Survival is the last of the Doctor Who serials, ending the 26 season run of the program. It's the 156th story and 3 part story first aired November 22 to December 6 1989. It's the last TV story for Sylvester McCoy as the 7th Doctor and Sophie Aldred as his companion Ace. Sylvester would return as the Doctor in the 1996 TV movie with Paul McGann. Anthony Ainley returns as the Master for the first time in three years. It would be his last appearance as The Master. The screenplay was the first and last story for Rona Munroe. Director Alan Wareing directed this serial and two others before going on to direct hundreds of episodes of Coronation Street, Casualty and Emmerdale Farm. Andrew Cartmel ends his turn as script editor and took a job doing the same on Casualty. John Nathan-Turner was offered a chance to produce Bergerac but he wanted to get rid of John Nettles and move the show from Jersey which the BBC didn't agree with. He would closed down the production offices after Doctor Who wrapped. The extra featurettes spend a lot of time discussing the end and comments seem to point to the then current BBC management not really caring about long running shows or science fiction, even if they were popular.
Survival has the Tardis drop the Doctor and Ace in her hometown of Perivale which is in North West London. It's mostly council flats and low income folks. Ace isn't so sure she wants to be there but she had said she wanted to know what's been happening to her old mates. Of course they find a bit of a problem, some of those friends have disappeared, and soon after finding that out Ace disappears. Some cheetah people have been jumping through space and time to Earth. They chase human's right back to their planet where they turn into cheetah people or get eaten.
The Doctor follows and meets up with his old nemesis The Master. He's as annoying as ever. The Doctor figures the planet is dying and they need to get out of there. The planet is what is turning people to cheetahs. There's plenty of running about and eventually they figure out how to get back to Earth. Some folks get pretty dead but the Doc puts a stop to The Master's plan. The Master returns to the cheetah planet but the Doc and Ace stay on Earth. They pack it in and head off for new adventures that wouldn't happen for a long time. It was an ok story with fairly good location work.
Sadly the cheetah costumes were really kind of poor as was the animatronic cat they used occasionally. That's it to the left. The cheetah costumes weren't what Rona Murphy imagined, she wanted the actors to just have a hint of cheetah rather than a full body suit of fake fur and a mask that wasn't very expressive. I agree but John Nathan-Turner didn't. The body suits were super hot in the 100 degree weather of the rock quarry where they were filming. Sylvester tells a story on the commentary about one of the actors in the cheetah suit getting fed up with the heat, stripping off her costume and disappearing over a sand dune dressed only in a thong. He rather enjoyed the sight.
There's a commentary with Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and Andrew Cartmel. They talk about the serial and the end of the series. Hardly anyone knew it would happen. The BBC was rather tight lipped and hoped to avoid a big stink like the last time they tried to cancel the series. There are some making of featurettes with interviews with cast and crew. There's a kind of stupid kids special and some kind of special on The Master that I didn't get. Some of the stuff is on a second DVD.
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