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| Survival | |
| Series: | Doctor Who - TV Stories |
| Season Number: | Season 26 |
| Story Number: | 156 |
| Doctor: | Seventh Doctor |
| Companions: | Ace |
| Enemy: | The Master |
| Setting: | Perivale c.1989 Cheetah World c.1989 |
| Writer: | Rona Munro |
| Director: | Alan Wareing |
| Broadcast: | 22nd November - 6th December 1989 |
| Format: | 3 25-minute episodes |
| Previous Story: | The Curse of Fenric |
| Following Story: | Doctor Who |
Survival was the fourth and final story of Season 26 of Doctor Who, and ultimately the final story to be aired (although it was not the final classic series television story to be produced). It marks the final televised appearance of Sophie Aldred as Ace, and it was also the last time Anthony Ainley appeared as the Master in a regular televised story (he appeared one last time in the video game Destiny of the Doctors). Sylvester McCoy would return as the Doctor in the 1996 television film. It was the last Doctor Who story to be completely broadcast in a videotape format (when the series returned in 2005, it was still shot on videotape, but this was processed to give a film-like look, something that was not done in 1989).
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The Seventh Doctor brings Ace back to her home town of Perivale. However, her old friends are being kidnapped by a race of alien hunters called the Cheetah People, who were shown the way to Earth by the Doctor's old enemy the Master.
The Doctor brings Ace back to her home town of Perivale in the suburbs of North West London. The suburb is not as it should be: a mysterious black cat is wandering around, somehow creating a situation in which humans are hunted down and made to disappear to another world. Ace becomes worried when most of her old friends seem to have disappeared, but the Doctor is more preoccupied with the behaviour of the strange cat. It becomes apparent the black cat is being controlled by a strange being in the other world, viewing the scenes in Perivale through the cat's eyes and choosing which humans to chase and transport. An unhappy young man called Stuart becomes his next victim. Ace follows soon afterwards, hunted down by a Cheetah Person on horseback, which seems to have a hunting affinity with the curious cat. Later the Doctor and a keep-fit instructor called Paterson are chosen and teleported to another world, bathed in a blood-red sky, where the Doctor finds his nemesis the Master who greets him.
The renegade is evidently unwell, his eyes and mouth displaying feline characteristics, and is using the black cat (or kitling) to create a dimensional bridge for the Cheetah People to hunt prey on Earth. Quite why he is doing this is unclear, other than he seems keen to keep the Cheetah People occupied somehow. He tells the Doctor that the planet is alive and has a bewitching influence; the indigenous population bred the kitlings and had a great civilisation, but they regressed into animals through the power of the planet. He too is beginning to show changes and needs the Doctor's help to escape from the planet.
Ace has meanwhile made contact with some of her friends, Shreela and Midge, who are hiding in some woods with a young man called Derek. The planet is evidently dangerous as both Stuart and a terrified milkman find out when a Cheetah Person hunts him to the death. Ace and her friends soon find the Doctor and Paterson, and the Time Lord has deduced they are on a very ancient planet which is dying. A Cheetah pack then attacks and during the fight Midge kills one Cheetah while Ace injures another, called Karra. She begins to form an attachment to Karra and nurses her, tending her injuries, which worries the Doctor greatly. In time Ace's eyes change and she begins to transform into a Cheetah herself.
Ace abandons the Doctor to go hunting with Karra but he eventually wins her around. Midge has meanwhile completely fallen to the power of the planet and is turning into an animal. The Master seizes on this and uses Midge to teleport them both back to Earth and away from the dying world. The Master possesses Midge and then goes with him to the youth club, using his hypnotic powers to enslave Paterson's students. The Doctor persuades Ace to help him get back to Perivale and she does so, also enabling Paterson, Derek and Shreela to flee the strange planet. Patterson denies anything amiss has taken place, falling back on his "survival of the fittest" mantras and his self defence classes. The Doctor and Ace now head around Perivale in search for Midge and the Master. They eventually find them at the youth club, where they have killed Paterson for sport, and Midge too is killed in the Master's machinations. Karra's arrival brings comfort to Ace, whose transformation is continuing, but the Master kills Karra too.
The Master transports the Doctor with him back to the Cheetah Planet for a final conflict but the Doctor resists the pull of the planet, turning away from violence, and is transported away from the dying world. However, the Master looks doomed on the planet as it begins to break up. The Doctor has gone back to the TARDIS and Earth, where he finds Ace, whose metamorphosis has reversed, and tells her she will have grown through the experience: the element of the Cheetah Planet, however, will remain within her forever. Ace is glad because it gave her a wonderful feeling. The two walk off into the distance.
"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and 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!"
This was dubbed over the closing scene as the Doctor and Ace walked off into the distance, apparently to further adventures. The Doctor Who production office at the BBC finally closed down, for the first time since 1963, in August 1990.
Although Survival was the last Doctor Who serial of the original series to be transmitted, it was not the last to have been produced; that was Ghost Light, which had been broadcast some weeks earlier.
This story is the last to feature Anthony Ainley as the Master. Ainley was not asked to return as the Master for the 1996 Doctor Who television movie. Instead, Gordon Tipple was cast as the Master for the prologue and Eric Roberts played the Master for the rest of the movie. Ainley reprised the role of the Master for the 1997 computer game Destiny of the Doctors. He continued to be active in Doctor Who, attending conventions and recording a commentary track for the DVD of the 1981 serial The Keeper of Traken. Ainley died in May 2004. A sound-clip of his voice was later used (along with one of Roger Delgado) for the 2007 episode Utopia.
This story was also the last to entirely feature Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor. McCoy returned briefly to the role in 1996 at the beginning of the American television movie continuation of the series, Doctor Who, to regenerate into the Eighth Doctor.
Finally, this story was the last to feature Sophie Aldred as Ace. Aldred would have continued in her role had the series been renewed for Season 27; however, Aldred's contract was set to expire at the middle part of that season. As a result, the character of Ace was set to be written out of the series in an Ice Warrior story called Ice Time by Marc Platt. According to various interviews with the production team, the new companion would have been a female safecracker whom the Doctor would have taken under his wing, with her gangster father as a recurring character.
Doctor Who eventually returned to production as a BBC television series in 2004, produced by BBC Wales. Rose, the first episode of the new series, aired on 26th March, 2005. As the new series is produced as 45-minute episodes, this makes Survival the final serial to date to be produced in 25-minute instalments, which had been the standard for the series (except for a one-season experiment with 45-minute episodes in 1985) since 1963. A spinoff series, The Sarah Jane Adventures, which debuted in 2007, returned to the 25-minute, serialized episode format.
For the Doctor:
For the Master:
DVD Releases


Released as Doctor Who: Survival (2 discs). Released:
Contents:
Notes:
VHS Releases - Released as Doctor Who: Survival

Published 18 October 1990, Survival was novelised by the original script writer Rona Munro and was number 150 in the Target Books library. The cover artwork was painted by Alister Pearson and the book originally retailed for £2.50. The print run was 25,000 copies.
| Season 26 |
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| Battlefield • Ghost Light • The Curse of Fenric • Survival |
| BOOK | |
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| Survival | |
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| Attribution |
| Series: | TNG: Starfleet Academy, No. 3 |
|---|---|
| Author(s): | Peter David |
| Publication information | |
| Published: | Paperback - December 1993 |
| Pages: | 128 |
| ISBN: | ISBN 0671870866 |
| Chronology | |
| Date: | Unknown (2358) |
While stranded on a dying planet, Cadet Worf and his friends discover they are not alone!
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Rescue Overdue
Deadly space raiders have destroyed the colony on Dantar. Now stranded on this remote planet, surrounded by the burning fires of the abandoned colony, Worf, his friends from Starfleet Academy, and cadets from the Klingon Empire fight to survive. They face harsh weather, low supplies, and hidden dangers.
As suspicion between the Klingon and Starfleet cadets grows, the camp quickly becomes a battleground, with Worf right in the middle.
But Worf and the others soon realize they are not alone as they face a mysterious and dangerous alien warrior. Klingons and humans now must unite and work together before their first mission in deep space becomes their last....
This article is a stub. You can help our database by fixing it. |
| published order | ||
|---|---|---|
| Previous novel: Line of Fire |
TNG books | Next novel: Capture the Flag |
| chronological order | ||
| Previous Adventure: Line of Fire |
Next Adventure: Survivors Chapter 3 |
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The following 8 pages are in this category, out of 8 total.
C |
HJ |
KTU |
| Written by | Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff |
| Music by | |
| Lyrics by | |
| Date | 1975 |
| Source | Survival (The O'Jays album) |
| Publisher |
"Survival" is a 1975 funk song by the O'Jays.
The song played in the 1999 film Muppets From Space as Rizzo the Rat endured science experiments in the lab at C.O.V.N.E.T.
| This article has a real-world perspective. |
| Star Trek: Abandoned episode | |
| "Survival" | |
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| Season: | 3 |
| Episode no. | 1 |
| Prod. code: | 301 |
| Writer(s): | Paul Derrick |
| Original post date: | 17th December 2009 |
| Stardate: | 64167.3 |
| Year: | 2387 |
| episode chronology | |
| Previous episode: | "Divide and Conquer" |
| Next episode: | "Desolate" |
Survival on The Omega Sector BBS
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