Survival Part One

The one where Ace goes back to Perivale to see her mates...

This is it. The final story of the classic series run, ironically yet appropriately entitled Survival. Nobody knew it when they made it, but they certainly knew there would be no Season 27 by the time Survival was broadcast. Blame Philip Segal, because if he hadn't made that fateful telephone call to the BBC on July 12th, 1989, things might have carried on as normal, and I'd be reviewing Ice Time, Earth Aid, Crime of the Century and Illegal Alien too.

But it didn't pan out that way, and instead this surreal suburban thriller is how classic Doctor Who bowed out. Fittingly, it left by telling a story set in contemporary London, just as it began 26 years before. From Shoreditch to Perivale, via Skaro, Peladon and Gallifrey!

A Doctor Who story set in suburbia is a great idea, because that's where most of the audience lives. There's loads of stories set in countryside locations, or seaside locations, but very few take place on the normal everyday streets that we know so well. To see the familiar characters of the Doctor and Ace wandering around leafy streets, passing semis and phone boxes, driveways and rickety fences, is rewarding, because we can relate to it, we know what that's like. Suddenly our heroes have come to see us, where we live. And that's rather exciting, even if Sundays are not!

Following a first scene which would have made a cracking cold open (man washing car gets abducted by an unseen menace), the TARDIS materialises, like a magic box, on the corner of a suburban street. It's a child's dream, to see a police box appear on the end of your driveway or street. Finally, after 26 years, Doctor Who has come home. Well actually it's Ace's home, because she's asked the Doctor if she can return to Perivale to see all her old mates (not, you will note, her parents). Director Alan Wareing's tracking shot when the Doctor and Ace leave the TARDIS and wander along the deserted street is great, and I love the way Sylvester McCoy playfully flips the TARDIS key into his pocket as he listens in bemusement at Ace moaning about Sundays.

Ace is distinctly more mature here than in previous stories. She's definitely a young woman now, and no longer the bratty teenager who was whisked away from Perivale in Fenric's time storm. She's grown up and matured under the Doctor's tutelage, although his methods may sometimes be questionable. Sophie Aldred plays Ace more womanly, less tomboyish, and costume designer Ken Trew dresses her in a figure-hugging red top which tells us Ace has given some thought to how she wants to look when she meets her old friends. Basically, Ace is ready to leave the Doctor now. She's cooked, and it feels like the right time to go...

I like the Sunday feel Wareing gives the episode. It's hard to think back to how Sundays felt in the 1980s, when everything stopped for the Sabbath and shops weren't allowed to open. In 1987, trading regulations were relaxed slightly to allow all-day opening for pubs on a Sunday, as well as premises selling alcohol, but a complete relaxation of Sunday trading laws didn't happen until 1994. Harvey and Len's shop must have had a booze section for them to be open on a Sunday, playing on the same legality as the Drayton Court pub next door.

But Sundays were boring. As Ace says, it was the one day you couldn't get a decent television programme (tell that to Chris Chibnall!). They were also the day before we went back to school or work. Saturdays were far more exciting (Doctor Who used to be on, for example!). On Sundays, people washed their cars, went in for roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, then spent the afternoon gardening or visiting relatives. And Wareing gets this aura of tedium across well as the Doctor and Ace wander deserted streets and climb up an equally as deserted Horsendon Hill (although there are some kids playing football later). The abandonment of suburbia on Sundays was palpable. Where did everybody go?

Well, some people have been going missing from Perivale, it seems. And rather suspiciously, many of them seem to be Ace's old mates. It's nice that we come full circle and visit Ace's old stomping ground, and hear about the gang she used to hang out with: Jay, Stevie, Flo, Darth, Shreela, Midge, Ange (and, of course, Manisha). But how long has Ace been away for? "You've been away for as long as you think you have," the Doctor says unhelpfully. Well, that's not strictly true is it? Ace was whisked away sometime in 1987, and are we to presume it's now 1989?

What irks me a little is that, yet again, the Doctor starts to get suspicious of things without having any discernible reason. In The Curse of Fenric he suddenly started to suspect something about Vikings, but with no cause, and here, all it takes is for him to find a discarded can of cat food for his Spider-Sense to tingle. It annoys me because I like there to be reasons for things. I don't like the Doctor just being mysterious because the story dictates it. What on earth is suspicious about discarded cat food tins and horses' hoof prints? He also sees stray cats, and a poster for the musical Cats, but they are not suspicious things, they're perfectly normal.

In truth, there is something to be suspicious of because it's blindingly obvious the Master is about somewhere. It's a shame Wareing didn't disguise Anthony Ainley's appearance or distinctive voice better until the end of the episode. It would have made a much better surprise for the cliffhanger, but instead we can see it's him in the half-light, even if his eyes are glowing like cats in the night. Still, it's nice to have him back (one last time); I just hope it's a story that does the Master justice, something he's not had since the Davison era.

The Master is watching people through the eyes of an animatronic cat (sometimes it's a real one). This cat comes in for criticism from some quarters for being too cuddly, but I don't think it's that bad. Yes, it could be better, but for Doctor Who in 1989, I don't think it's too shabby at all. All credit to them for bothering to make an animatronic cat, I say! Doctor Who history is peppered with examples of people trying to work wonders and make miracles - sometimes they worked, sometimes not - but at least they tried. The ambition never faltered.

In the local community centre (a community centre in Doctor Who!) the Doctor and Ace meet the bolshie Sergeant Paterson, who's teaching wrestling to a bunch of  effete youths. Paterson is a complete wind-up merchant, goading his pupils and ranting on about survival of the fittest and toughening up. Paterson remembers Ace from before she disappeared ("The police let you off with a warning, didn't they?" - a nice nod to her arsonist days), and adds that her mum listed her as missing.

Many of her friends have gone missing too, according to the wonderful Ange, played by Kate Eaton. Ange is a brilliant little character. She's only in this one scene, but makes such an impression, and feels quite well-rounded because you can see what she believes in, that she suffers from hay fever, that she dresses differently (notice the badges on the beret). Despite this proliferation of young people going mysteriously missing (three in one week), the police don't seem very bothered, judging by the news bill outside the shop ("Local Woman Still Missing! Police Abandon Hope!").

The Doctor goes into a mini-mart (shops in Doctor Who!) to buy cat food so that he can attract a particular stray cat he has suspicions about. Ace nips into the pub to see if her mates are there, leaving the Doctor to take part in a bizarre sketch with contemporary comedy duo Hale and Pace. It's odd stunt casting, but they apply themselves well, and Len's joke about running shoes and tigers does have an ominous quality. All the while, Sylvester McCoy peruses the cheese aisle (at one point he listens to the cheese, just as he listened to the apple in Delta and the Bannermen - very Stan Laurel!) until he notices a cat hiding behind the tin cans. There's also that funny bit where Len realises the Doctor's not paid, and asks: "Oi, haven't you forgotten something?" The Doctor says yes, Len says "money", and the Doctor replies: "No, it wasn't that" and walks off. Classic!

Inexplicably, Ace carries a tin opener round with her, so while she slopes off to the playground, he empties out tins of Furry onto the pavement to try and catch the suspicious stray. Again, that wonderful bit where the woman asks what the Doctor's doing in her garden, and he just turns around and tells her to be quiet! These are pure Doctorish moments of eccentric joy, applicable to any and all incarnations. We also get a star cameo from Pepsi, producer John Nathan-Turner's dog who also had turns in Delta and the Bannermen and The Curse of Fenric (blink and you'll miss him!).

The playground scenes are awesome. Ace picks up a cat to pet it, but it escapes her, then suddenly she's confronted by - WHAT THE!!! A human cheetah on horseback! The horse rears up as the cheetah growls at her, then starts to chase her in and around the play apparatus - over the slide, through the climbing frame, around the roundabout. It's a genius sequence, directed so well by Wareing (the camera rising up high to indicate this is no longer a little cat, the cross-cuts between the horses' galloping hooves and Ace's running feet).

A big cat on horseback is one of those wonderful WTF moments I've enjoyed identifying throughout this Doctor Who marathon: the Sensorite peering through the window, the appearance of Alpha Centauri, the looming Zygon at the end of Terror of the Zygons part 1. These WTF moments are peppered through Doctor Who, in the form of the Kandy Man, a Stegosaurus in the Underground, a giant chirruping ant... That's why I love Doctor Who; it's like no other programme on planet Earth.

In another WTF moment, Ace is transported to a barren alien planet, with an orange sky pumped with smoke from a series of erupting volcanoes. Bravo to the visual effects team for making the planet look so alien, tinting the sky and adding in effects (a progression of The Trial of a Time Lord's Thoros-Beta). She's chased through the sandy wasteland by the Cheetah until she's cornered, but saviour comes in the form of yellow-vested youth Stuart, who tries to warn her but gets turned into cat food for his troubles. It's here that Ace is finally reunited with old friends Midge and Shreela, and new friend Derek.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is still pursuing that pesky stray. This time he has a reason to catch it (he knows Ace has been taken to the planet - just don't ask me how or why he knows this), and once he catches up with it, he's also transported to the alien world, along with that annoying Sergeant Paterson. I've always wondered how the Doctor would have finished the sentence "You stupid - " if he wasn't interrupted by the Cheetah!

The two men are herded toward a hut, inside which sits the Master. "Why, Doctor! What an unexpected pleasure," he purrs. It's a nice moment, but as I've already said, it would have been much better had we not already seen him cooing over which young men were most suitable for abduction earlier in the episode.

Thoughts:

• How wonderful is Dominic Glynn's eclectic score? He's my favourite McCoy era composer because his work was always sympathetic to the visuals, while also evoking something of their themes. His score is plaintive when Perivale is boring, but dangerously electric and percussive when the cats are around, and all queasy strings when something weird is happening. He swings from plinkity-plonk piano to pan pipes to Carlos Santana in 25 minutes! It's the best score of the era for me because it reflects and enhances the story equally, and doesn't drown it out either.
• "When is a cat not a cat? When it builds its own cat flap." Eh? That doesn't make sense.
• Perivale circa 1989 is very unkempt. It's all overgrown gardens, weeds pushing up through paving slabs, bin bags, litter, graffiti and uncut verges. There's even a boarded-up house for good measure!
• As well as criticising the cuddly animatronic cat, some people also chuckle at the cuddly Cheetah costumes. Yes, they're cuddly and furry, but so are real cheetahs, so I don't see the problem. I think they're great.
• I've always bristled at the shot of the cat eating Dave the car washer's face when Ace finds his corpse. A gruesome detail.

What a refreshingly modern story in Doctor Who's dying moments.

First broadcast: November 22nd, 1989

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Alan Wareing's camera angles sell the Cheetah on horseback so well without even seeing it. Then when you do see it, he doesn't disappoint.
The Bad: Revealing the Master too early (yes I know fans already knew Ainley was back, having had it announced in DWM in April 1989).
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

Ace says "Professor": 112

NEXT TIME: Part Two...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part Two; Part Three

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site.

Survival is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Survival-Sylvester-McCoy/dp/B000MEYGSG