Holistic Review: An atmospheric, lyrical, unpredictable story that makes a fitting capstone to a series of adventures exploring Ace's character.
Back in March of 1990, when Survival premiered on North Carolina PBS station WUNC-TV, I never thought it would be the final story of classic Doctor Who. I mean, aside from that amazing final monologue by Sylvester McCoy, it doesn't at all have the feel of a series finale, does it? At the risk of sounding dismissive, it's very much just another "monster of the week" story, albeit a beautifully executed one. At the time, I had only just gotten into Doctor Who Magazine, so I had no idea what turmoil was going on behind the scenes (though I don't think DWM was prone to airing that kind of dirty laundry anyway). And I was so excited about the future of the series: now that I was finally fully aware of the fact that I was watching brand-new Doctor Who, I was ready to milk that for all it was worth. My new DWM obsession did cause me some concern — since DWM 134 in March 1988, I'd been picking up the magazine whenever I happened to run across it on the newsstand, but if memory serves, I started subscribing through my local comic book store (Foundation's Edge) starting with issue 160 in May 1990. And as I started hunting for back issues, I suddenly realized that DWM was publishing story information well in advance of WUNC's "Celebration" pledge drives, and in the months between the season's airing in the UK and the US, whole story descriptions were being included. How, I wondered, was I going to avoid massive spoilers for season 27?
Well, the BBC took care of that just fine.
Now, I did think that Survival was going to be the end for McCoy. Once I became aware that I was watching new Who, I started dreading McCoy's inevitable regeneration. I can only remember this happening during Greatest Show (as the Doctor fought his way into the Dark Circus) and Survival, so I must've realized that anything might happen in the last story of the season. Here, I was absolutely convinced that the explosion from that head-on motorcycle collision was going to cause the Doctor to regenerate. (When he sat up in the trash pile, perfectly healthy, I was shocked!) And in retrospect, when this turned out to be the final story, I remember being surprised that they didn't just kill off the Doctor and let Ace live out the remainder of her life back home in Perivale. Good heavens, can you imagine if they'd actually done that?! No New Adventures and no revival. Thank goodness nobody was listening to my twelve-year-old self.
And then, just as I was starting to wonder when we were going to start getting information on the next season, the axe dropped. Surely DWM must have been the one to break the news, but I only remember it really hitting me when I read Peter Darvill-Evans' postscript in the October 1990 novelization of Survival, informing us that there was probably not going to be a next season. I was distraught! Just as I was finally getting to watch the series almost-live, and appreciate brand-new episodes, they were yanked away from me. In retrospect, how grateful I am that I at least got to take full advantage of season 26. And maybe that's partly why I was so driven to see at least one episode of the revival on live transmission in the UK?
But really, what a way to go out! Survival may not be a typical Doctor Who story, but that's exactly where its strength lies.
The "Ace trilogy" — Ghost Light, The Curse of Fenric and Survival — is really a powerhouse of storytelling, certainly by Doctor Who standards. Aside from, obviously, an exploration of Ace's background, what each of these stories has in common, and what few other Who stories share, is a set of deeper themes woven throughout the script. Just as Ghost Light considered evolution and resistance to change, and Fenric explored the complexity of love and innocence and growing up, Survival tackles themes of home, loyalty, bullying, aggression, and — indeed — survival, with an underlying thread of "family" that runs through the entire arc. It's one of those rare stories where you feel like every choice is deliberate and every element has a subtext. Even if you're not quite certain where the author's trying to go, you know she has a point in mind. It just feels like effective, potent writing, and even more impressively, Munro's dialogue sounds lyrical rather than pretentious, which has hobbled many another screenwriter's attempt at poignancy. So let's see now whether I can do any justice to interpreting the themes of Munro's script.
The most basic underlying message of Survival concerns conforming to societal expectations. In Survival, we might codify those expectations as hyper-masculine: Paterson pressures his students to be brutal rather than to show mercy, Midge is regarded as a motivated self-starter, and everyone makes fun of meek Derek. Fittingly, this is the very trait that the cheetah planet prizes: if you're aggressive enough to fight back, you're either going to get eaten or transformed. But right from the beginning, Munro implies that this positive societal reinforcement is wrong-headed: while Paterson's opinion on the necessity of self-defense is arguably shrewd, his treatment of his students, and everyone's treatment of Derek, is tantamount to bullying. And Midge's power is clearly rooted in a sadistic place; he doesn't snap at people or kill cheetahs because it's necessary, but because he likes it. As for the cheetah planet, well, aggression might be beneficial in the short term, but in the long term, even the Cheetah People's play-fighting is slowly tearing their planet apart, while killing and eating flesh are guaranteed ways to speed up the cheetah transformation. So the story is pretty firmly against promoting hyper-masculinity as a societal ideal, but there's some nuance in its depiction of fighting: sometimes it's a necessary evil, but it can fundamentally change you.
More explicitly, the story looks at the concept of "survival of the fittest", which inspired the title. The main question that Survival asks is, what behavior is considered 'fit'? For Paterson, Midge and the Master, the answer is that aforementioned hyper-masculinity. Paterson believes in fighting and self-defense, Midge believes in aggression, and the Master believes in dominance. (Midge shows some charisma in part 3, but he hasn't turned over a new leaf; it's merely the Master, using him as a puppet, employing charm to get his way.) And to be sure, Paterson's heart, at least, is in the right place; he thinks he's teaching the youth how to survive by fighting, which might not be that far off the mark if Perivale used to be as rough a place as Ace implies. Yet from what we see of Perivale, it seems more like a placid suburban neighborhood than a crime-ridden wasteland, with little old ladies and lace curtains and corner shops, so either Paterson revels in the glory days of violence and wants to impart that bloodlust to his self-defense students, or he recognizes a threat that's bubbling underneath the surface of the community. (It's also possible that Survival represents a bit of suburban wish-fulfillment: maybe Perivale wasn't all that sleepy or boring until Ace's gang, likely considered to be hellions, were plucked out of it.) This "only the strong survive" mentality leads to a cutthroat society, in some ways indistinguishable from the brutality of nature, as illustrated when an injured Midge wills himself to die. In contrast, the Doctor advocates pacifism, and Derek has survived for three weeks on the Cheetah planet simply through his wits, and by keeping his head down.
Derek, though, suffers near-constant bullying, in particular from Midge, who seems to be enacting the "survival of the fittest" rules of the teenage world. Survival's predator/prey analogy of bullying predates Buffy's "The Pack", which likewise illustrates how pack mentality amplifies bullying and cruelty. In Survival, this is shown most clearly when Midge gains his pack from the youth club, strutting in as the alpha cat, ready to kill or control everyone there. In joining a pack, the youth club guys seem to subsume their individuality into this new collective identity. We've already seen this happen with Midge, who rapidly lost his humanity as he surrendered control to the cheetah planet, to the point that he even loses the power of speech, only able to parrot back what other people say to him. The pack mentality culminates in an utterly freaky scene as these guys, betas now to Midge's alpha, allow Midge to murder Paterson with nary a hint of objection.
Reportedly, Munro herself intended the story to be a commentary on hunting culture, although I have to say that I didn't pick up on that particular message. Predator-vs-prey, certainly, but I don't detect much of a sport-hunting theme, aside from the Cheetah People toying with their victims, and the tenuous connection of Ange's "Hunt Saboteurs" collection cup.
In a story that's partly about societal norms and toxic masculinity, it's fitting that there's a tiny hint of homoerotic subtext. Granted, some of it may be unintentional (as in the wrestling scene) or due to casting (the kitlings target several fit young men who writhe around in their somewhat revealing clothing before being abducted). But some of it is a shade more explicit, particularly as it pertains to Derek, a shy young lad who doesn't seem at all comfortable around the macho Midge and Paterson, both of whom physically or verbally abuse him, even though Derek's clearly the most skilled at surviving on the cheetah planet. Paterson, in particular, is noticeably suspicious that Derek is 'different'; when they suspect that one of their party is transforming into a Cheetah Person, Paterson immediately and erroneously misinterprets Derek's gaze as (a) abnormal (when in fact Derek had been attending to what Paterson was just saying) and (b) threatening, with a line that could refer equally well to cheetah transformation or so-called 'gay panic': "What are you looking at? It's him, isn't it? He's the one! You stay away from me!" When they return to Earth, Paterson makes this implication even more explicit, chastising Derek for not letting go of his hand — a crucial physical link that enables his transportation home — quickly enough: Paterson reacts by flinging Derek's hand away in disgust, accusatorily challenging him with "What's your game, then?" Whether or not he regards Derek as gay, Paterson definitely feels that Derek doesn't enact traditional masculine behavior strongly enough, which makes him a target for physical and verbal intimidation. Meanwhile, other reviewers have pointed out the relationship between Ace and Karra, which Karra herself likens to a sisterhood, although the animal magnetism of their deep emotional connection, and the way their newfound relationship unlocks hidden desires that Ace never knew she had, could be interpreted (as Munro intended) as lesbian subtext.
And certainly lesbian subtext would be fitting in a story that also quietly champions feminism. I find this theme even less overt than the others, but again, there's undeniable subtext, particularly in that Survival rejects the hyper-masculine ideal. One might also read into the "moon water" that cures Karra's combat wounds, Ace and Shreela being the two most competent and proactive characters aside from the Doctor, and the fact that on a planet torn by strife, the one good thing to come from Cheetah-hood is a sense of being connected to the entire planet, in a sort of Gaia / Mother Earth environmentalist allegory.
In this regard, Ace is an fascinating study in contrasts, and it's interesting to see such a self-reliant companion transported to a place where she's alone and hunted. It's one of those situations that really tests a character's mettle and reveals their true nature: where Shreela, for example, is level-headed and generally plays it safe, Ace is hotheaded and galvanizing. (As Ace tells the others, "Just as well I'm here! You need sorting out, you lot." Too right!) I mentioned in my review of Dragonfire that it was a fairly macho story, with only Mel and Stellar counteracting the testosterone onscreen; Ace, though female, is more aggressive and outspoken and even violent than our society typically allows for women (but not for men). So on one hand, Ace is a progressive feminist character, but on the other, she embodies much of the predilection for physical violence that Survival is arguing against. She's therefore a perfect candidate to illustrate the dichotomy of cheetah transformation: on the upside, she gains a sense of connection and community, but on the downside, if she can't control her natural aggressive impulses, the transformation will become permanent and she'll lose the ability to control those impulses, if not become forever bound to a planet that's on the verge of self-destruction. So is the transformation good or bad? What if you're turning into someone that you won't recognize? And what if the person you're turning into is cruel?
It's significant that Ace is the only character who both succumbs to the cheetah planet's influence, and fights against it. Part of the reason is that Ace is a woman of great inner strength and conviction, but the catalyst that helps Ace resist her baser instincts is the Doctor. As Ace becomes more animalistic, it's the Doctor who reins her in, by expressing to Ace his concern that the more she allows it to take control, the less likely she'll be able to get rid of it. Because of the trust she puts in him, his words and his warning sink in. Eventually, Ace reaches a point at which the transformation has progressed so far that if she engages in even one more fight, she risks turning into a cheetah forever. What holds her back from the brink, as in Fenric, is her touching faith in the Doctor, even though she believes him to be dead. As she struggles not to fight, she desperately clutches the Doctor's hat and umbrella as if they can ward her against the aggression she's attempting to suppress, and against the adversary that threatens to force her into a confrontation.
In a way, this ties into Ace's increasing maturity. Nobody I know has had to handle adolescence while simultaneously crusading against evil throughout space and time, but in at least one way Ace's experience is universal: by the time she comes back home, it feels almost unrecognizable, with childhood landmarks gone and most of her friends moved away. As Ace has firmly realized by the story's end, sometimes home is where you make it. Survival gives us our first real glimpse at the life a companion has left behind, and for a companion whose personality and flaws have been explored as deeply as Ace's have, it feels only fitting that we finally get to explore her home life. While Ace is interested in catching up with her friends, her family is apparently (and unsurprisingly) much less of a draw: although we learn that Ace's mum was worried enough about her disappearance to have her listed as a missing person, Audrey is conspicuous in her absence from Ace's homecoming. (Apparently Ace hasn't made quite as much peace with her mother yet as Fenric might have led one to believe.)
For Ace, Survival is all about home, on multiple levels. Ace's homecoming is interesting: she wants to go back but then she doesn't want to be there, and we later learn (in a touchingly understated moment) that to Ace, home is now the TARDIS. But thanks to Fenric's time-storm, Ace still has unfinished business in Perivale, not that she wants anyone reminding her: witness the way she steams after Paterson scolds her for not contacting her mum. Still, as much as she hates Perivale, and frequently mocks it as a sleepy boring dump of a suburb, she still on some level perceives it to be home. Despite her immediate grumbling to the Doctor upon their arrival, she still drags him all over town hoping to see some of her friends again. Likewise, the hostile environment of the cheetah planet brings out a different side of Ace than it does of the others. For her, the cheetah planet isn't entirely a vale of torment; it also becomes a sort of second home, as she explores the landscape and gets to know Karra. It's telling, I think, that Ace changes not because she joins in the Cheetah fighting, but because she's formed a bond. Where Mitch apparently transformed from killing a living being, Ace transformed from healing one. The only way that the Doctor's able to save her from becoming one with the planet, in fact, is to jolt her back by showing her her reflection or reminding her of her human nature.
Aldred gives an amazing performance as, moments away from eating raw meat, the Doctor summons Ace back, and the war between her cheetah and human nature plays across her face. I'm also immensely fond of the quiet relieved smile on her face when the Doctor, whom she'd thought dead, appears behind her to take his hat back. Love Aldred's delivery of "Don't be stupid.", "What's happened to the coffee bar?!", her ashamed head-duck on "I don't think so.", her fascination with the newly-materialized Karra-on-horseback until she realizes she's in big trouble, "Oh yeah! She's better! Doctor, look!", the sound of Ace's heart being ripped out on "NO!" when she thinks the Doctor's about to be killed, the sheer panic in her voice on "I must not fight. I must not fight. Help me. Help me! Will somebody help me!", her anguished "KARRA!" as the Cheetah Person is stabbed by the Master, and "Good." when the Doctor tells her that the cheetah planet will always live inside her.
The seventh Doctor's manipulative nature, which has been consistently building steam since Silver Nemesis, is almost entirely absent here, which actually makes for a nice change, given how deeply embedded it's been in the last few stories. (I can't delete that "almost" because there's a very strong hint that the Doctor is willing to let Ace pursue her deepening attachment to the planet, even encouraging her to keep Karra alive, in order to provide them a way home, while only giving her vague hints about the dangerous change that will overtake her, so as not to deter her from that course of action.) Here, the Doctor is simply granting Ace's wish to see home again, although the lack of intellectual stimulation is clearly getting to him: he seems even more bored with Perivale than Ace claims to be. But the moment he spies a kitling outside the youth centre, his spider senses apparently start tingling. He immediately pegs them as a threat, and quicky intuits not only that they're responsible for the mysterious disappearances of local teens, but that the youths are being taken to the kitlings' home planet. The scene in which he tells Ace about her new abilities is fantastic; I'd never noticed before, but it parallels the Master's conversation with Midge, except that where the Master revels in being able to take advantage of Midge's power, the Doctor encourages Ace to find empowerment in hers. McCoy's performance is superb; the seventh Doctor is foreboding but funny throughout, fiercely protective, and McCoy's juggling skills even make a quick reappearance, when the Doctor tries to distract the Cheetah People. The moment when he turns Paterson's advice back on him ("One finger can be a deadly weapon.") is bizarre, since we've never known the Doctor to have this ability, but also ironic and cool. This story does have probably my least-favorite of McCoy's deliveries: even as a thirteen-year-old, I found the sight of him kneeling in a suburban street bellowing "If we fight like animals, we diiiiiiie like animals!" to be deeply embarrassing, although these days I find it doesn't seem as bad as it used to. Maybe my bar has been lowered, or I'm just not as picky any longer. Otherwise, he gives a great delivery of "I think you'd better get your running shoes on, gentlemen.", "Dog! Go away!" (I often say the same thing, Doctor), the way he trills at the cat he's trying to catch and at the Cheetah People as he juggles, "They're extremely dangerous creatures. They could eat you. Or...", and I love the very funny shots of the Doctor shushing a homeowner as he crouches behind her garden fence, and tripping a Cheetah Person then politely doffing his hat to it.
Another major point in Survival's favor is that the script is populated with interesting characters, all well-acted. Sergeant Paterson (Julian Holloway) is exactly the kind of authority figure I always loathed, full of machismo and braggadocio and encouraging violence. (For that matter, he's also the last example of the classic-series "military idiot" cliché that so informed my childhood.) He's also a total narcissist: he thinks he's a "hunting animal, I've got the instinct for it." and he confidently proclaims, "There's nothing I don't know about survival!" Yet in reality, he can't accept or cope with his experiences on the cheetah planet, and scolds Ace and the Doctor rather than thanking them. But Holloway plays him to a tee, and makes sure to give him some depth. As aggressively confrontational as he can be, it's clear that Paterson is being hard on his students because he cares for them and worries for their future ("That way they'll fight or go under," he says. "Half of them go under anyway round here, can't save 'em. Wasters."), even though his name-calling doesn't make him seem very empathetic. Nor does the way he aggressively manhandles people, yanking on the Doctor's shoulder to get his attention, or especially the scene in which he physically and verbally harasses Shaun about survival of the fittest.
Of all the characters in Survival, my favorite has always been Ace's gutsy friend Shreela (Sakuntala Ramanee), who seems to be level-headed and analytical. Once Ace joins their group, Shreela immediately teams up with her, not just because they're old friends but also apparently because Ace, too, is intelligent and inclined to take action. Shreela's drive to fight back apparently took a hit after Stevie's death, but it's clear that she's more motivated than either quiet Derek or fatalistic Midge, because she readily agrees to help with Ace's plan, and in fact seems to be the only one pitching in at all. When the milkman's sudden appearance kicks off a fight with the Cheetah People, Shreela is the only character other than Ace and the Doctor who resists jumping immediately into the fray.
Much less likeable, but more complex because of it, is antagonist and bully Midge (Will Barton), a guy so unsentimental that he can make cruel jokes about their friend Stevie's recent demise. Aside from his unflappable personality, Midge really has no redeeming features at all. He's confrontational, annoyingly dismissive and snarky, and Ace implies that he's a coward to boot. Like Ace, Midge has a barely-restrained angry side, so it makes sense that they would be the first two to turn. (Who else wants to bet that Paterson would've been the third?) Given all that rage bubbling just under the surface, combined with his evident lack of empathy, I can't help but feel that he's possibly a serial killer in the making. Barton gives a great performance as Midge succumbs to the cheetah transformation, growling and struggling as he gradually loses his intelligence and reverts to instinct.
Poor David John hardly gets any lines as Derek, but even non-verbally, he makes a strong impression. Something about him just seems relatable, with his evident sensitivity, his sympathetic hangdog look, his expression of fear when Midge or Paterson threatens him, and his ebullient good nature when the Doctor returns him home. I've always appreciated that John plays the "thanks for saving my life!" line straight, without the slightest implication that Derek is teasing Ace after overhearing her; he just genuinely is that grateful.
Stuart (Sean Oliver) seems like a good guy, given that he tries to shoo Karra off Ace at ultimately the cost of his own life, and that's he's rightfully steamed at Paterson for forcing him not to pull any punches on the wrestling mat, potentially injuring his friend. The scene in which he fleetingly stands up to Paterson, only to have the sergeant intimidate him with a misplaced dressing-down, is excellent, one of several uncomfortable illustrations of bullying in the story. I also appreciated the way Oliver convincingly trips over himself as Stuart flees his Cheetah pursuer.
Ace's world-weary friend Ange (Kate Eaton) seems to have had all the joy sucked out of her, if indeed she ever had any. Eaton does a great job of portraying Ange as a woman who's just going through the motions, not particularly delighted to see Ace again, nor even terribly enthusiastic about the cause for which she's collecting, even though she is out on a Sunday doing it.
Nine-year-old Adele Silva gives an overall great performance as Squeak; her sobbing is perhaps not completely convincing ("The bad cat killed it! The bad cat the man brought!"), but she looks suitably distraught over her cat's death, and frightened of Ace's cat eyes. Love her delivery of "He's got funny eyes now!" and "...bad cat man!"
Shopkeepers Harvey (Norman Pace) and Len (Gareth Hale) are two of many minor characters that help to flesh out Perivale as an abyss of perfectly ordinary suburban boredom, in their case enlivening the drudgery of working on Sunday with a load of old jokes and prattle about how little they want to be there. Hale and Pace are pretty great, and the lion joke is a really good thematic fit with the story. Between the two, I find Hale's acting to be more naturalistic, but Pace's to be more memorable. Harvey comes off as slightly dim, and Pace utters his lines in an oddly menacing tone. I mean, I never would've thought anybody could make the line "All I know is, my Tiger prefers cheese" sound threatening, yet here it is.
Michelle Martin only gets one scene as the ticked-off Neighbour, but boy, is it a doozy. I can't ever read the phrase "so you say" without hearing her dismissive intonation in my head.
Likewise, in his brief scene at the story's beginning, Damon Jeffrey does some fantastic "terrified" acting as Dave is rapidly hunted down and kidnapped by an off-screen Cheetah Person. In particular, I love the way he mouths "oh my God!" and runs away, constantly glancing over his shoulder while his sponge flings suds all over the street.
Of the Master's inclusion, I'm torn. On one hand, I'm thrilled that Anthony Ainley got to return for one final story — indeed, the final story — and the chance to match wits with Sylvester McCoy's Doctor. But while I appreciate that the Master has a completely novel story function — he's not out to conquer or destroy, merely to escape, and the Doctor never once hesitates to help him despite their contentious history — it's a bit weird seeing but a slice of his life battling the cheetah influence. We never do find out how he got stranded on the cheetah planet (although we can make an educated guess that a kitling abducted him from wherever his TARDIS was parked), nor do we ever learn what happens to him or how the 'infection' is cured. (Thank goodness for the New Adventures, which does address the Master's lingering Cheetah nature as well as the intriguing connection that it establishes between him and Ace. I like to assume, too, that his snake-eyes at the start of the TV movie are actually cheetah eyes, because frankly even "cheetah" is a more satisfying explanation than "transparent slime cobra".) Love Ainley's delivery of "I never thought of it quite that way", and "He doesn't remember his name!"
Despite the layers of fake fur covering her entire head, Lisa Bowerman emotes her socks off as Karra, singlehandedly giving the Cheetah People actual personality beyond their catlike nature. Bowerman's Karra is predatory, sensual, and unexpectedly caring; within their first scene after Ace's transformation has begun, she makes their nascent sisterhood seem utterly believable, but it's equally believable that Karra would slaughter Ace if the whim ever took her. Great delivery of "Smell the blood on the wind... hear your blood in your ears... die, at last, with your enemy's blood in your mouth. With your enemy's blood in your mouth!"
Even beyond Karra, the Cheetah People are fascinating adversaries, especially to a cat lover like myself who never really thinks about how my warm fuzzies toward them would change if I were a mouse. On the cheetah planet, even fit young men and women are nothing more than prey for the packs of clever, swift feline hunters. Even Ace's attempts to outsmart them seem uniformly doomed to failure. Their major downside, of course, is that these Cheetah People are no sleek muscular killers. Rather, they're kinda floofy adorable killers. The costumes are just a bit too drenched in fun-fur, and not form-fitting enough, to look like actual ferocious human-animal hybrids rather than stuffed cheetah toys. But the story sells their menace despite the lack of visual threat, and in some ways it almost works to the story's benefit: this cuddly exterior makes for a really interesting contrast with the moments in which they are vicious and feral, because their appearance leads us to underestimate them. Then again, this isn't necessarily a downside, because it's yet another way in which the story remembers that the Cheetah People are supposed to be catlike humanoids: sure, they're bloodthirsty hunters, but they're also a playful species, and they like being scratched behind the ears. It also leads to some effective moments, like the Cheetah Person escaping Ace's would-be trap by extending its heretofore-unsuspected claws (in an impressive effects shot) and effortlessly snapping the wire. Overall the actors do a great job of moving with feline grace (except maybe for the one that over-enthusiastically bounds out from behind a small shrub to menace Midge in part 2), and I love the shot in which they all simultaneously turn to look up at the sound of a distant eruption.
The kitlings, too, are a slightly mixed bag, or at least they ought to be. I'm almost 100% a cat person, so an episode featuring actual kitties is guaranteed to grab my interest. And while most of the kitties in this story are actually naughty kitlings, Survival thankfully doesn't implicate all cats in their badness. There's lots of dialogue about cat fights and neglectful pet owners, but it all reflects more on the kitlings than on our Earth felines. Anyway: I'm inclined to be fond of any cat I see, up to and including the kitlings, so they've got their work cut out for them to make me see them as a threat, especially in their relatively unconvincing animatronic form, with the howling kitling being the most egregious example. Then again, the non-animatronic form is even worse, because I just want to skritch them and nuzzle their sweet furry bodies! Like the adorable "feline vulture" rolling around in the sand. Where is my mouse-on-a-string! Who's a sweet kitty? You are! Ahem. But the music and sound effects go a long way toward increasing their menace.
The effects used to represent the cheetah planet are great: even though the blue sky of Warmwell Quarry isn't completely painted out, the planet's cloudy pink atmosphere is memorable, and the overlit washed-out look of these scenes is really effective at making the planet look hotter than England.
I'm such a devoted fan of Mark Ayres' scores that I really find them hard to beat, but I have to say that Dominic Glynn has composed a fine, fine score for Survival. If I had to pick a word to describe it, I think that word would be "passionate", because his music is full of feeling. For me, at least, just thinking about certain scenes brings the music to mind: like the haunting pipes as Ace arrives on the cheetah planet, or the sweet but melancholy theme over the final scene. Even the obviously Spanish-inspired guitar theme somehow fits the sweltering, lonely cheetah planet (given the Mayan-esque design of the ruins, maybe the original settlers of the cheetah planet were pre-Columbian indigenous Latin Americans?), and the rest of Glynn's work feels equally well-tailored and evocative, like the guitar howl as the TARDIS materialization startles a kitling, and the screeching violins on the soundtrack as the Doctor finds the Master inside his tent.
I'm a confirmed fan of Alan Wareing's direction, and his work on Survival is really beautiful. Some of my favorite shots: Ace spying a kitling as the merry-go-round revolves; the kitling in Ace's lap hissing and jumping to the ground; Ace jogging away backwards from the Cheetah Person; Ace seeing Shreela through the mist for the first time in years; the low-angle shot of the Doctor crawling along the wall to nab a kitling; the reflection of the moon water; Midge snarling at the group; and the slo-mo shot of Ace and Karra running. As the animatronic kitlings and Cheetah People alone demonstrate, Wareing is great at milking tension even out of scenes that have no right to be so scary. The playground chase scene is a perfect example, as shots of Ace clambering over various pieces of playground equipment turn into a really tense game of, well, cat-and-Ace. Likewise, Dave's kidnapping is really mysterious and creepy because we watch the scene play out from the perspective of a Cheetah Person on horseback, but we don't see who or what has taken him. The only shot that's always seemed a bit odd to me is during part three, when — in order to hide the fact that she already has her cheetah contacts in — Sophie Aldred is required to listen to the Doctor while staring at the ground, only looking up when Ace gets a flash of the Master's location. Immediately thereafter, her eye-color transformation is achieved digitally (and it looks fantastic), so unless it was a very expensive effect, they surely could've used it twice and avoided the awkward shot?
Thanks especially to Survival, I was really curious to visit Perivale. During my first trip to England, I never even went near London, and on my second trip, I was stuck adhering to my senior-class itinerary. I can't even tell you how much I was dying to find a chance to slip away and take the Tube out to west London, but I never had an opportunity. So on my third trip, when I went around the UK with my mother in 2000, I made a point to set aside time to make the trip. Mom was so kind and accommodating as, much like Ace, I dragged her around such exciting spots as the Perivale library (where one of the librarians vaguely recalled that Perivale was Ace's birthplace), a small playground that might have been (but almost certainly wasn't) where the playground scenes were filmed, and Horsenden Hill, although again I don't think we found any actual filming locations. (I really should make that trip again, armed with screencaps!)
My other relevant memory is that while North Carolina PBS was receiving new episodes of Doctor Who, West Virginia PBS had stopped showing even old episodes of the series years before. So when Gray came to visit me that summer, I knew I was in possession of VHS tapes worth their weight in gold. I was especially looking forward to showing him Survival to watch his reaction when the Master was unveiled at the end of part one. Imagine my disappointment, then, when Gray got spoiled on his appearance! (I want to say he was browsing my updated copy of The Programme Guide, which listed Anthony Ainley among the cast? So I really have only myself to blame!)
Minor points:
Doctor: "So what's so terrible about Perivale?"
Ace: "Nothing ever happens here."
Harvey: "Whereas these ones have the smell that drives a tabby cat wild."
Len: "No no no, that's an aftershave ad."
Doctor: "I'm sure I've forgotten something..."
Len: (emerging from the store) "Oi, haven't you forgotten something?"
Doctor: (hopeful) "Yes?"
Len: "Money."
Doctor: (considers) "No, it wasn't that..."
Ace: "People don't just vanish."
Ange: "You did."
Ace: "Yeah, well, that's different."
Doctor: "Cover your tracks, so you don't leave a smell... Can you smell that?"
Ange: "Can't. Hayfever."
Ace: "Feels... exciting."
Doctor: "What do you feel?"
Ace: "Like I could run forever! I can smell things as clear as pictures!"
Doctor: "Anything else?"
Ace: "Well... I'm starving, Professor."
Ace: "You kill people. You eat people!"
Karra: "When I'm hungry, I hunt. When I hunt, I eat."
Ace: "Would you eat me?"
Karra: "There is meat here."
Ace: "Yeah, but if there wasn't? Would you kill me?"
Karra: "How fast can you run, sister?"
Ace: "Fast enough."
Karra: "That would be a good hunt!"
Doctor: "Where to now, Ace?"
Ace: "Home."
Doctor: "Home?"
Ace: "The TARDIS."
Doctor: "Yes. The TARDIS." (they walk off) "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace. We've got work to do."
It's in no way a conventional series finale, but what better way to go out than on an original and thematically rich story with a poignant ending? If I had to pick between a dull-but-prototypical story or an atypical but inventive one, I'll choose the latter every time.