctor reappeared, he insisted they leave immediately and Steven was horrified to learn he had abandoned Anne knowing that a mob riot was about to massacre hundreds of French Protestants. He nearly walked out of the TARDIS after the incident but was mollified by their encounter with Dodo Chaplet, a possible descendant of Anne, who joined them on their travels.
Steven continued to aid the Doctor in assisting a group of far future humans in reaching refuge on the planet Refusis, defeating the sadistic Celestial Toymaker's games and navigating the Gunfight at the OK Corral. On his last trip in the TARDIS, he again ended up in the far future and helped a group of "savages" who were being exploited by the sophisticated Elders destroy the machine that was draining their life energy. The Doctor recommended Steven to stay behind to unite the two factions after an initial truce and Steven said his farewells to him and Dodo.
Tales of the TARDIS[]
On contemporary 2023, a memory TARDIS reunited Steven with Viki, so the two could share their memories of the Doctor.
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