|
 “Life’s not a game. I’m teaching you the art of survival – I’m teaching you to fight back”
The year is 1989. People are disappearing. When the Doctor brings Ace back to Perivale, the Doctor and Ace finds that people are disappearing. When a Cheetah Person finds Ace, it chases her to the Planet of the Cheetah People. There, the Doctor finds an old enemy, the Master. Ace also finds some of her old friends, together they find out that they cannot get back to Earth. Not until one-person transforms.
When I bought ‘Survival’ and ‘Silver Nemesis’ on VHS, I was excited because I had always wanted to see these episodes. But when I watched ‘Survival’, I thought to myself what a way to blow ‘DOCTOR WHO’ off.
I liked this story when I first watched it, and I still like it now. But I could see that this episode is badly directed by Alan Wareing. I also think that the incidental music by Dominic Glynn was a bit too much. Personally I think that he was trying to enter a rock concert!
The Kitlings looked like puppets. Well, they probably were! The Cheetah People didn’t look very normal. They looked totally unreal! The costumes for the other actors looked ok, but Midge looked totally like a Cheetah Person. I am sure that the old woman in Episode 1 was out of ‘Eastenders’.
‘Survival’ does have some good special effects. The Volcanoes in the background looked very good. The sets were good, but isn’t Ace too young to play on the fruit machines?
Overall this is a good episode. It is one of my favourite Sylvester McCoy episodes. And also it is a good choice to bring the Master back in the last episode of the series. 'Survival’ is a good episode at the end the show, but the last scene makes ‘DOCTOR WHO’ not just a violent series, but also a series that is made out of peace.
Special Notes –
‘Survival’ was the last new ‘DOCTOR WHO’ story to be shown by BBC television. It was not, however, the last story to be made – that was ‘Ghost Light’, transmitted several weeks earlier. When ‘Survival’ was broadcast none of actors or the production team were aware that this would be their last ‘DOCTOR WHO’ adventure.
The Earth-based scenes in the story where recorded where they were set – in the streets around Perivale in west London.
The serial was developed under the title “Cat Flap” and then “Blood Hunt” before becoming ‘Survival’ for transmission.
‘Survival’ was the final story of Season Twenty-Six of ‘DOCTOR WHO’. Had Season Twenty-Seven been made, there would have been several changes in format. The character of Ace was to be written out mid-way through the series and replaced by a young female ‘Safe-Cracker’ who the Doctor would take under his wing. Both Sylvester McCoy and script editor Andrew Cartmel have gone on record saying it would be their final Season.
Rating: 
» Review by Peter Davis, Copyright 2005.
|
