26x4. Survival
Writer: Rona Munro
Director: Alan Wareing
Script Editor: Andrew Cartmel
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Synopsis: The
Doctor brings Ace to her home town of Perivale to catch up with old
friends, only to discover that it has become the hunting ground of the
"Cheetah People," who capture prey and bring them back to their home
planet - which is experiencing an increasing instability driven by the
aggression of its inhabitants, and where the Master is now trapped. The
two Time Lords square off again, as it emerges that humans who remain
too long on the planet risk becoming transformed by it into a more
"wild" state of being.
Review: After a run
of serials that experimented with unconventional narratives and styles
and introduced new questions about the Doctor's character and history,
"Survival" finds us back in slightly more traditional territory, with
the Doctor's investigation of some mysterious disappearances leading
him to another planet with strange properties where the Master holds
sway over a group of potentially dangerous aliens. What emerges is a
serial that functions well as a series finale even though it may not have
been conceived and designed as such. While Doctor Who has
a "mythology" surrounding the Doctor and Gallifrey and draws upon its
own continuity, it remains at heart an episodic series centered around
individual adventures in space and time, and it feels right for the
show to sign off with another individual adventure rather than with some
sort of big revelation about the Doctor and the Time Lords.
The
trend of strong character development for Ace continues with
"Survival." Even after her reunion with some of her old friends from
Perivale, it's clear at the end that she now considers the TARDIS her
home, and it's not hard to see why when we catch a glimpse of what
exactly she's leaving behind. I
mentioned that "The Happiness Patrol" didn't really do much for me as a
supposed satire of Thatcherism, but the social commentary is a little
clearer in "Survival," where we get the sense of a modern-day Britain
that has
become a somewhat callous and ungenerous place. Retired Sergeant
Paterson preaches a philosophy of "survival of the fittest," chiding a
student in his self-defense class who doesn't want to slam his
already-defeated opponent to the ground and viewing the dangers on the
planet of the Cheetah People as a test of strength and willingness to
fight. Meanwhile, the local grocers in Perivale are lamenting having to
stay open on Sundays to compete with the larger chains and sharing a
disturbing joke about the man who does not need to outrun a hungry lion
to survive as long as he can outrun his friend. Just as a hungry lion
might devour a slow-footed human, the lions of modern capitalism
threaten to devour the small store, while its proprietors find
themselves unwittingly embracing its values.
The
way in which Ace is
affected by the planet - and initially likes it - not only makes for a
compelling turn in her character, but it also works as a metaphor
for the more atavistic, primal urges that still exist in human nature
and which underlie an uncaring attitude towards anyone who can be
written off as weak, unimportant, or somehow deserving of misfortune.
Several of Ace's friends have disappeared along with some other local
youth, and Paterson seems only mildly
concerned about their welfare,
instead assuming them to be runaways and condemning them for supposedly
leaving their
parents to worry. To take the metaphor further, just as some of the
bonds of human society seem to be fraying, the planet of the Cheetah
People is literally falling apart as a result of its inhabitants'
aggression. It's to the credit of Ace's own character and values that
she refuses to let these urges gain control over her even though
something of the Cheetah planet remains within her. When Karra, the
human-turned-Cheetah Person with whom she had formed a bond, lies
dying at the Master's hand, it's Ace's human side, not the
eyes-glowing-yellow Cheetah side, that leads her to comfort Karra and
try to save her.
The
Doctor, of course, has never subscribed to the idea of pure survival of
the fittest, on practical or moral grounds. After overhearing the
"joke" between the grocers, he poses the question - to which they have
no answer - of what the survivor would do when encountering the next
lion. More to the point, his humanitarian values preclude it. When Ace
begins to change under the planet's influence, and thus acquires the
ability to teleport them back to Earth, he does not coerce or deceive
her into using her newfound powers even though she might represent the
only path of escape. Instead, he warns her that she could lose control
of herself and leaves the decision to up to her. The Master, meanwhile,
adapts all too easily to the mindset of a hunter, and there's little
truly separating his "rule or serve" philosophy (as expressed all the
way back in "Colony in Space") from the social Darwinism on display
here. In contrast to the Doctor's concern for Ace, the Master is more
than willing to use her friend Midge (who has also begun to transform)
for his own purposes. And when he and the Doctor square off on the
Cheetah People's planet, he gives himself over completely to the killer
instinct, whereas the Doctor refuses to kill him and famously declares that "if we
fight like animals, we'll die like animals!"
I
find myself
judging "Survival" as a series finale even though I know that it
probably wasn't written as one - aside from the last line of dialogue,
which was added in post-production and perfectly captures the Doctor's
enthusiasm for exploration and for righting wrongs - and in a way I
think it actually
holds
up better as a finale than it does simply as a self-contained serial.
(In fact, I might have rated it *** if taken in isolation, but this is
the last serial and I'm allowed to be sentimental.) As has been the
case in
numerous McCoy serials, we're presented with a somewhat bizarre
situation as a fait accompli,
with little to no explanation of how the planet's physical instability
is linked to the Cheetah People's behavior or how their teleportation
powers work, and there's a scene at the end where the other
self-defense students seem almost
zombie-like in the way they are following the Master and Midge.
Meanwhile, the Cheetah People themselves never manage to look like
anything other than people dressed as giant cats. But then I find
myself thinking, would an extra minute of technobabble and
pseudoscience have really added that much to the proceedings? And
aren't subpar special effects and cheesy monster costumes part and parcel of classic Doctor Who? And so perhaps it's appropriate that the final serial is not only
inventive, thematically relevant, and true to the series' values, but
also a little bit contrived and silly in places.
This Doctor Who reviewing
project began nearly twenty years ago, and what I thought at the time
would only take a few years instead ended up lasting almost as long as
the original run of Doctor Who itself.
I also used to think that, when I'd finished with the original
series, perhaps I'd continue on by reviewing the 1996 Fox TV movie and
subsequently the new series currently airing on the BBC. For better or
worse, however, I simply don't think I have the time or energy to do
that, and I still hope that some day I might be able to start watching
the new episodes as they air along with the rest of fandom. The extra
obligation of writing reviews would only make it more difficult to play
catch-up, so it's at this juncture that I'm closing the book on this
website. I have no idea if I even have many "regular readers," but if
you're out there, I have been blogging the more recent reviews over at http://signaltonoiseblog.com, and if the muse strikes me to write about matters Doctor Who-related
in the future, that's where I will be doing it. Many thanks to
everyone who has tuned in at one time or another, and I hope you got as
much out of reading these reviews as I did out of writing them.
As
for final words on the series, I think I'll let the Doctor take it from
here with his own closing line: "There are worlds out there where the sky is
burning, where 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. Somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on,
Ace, we've got work to do."
Good job, Doctor.
Rating: ***1/2 (out of four)
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