Survival Part Three

The one where it all ends...

While being the end of an era, Survival part 3 is also something of a transitionary episode. As well as neatly reflecting elements from both parts 1 and 2, and how they dangerously merge together, it also serves as a pathway to the future. When Doctor Who began in 1963, it was set in contemporary London. When the classic series finished in 1989, it was also set in contemporary London. Perfect symmetry. And when the series returned in 2005, where was it set? Yes that's right, in contemporary London. Shoreditch, Perivale and Kennington (the probable location of Rose's Powell Estate) are bound together across the decades by the creative forces behind three different iterations of Doctor Who. The same, but different. London would seem to be the Doctor's "home".

At the start of the episode we see Ace lose her fight to hold on to herself, and run off with her new "sister", Karra the Cheetah person. I'm not crystal clear on why Ace and Karra share this bond, unless it's something to do with Karra hypnotising or bewitching Ace when she helps her at the waterside. It's obvious that Karra sees something in Ace which is different to any other Earth girl brought as prey to the planet. Later on we see the feline Karra revert to her original human self, suggesting that maybe, just perhaps, Karra had the hots for Ace, and her latent sexuality was brought to the fore. "I'm your sister. You're like me. You will be..." Karra tells Ace in one scene.

Director Alan Wareing has packed Survival with stylish flourishes throughout, particularly in the use of long-shots to establish place and landscape, feeding into the hunter's instinct. The shot of Ace and Karra running in slow-motion - "smell the blood on the wind, hear the blood in your ears... Run beyond the horizon and catch your hunger" - is very effective, and serves as a stylistic suggestion of the two girls coming together physically. It's not a huge stretch to read a theme of sexuality into Survival, particularly as it was placed there intentionally by writer Rona Munro.

Karra tries her best to lure Ace to the "dark side" of her nature, but is rescued by her age-old saviour and mentor, the Doctor. Just as Ace is about to feast on raw carrion, the Doctor calls to her, introducing a strong element of doubt into the mix. Ace is visibly torn between her Professor and her "sister", but the Time Lord wins out. And just look at the killer glare the Doctor gives Karra as he leads Ace away. If looks could kill...!

The Seventh Doctor's era reaches its apotheosis just eight minutes into this episode when the Doctor presents Ace with the ultimate dilemma. Bewitched by the planet, Ace is the only one who can save them all from being destroyed on the planet. She's the only one who can take them "home" to Earth. But if she does, she may never change back, eventually becoming a Cheetah person herself. Is Ace willing to take that risk?

"What shall I do?" pleads Ace. "Tell me, Doctor. I trust you." But her Professor has decided it's time to let go. Ace is now her own woman, his work is done. "The choice is yours," he replies. Ace is no longer the stroppy, moody teenager he picked up on Svartos. She's been through so much with him, learning and maturing along the way, until they've reached this moment where Ace faces the possibility of saving her Doctor, but losing herself.

When Ace offers her hand to the Doctor, and he takes it, it's a triumphant moment, an unspoken bond expressed between them. "We're going home!" the Doctor tells the others, and FLASH, they're gone. It's the ultimate expression of trust between these two remarkable friends who have seen it all together. After everything the Doctor has done to Ace, forcing her to face her fears in order to strengthen her, she still trusts him completely.

Does Ace take them back "home" to Perivale, or to the TARDIS? It's ambiguous, although Ace does tell the Doctor that the TARDIS is the only home she's got. She doesn't think of Perivale, or the family home, as where she's from any more. Ace is from the TARDIS. She lives in a police box which travels through time and space, and travels with a crazy old professor - just like Susan in An Unearthly Child. Way back in Dragonfire, Ace told Mel she never felt at home in Perivale, and always believed her real home was somewhere beyond the stars. What wonderful, perfect symmetry to now have Ace demonstrate that this is still the case. She's been to Perivale in 1883 and 1989, and met her mother as a baby in 1943, but Ace still feels at home among the stars, with her Professor.

Meanwhile, the Master and his leather-clad assistant Midge are hanging out in Midge's flat in a tower block. It's weird to see Anthony Ainley in a suburban sitting room, but his performance is stunning. He peers into a mirror, talking to himself in a desperate effort to hold on to his mind ("I will be free of it... I will be free of it"), reasserting his Machiavellian modus operandi. "If I have to suffer this contamination, this humiliation, if I am to become an animal, then like an animal I will destroy you, Doctor. I will hunt you, trap you, and destroy you!" Ainley is mesmerising in this moment, as Wareing's camera slowly creeps in on his reflection. The Master is almost subsumed by the power of the Cheetah planet, but he's holding on through sheer hatred alone. He seeks the ultimate revenge...

The middle of the episode sags a little as the Doctor and Ace trail around in search of the Master, encountering a dead cat, a squeaky child, and a murdered Sergeant Paterson along the way (well, he had it coming). The scenes where Midge and the Master visit a motorcycle shop, and then deliver a lecture at the youth club, are a bit tedious, but I do like the undercurrent of danger when Yuppie Midge silently approaches Paterson, and the scene then cuts away. Or the camera shot focusing on the abandoned telephone, the drone of the dialling tone as spilt tea dribbles down its coil. That's horror film iconography, right there!

The climax takes place at the top of Horsenden Hill, where the Master has decided that the final confrontation between the two warring Time Lords shall be a game of motorcycle chicken. It might have been more impressive if the bikes were driven by the Doctor and the Master, but the Master spinelessly places Midge in his place. The Doctor insists that Ace cannot take his place, knowing that if she fights, she will turn full-on cat for good. He also knows that this is his fight, not Ace's. It's fitting that the final story of the classic run should be a showdown between these oldest of adversaries. Even if it is on motorbikes.

The bikes collide in an unconvincing explosion, with both riders flung clear of the flaming debris. The Master instructs Midge to die "so that the healthy may flourish", and the young lad's self-imposed demise is unexpectedly tragic. He need not have died, but the Master's will decreed it (so mote it be). "You know what to do, Midge," he tells him. And when Midge passes away, he adds: "Good boy."

Having witnessed the apparent incineration of her beloved Doctor, the one thing Ace holds onto - apart from his hat and brolly - is the last thing he told her. "I must not fight," she remembers, but as the effete youths approach, she panics. Characteristically, Ace refuses to simply run away, but neither can she defend herself. Luckily, Karra zaps in at the perfect moment to scare them all away, and has her final showdown with the Master. He insists she cannot do anything to harm him, but she begs to differ. "Do you bleed?" she sneers. "I can always do something to you if you bleed."

And then he stabs her. Karra falls to the ground as the Master affords one iconic Evil Chuckle, and Ace's grief increases tenfold. She's been through a lot, and so has the viewer. The Doctor's dead, and now Karra's brutally murdered before her eyes. What else is there left? How is this going to end?

The fact the Doctor's been thrown clear of the bike explosion and landed in a rubbish heap is an unfortunate, and misjudged, twist. Seeing Sylvester McCoy's arse sticking out from under a moth-eaten sofa and a bunch of bin bags is an undignified scene for Doctor Who's last episode, and I wish they hadn't done it. Just lying on the ground would have been fine, but seeing our hero fly-tipped like a stained mattress is an unwelcome visual.

The two old enemies catch up outside the TARDIS, which the Master's trying to break into. Where is his TARDIS I wonder? If he was transported by a Kitling from Earth, it must be around somewhere, but we don't see hide nor hair of his TARDIS between The Trial of a Time Lord part 14 in 1986 and Spyfall in 2020. The Doctor and the Master circle one another again, before the Master takes one final lunge at his arch-enemy and transports him back to the Cheetah planet, his new home. He's completely possessed by the planet now, but there's enough of his old self left to take the Doctor with him into oblivion. The effect of the planet breaking up is marvellous, a fiery, volcanic, explosive landscape with spewing lava and erupting smoke.

The two Time Lords fight like animals, but at the very last moment the Doctor realises he must stop, otherwise he'll become part of the planet too. Interestingly, the Doctor is about to smash the Master's head in with a skull, echoing back through 26 years to the very first story, set in the Cave of Skulls and when the First Doctor was minded to use a rock to kill Za. The Doctor's animal nature comes full circle, only this time he doesn't need his companion to stop him. He can stop himself.

The Doctor manages to transport back "home" (the TARDIS) just before he has his skull smashed in by a murderous Master. He's instantly harangued by a gobby neighbour annoyed by the sound of stray cats, and I always wish this part had been played by a young Camille Coduri. Wouldn't that have been just perfect?

The final scenes on Horsenden Hill are bittersweet. Ace is an emotional wreck after losing everything that ever meant something to her. Tellingly, we find her wearing the Doctor's hat and clutching his question mark umbrella. Here's the little girl, all grown up, and she has become her mentor. Ace is her own Doctor now, which is why she might not seem too surprised when the Doctor emerges behind her, not dead at all. Ace knows that the Professor always wins. Despite everything they've been through, she still trusts him. She still has faith in him.

The Doctor tells Ace that the Cheetah people remain in the wilderness. "The place is different but the hunt goes on," he says. The planet is destroyed, but lives on inside her. Does this mean the Cheetah people have found new hunting grounds, or is it all meant to be spiritual? The spirit of the planet and its people live on in memory alone.

Ace wants home. Not Perivale, but home. The TARDIS. The last shot of the Doctor and Ace wandering into the distance, arm in arm, the old team as strong as ever, is heart-warming. The poetic final speech by the Doctor about sleeping oceans, dreaming rivers and singing cities is fittingly eccentric, full of mixed metaphors and exuberant optimism. "Come on Ace, we've got work to do," says the Doctor as the camera pans up into the sky and the end titles blend into view. How lovely the moment is, how bittersweet and quietly melancholy.

And that was it. Doctor Who was just 25 days away from its fourth decade, but it would never quite make it there. The future was in reach, but the Doctor couldn't survive long enough to get there. Sure, there'd be mushrooms of hope such as Search Out Science, Dimensions in Time, the TV movie and The Curse of Fatal Death. There'd be endless books and magazines, audios and videos, DVDs and figurines, more merch than you could possibly afford (though many tried). We thought that was it, so fans made the most of what they could get. Cheap spin-offs like Downtime and Shakedown, PROBE and The Stranger. But it was never the same once the programme itself had gone.

We needed him back. And it would be a wait - quite a long wait in fact - but he would come back to us, fitter and stronger than ever, looking for strays on a council estate in London.

But that is another story entirely...

First broadcast: December 6th, 1989

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: That final scene and speech. It may be overcooked, but after 26 years, seven Doctors and countless excitements, it kind of sums everything up.
The Bad: The Doctor's arse sticking out of a rubbish heap.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (story average: 7.7 out of 10)

Ace says "Professor": 115 - "Come on, Professor. What are we hanging about for?"

NEXT TIME:

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

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