‘The chase. To hunt in the morning and live till evening. Run out of the light, and slip into the dark. 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’
“This planet’s alive. The animals are part of the planet.”
A few years ago, I saw a cycle of plays at the National Theatre of Scotland during the Theatre Festival – the James Plays, covering the lives of James I, II and III of Scotland. I’d heard they were excellent and decided to see them all and indeed they were. And then almost as an afterthought I realised that they were written by Rona Munro – author of ‘Survival’ the last story transmitted in the original run of TV’s ‘Doctor Who’. Her career has come a long way since she met Andrew Cartmel at a BBC event (‘Ladybird, Ladybird’ for Ken Loach being another highlight) and was the only writer who didn’t give him a wide birth when he said he was Script Editor of ‘Doctor Who’. By this point the show’s star had fallen very low indeed and only the very green or very committed (or likely both) seemed interested in making a contribution during these ‘Dying Days’. Rona was a fan you see, like Marc Platt she had watched since William Hartnell, but really fell in love with Patrick Troughton’s portrayal.
‘Come hunting, sister’
The obvious point to make about Rona’s contribution is not just that it is significant by virtue of being the final story, although ‘Ghost Light’ was last to be made, but rather that it is one of the few stories written by a female writer in the original run. Elsewhere we have Lesley Scott co-writer of ‘The Ark’ – although she might not actually have written any of it, Jane Baker putting the Jane in Pip n’ Jane, Paula Moore – although that story appears to have been written by Eric Saward and Ian Levine and last, but definitely not least, the wonderful Barbara Clegg contributing ‘Enlightenment’ – but inexplicably having a series of story ideas, including the brilliant ‘Point of Entry’ turned down. Unless you believe that the Earth is flat and Kate Bush actually wrote ‘Kinda’ then that’s your lot. When Rona wrote this, I doubt whether anyone would have guessed that it would be nearly 20 years before another woman would write a TV ‘Doctor Who’ story or indeed anyone for 7 years.
Is this important? Well it sort of is, despite the masculinity on display in ‘Survival’, evidenced by Sarge and his band of male teenage wrestlers(!) and the themes of survival of the fittest, there is definitely a feminine aspect to the writing, in the Cheetah people and in particular the developing relationship between Ace and Karra . Something that is rather nicely played, especially by future Big Finish stalwart Lisa Bowerman. I am not really qualified to talk about the use of feminist symbols – the moon reflected in the water, the cat etc. in this piece, I would feel that I was writing way out of comfort zone – despite spending a proportion of my student days reading Virago books – OK, I’ll admit it that was purely to impress girls! The obvious reference is Karra addressing Ace as ‘my sister’. One reading might be Karra welcoming Ace to the sisterhood, or I expect that somewhere there is a lesbian reading of their relationship, which somehow made it past JNT. Whatever the truth, it does feel quite different and is an interesting aspect to the story, I’m just not the right person or gender to write an interesting piece on it!
‘Survival of the fittest. The weak must be eliminated so that the healthy can flourish.’
The story fits rather well in a cycle of stories in season 26 based on change and evolution – overtly in the case of ‘Ghost Light’ and to a lesser degree with the Haemavores (an evolutionary dead end) and the possession of Judson and in ‘Fenric’. Here the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ is deliberately bandied about in the usual way that it is misinterpreted by the intellectually challenged. Just as in ‘Ghost Light’ we have the misuse of Social Darwinism, here we have the idea propounded by Sarge and indeed the Master, that ‘survival of the fittest’ refers to physical fitness and strength, it doesn’t or rather that may or not be an important factor in the process of natural selection. If physical strength was the sole factor, then the stronger Neanderthal Man – evidenced by Nimrod in the previous story, would have outlasted Homo Sapiens, rather than falling to a combination of extinction and inter-breeding.
‘Fitness’ only refers to being well adapted enough to survive long enough to pass on your genetic material to another generation – it doesn’t even mean you have to be highly adapted and specialized, often generalist, adaptable species fare best. They mostly do in our degraded world today, with highly specialized species, well enough adapted for survival for 40-50 million years longer than Homo Sapiens meagre time span on the planet, in danger of extinction as the environment that they are adapted for changes. This is why the term ‘natural selection’ describes the mechanism of Darwinian evolution better – ‘fitness’ is too easily associated with physical condition, which is only one of the factors that might be important in an individual’s ability to pass on their genes. So, the larger brain of Homo Sapiens wins out long term against the Neanderthal– although as evidenced here that capability in our own species also varies greatly. The ability to plan, to come up with a strategy for survival, to mentally adapt to a new situation is sometimes more important than the ability to throw rocks at an assailant. That is a basic lesson of this story, but also ‘Doctor Who’ isn’t it – our hero isn’t Superman, he is Sherlock Holmes and Quatermass and Challenger and all those other clever scientist/explorer heroes rolled into one.
The change and transformation aspect of ‘Survival’ is also a strong running theme – the transformation into Cheetah People of those brought to the planet – of the Master, of Ace, Midge and Karra. Also, the change undergone by the unnamed planet as its inhabitant’s fight. The planet changing but not for the better, volcanoes erupting, its death accelerating as the cheetah people battle each other or as the Doctor and Master’s fight at its ending. Whether that works or not is up to you, as ever in this era it is a clever idea, but maybe not fully realised, but new ground nonetheless. The nearest I could think of it in concept in the original run being ‘Zeta Minor’ – the Jekyll and Hyde planet from ‘Planet of Evil’ – another case where the planet itself is almost another character.
Every Day is like Sunday
‘You had to pick a Sunday, didn’t you? You bring me back to the boredom capitol of the universe, you pick the one day of the week you can’t even get a decent television programme.’
That quote sums up one aspect of my childhood. Everything important happened on Saturday – Football, ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Swap Shop’, visiting my Nan and Grandad. And then Sunday – there was nothing, absolutely nothing to do, nothing to watch – even the Sunday morning children’s show was a piece of religious indoctrination! These days imagine being bored for long stretches of a day – if you can, that was Sunday on loop. I remember one Sunday, just sitting in a chair, watching the motes of dust moving in the light through Brownian motion as the clock ticked loudly, on and on and on.. Now Sunday is ‘Doctor Who’ day, well occasionally, the shops are open, there are multiple football matches and children have any amount of exciting things to do or watch. No excuse for being bored now. But I understand what Perivale on a Sunday in 1989 might have felt like.
‘Survival’ is set and largely filmed in Perivale. Rona Munro isn’t from around these parts though – she’s from Edinburgh. She assumed that this was going to be set in gritty urban inner-city London, it really isn’t. It is suburbia, maybe not the upmarket suburbia of the Leadbetters and the Goods of ‘The Good Life’, rather working class, lower middle-class suburbia on the edge of the capital. I don’t know Perivale personally, but I know places close enough to it to recognize the streets depicted here. Apologies to anyone who lives nearby and loves it, but to me these places are too close to London to be happy and too far from London to be happy commuting in. All the downsides, but few of the benefits. Perivale is a former village (as referenced in ‘Ghost Light’) caught between Greenford and the Hanger Lane Gyratory system (sounds more interesting than it is!), bounded by the A40 heading west out of London. Back in the day, not so very long after ‘Survival’ when I used to have to drive to London for work, heading west out of London along these roads back towards the Cotswolds was a particular joy. When talking about the location, the cast and script editor speak of ‘the streets’ and council estates, but that isn’t really what is depicted here – Midge’s flat aside, we are mostly in semi-detached ville.
As such, Perivale actually makes for a more interesting location, suburbia, being so little used in the show at this point. We instinctively know Perivale – not much happens, blokes wash their cars, old women shoo cats from their garden, there’s a neighbourhood watch busybody, kids hang out on the common and muck about, because aside from getting on a tube or bus and going somewhere else, there isn’t that much to do. We also have a milkman – the universal symbol of suburbia, kidnapped and savaged on an alien world – see ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ and ‘The Stolen Earth’. Bizarrely a job where you deliver milk for an electric milk float that can’t manage 20mph, is actually one of the most dangerous jobs to do in ‘Doctor Who’ – up there with being a previously unseen UNIT private or being Rory.
Anyway, to these eyes at least, this isn’t Thatcher’s dead-end urban Britain that you might read in some reviews of this story, unemployment rife, you’d have to look elsewhere for that in 1989 – to the North West or North East of England, South Wales, Glasgow. This is a place with employment, largely unscathed by the 80’s, but just a bit empty and sad. The sort of place that provided the policemen drafted in to break the miner’s strike in places like Orgreave or that produced the sort of football ‘fans’ who waved their fivers in the air to taunt Liverpool fans with their wealth – Harry Enfield’s character ‘Loadsamoney’ their hero and role model. This is all evidenced by Midge’s transformation to a yuppie wannabe, spouting the following Thatcherite crap:
‘It’s common sense, right? It’s just the way of the world, right? Survival of the fittest. Get rid of the deadwood, let the wasters go to the wall, and the strong will inherit the earth. You and me. Do you hear what I’m saying? Do you know what I’m talking about?’
Thatcherism and Social Darwinism mixed – Victorian values every bit as offensive as those displayed in ‘Ghost Light. It is less Thatcher’s Britain – than Thatcher’s heartland. A sad, soulless place.
Puss in Boots?
‘The hunt. Smell the blood on the wind. Hear the blood in your ears. Run, run beyond the horizon and catch your hunger!’
This wouldn’t be the McCoy era without some story elements that just don’t work and some really duff production values. The location filming works a treat – the hot June of 1989 really adding to the piece, along with the guitar stings in the incidental music. Rather some of the effects fall flat – the animatronic Kitlings and in particular the Cheetah People masks. Now I have to admit I don’t really mind them – they aren’t good obviously, but I’m not so sure the alternative of some people wearing plastic fangs and going miaow every so often is any better. However, every time I see them I think of the conversation between Andrew Cartmel and JNT on the subject, culminating in sometime Pantomime entrepreneur JNT saying:
JNT: We’ll be alright so long as we don’t get Puss in Boots!
See’s Cheetah People
JNT: For ¤¤¤¤s sake!
Anyway, despite all of this that are an interesting creation and conceptually strong, so as with many ‘Doctor Who’ stories you just ignore the depiction and use your imagination instead! While watching this I was also reminded of an Eighth Doctor book by Kate Orman (a Who author whose work I rather like) called ‘The Year of Intelligent Tigers’, which I haven’t read I many years, but I rather liked at the time and shared some of the themes here.
The worst aspect of the production though I think is some of the very much Children’s TV standard acting of some of Ace’s mates – particularly Will Barton as Midge. The BBC wasn’t great at depicting young people, well contemporary working-class young people at least, at this point in time and it is sad that the performances aren’t that brilliant – we are in ‘Grange Hill’ territory. Despite that, the script feels different in this regard, like it is heading towards the sort of fiction that is now labelled ‘Young Adult’ and that the spin-off series ‘Class’ ventured into. The motorbike challenge though manages to trump even Midge’s efforts though. It is almost unforgivably crap and pointless. The only good thing I can say that I like is the aftermath when the Master finds the Doctor upside down, arse in the air, head first in some bin bags.
Cat-Flap
It seems the creatures of this world can’t take us away from here, they can only bring us to this place.
Yes. They can only return home with their prey.
The story was originally called ‘Cat Flap’, which is a beautifully apt title – given the two-way nature of the door open between the planet of the Cheetah people and Perivale. As a concept – the creatures able to move across the universe to hunt, bringing their pray home through their own cat flap is really quite clever and plays out at the end of the story rather nicely.
On top of this we have the Cheetah people themselves, representing wildness and freedom – the nature red in tooth and claw aspect to match the ‘Survival of the fittest’ rhetoric used by protagonists in the story. Cheetah’s themselves have an interesting social ecology – females are usually solitary, except when with cubs. Males can be solitary, but often form coalitions – especially in groups of 2 or 3 brothers. So, in some ways, they aren’t a great choice as a basis for a species that lives in large groups or exhibits ‘sisterhood’ – for that Lions would be the obvious choice, but as a representative of wildness and ‘the hunt’ they make a nice choice. I’ve only seen Cheetahs once, in the Kruger National Park – a solitary female chasing a warthog – the speed, grace and agility was extraordinary. They are really quite beautiful and not at all ‘puss in boots’.
‘This place bewitches you. If we stay here, we’ll be like the people who built these. They thought they could control the planet, the wilderness. They were the ones that bred the kitlings. Creatures with minds they could talk to, eyes they could see through the way I do. It only led to their corruption. We shall become like them.’
Stuck the other side of the ‘cat-flap’ of course is the Master. This is one of the more successful appearance of this incarnation, the feline, purring aspect really rather suits Anthony Ainley’s portrayal and he is on good form again here. It is rather nice that he is present at the end of the 19080’s and of the old show, battling for survival with his old friend/foe. He gets some memorably nasty moments – culminating in the scene where he enjoys stabbing Karra with a canine tooth. He is like a Thatcherite svengali here – leading Midge into the dark path of yuppiedom – capitalism without a conscience – red in tooth and claw. Almost the opposite to Sylvester’s hippyish uncle. This is a role that rather suits the Master – at this time he would have been Margaret’s special advisor – a sort of less evil version of Norman Tebbit. His yellow cats eyes are a memorable image – and a nice link to our next sight of him – his cats eyes in the opening scenes of the TV Movie.
Where to now, Ace? Home. Home? The Tardis. Yes, the Tardis.
With regard to season 26, I’m still not entirely convinced by the order of this, diving into the waters and the release of ‘Fenric’, feels a more suitable ending to arc to me, clearing out all of the angst, reconciled with the memory of her mother and ready to move onto the next adventures. Here we have a return to Perivale again, although in her own time as opposed to the past events of ‘Ghost Light’. The neatest part of it is that the nature of the cheetah people – returning home through the cat-flap allows us to see where Ace views her home to be – in the TARDIS with the Doctor, her time in Perivale done – happens to a lot of us, friends and people move on, we find new lives elsewhere and her future is out there amongst the stars or rather would have been if season 27 hadn’t been cancelled.
So, Ace’s story ends here in Perivale, at least on TV – apart from her future charity work revealed in the Sarah Jane Adventures. She had far worse to come in the Virgin NA’s in some particularly tortuous story arcs and plot lines, we also saw her death in a battle with the Lobri in the DWM strip and a number of different plot strands, some good, some not so for Big Finish.
To end this piece, I thought I’d quote from Rona Munro’s novelization, it rather neatly sums up the spirit of the wild that Ace finds in Karra and wraps up the story – Ace burning Kara’s body on a funeral pyre (omitted from the TV story at JNT’s request) – an echo of Manisha’s flat being burned in ‘Ghost Light’ or her setting fire to Gabriel Chase.
“Karra lay on the wrecked bikes, her hands crossed across her chest. Midge’s knife had been removed and placed between her hands; Midge’s body lay at her feet. Karra looked young, wild and beautiful as she lay there. The wind from the fire blew her hair over her closed eyes just before the flames leapt up and hid her from view.
Ace stood watching the pyre, a petrol can dangling from one hand. She was remembering, remembering the feeling of the planet, the power, the wildness. It was dangerous and brutal but it had no malice, a power that had made her as free as Karra. And Karra must once have been a young woman like her.
She heard footsteps behind her. The weight of a familiar hand rested on her shoulder. She smiled, her whole body relaxing in relief, but she did not turn her eyes from the flames. She reached behind her and gave the Doctor back his hat.
‘Felt like I could run for ever,’ she said softly. ‘Felt like I could smell the wind and feel the grass under my feet and just run for ever.’
‘You can never completely leave the planet because you carry it with you inside yourself,’ said the Doctor.
Ace smiled. ‘Good,’ she said. Her face was wet again as she watched the pyre. Smoke and tears blinded her.
‘Let’s go back to the TARDIS,’ the Doctor said gently. Ace looked up at him. He smiled at her. ‘Let’s go home, Ace.’
Arm in arm they walked away.”
Of course, they didn’t just walk away, Rona Munro based the novelization on her own scripts – we have Midge being kicked to death, Hale and Pace transported to the planet of the Cheetah people, Ace’s story about getting older kids to buy her cans, Ace’s retort about the power of one finger (!) all cut form the original at JNT’s request and also missing of course the last line of dialogue, written at the last minute by Andrew Cartmel. The show has been cancelled or rather the BBC and Peter Cregeen, in knowledge of what happened last time they cancelled the show, shrewdly and in some ways in a manner quite cowardly for a publicly funded body responsible to licence payers, decided not to announce it as cancellation rather that there would a slightly longer gap while they looked at independent companies to make the show. It wouldn’t be until Alan Yentob’s time that the BBC became serious in this regard and it would be 1996 by the time the TV Movie aired, even then as a one-off rather than a series. The ‘Doctor Who’ production office at TV Centre would be closed for the first time in 26 years and would never re-open in the same fashion. The ghosts of the likes of Verity Lambert, Barry Letts, Philip Hinchcliffe, David Whittaker, Terrance Dicks, Robert Holmes and Douglas Adams still pacing the corridors. The next time a ‘Doctor Who’ production office would open, it would be in Vancouver and again many years later in South Wales. Until then, Andrew Cartmel leaves us with these words, which evoke memories of William Hartnell’s speech in ‘An Unearthly Child’ about touching alien sand and seeing strange birds wheel in an alien sky:
‘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, and somewhere else the tea’s getting cold. Come on, Ace, we’ve got work to do!’
Bringing down the Government
Since this is the end of my run through season 26 and the year 1989 (started last July!), I thought I’d wrap up what happened next. Andrew Cartmel and his band of young writers didn’t manage to bring down the government, they couldn’t even manage to avoid the show being cancelled. Thatcher was brought down the following year, but as is traditional in the Conservative party by being stabbed in the back by her own ministers. I remember being in Liverpool the day she resigned, we went out for a pint and the city was buzzing in the way that would normally be reserved for a Liverpool European Cup win.
Life went on, just without ‘Doctor Who’, 1989 ended and we moved into the 1990’s – I wrote about what happened politically in my review of the Virgin New Adventures book ‘The Dying days’, but the party of 1989’s ’Second summer of love’ carried on into the early 1990’s – grunge, shoegazing, indie dance and all sorts of other scenes in between came and went and Brit-Pop rose in the dying days of the Tories rule. Personally, I finished university, worked, saved some money, went travelling for a bit, worked, did a Masters degree and worked again. It wasn’t until the mid-90’s with the release of the show on VHS that I would even really think about ‘Doctor Who’ again – I couldn’t resist buying ‘Spearhead from Space’ and ‘Terror of the Zygons’ – I think I felt a debt to my younger self who would never have forgiven me if I hadn’t. It was a fatal move, here I am more than 25 years later, still writing about a show that I fell in love with 48 years ago.
A Journal of Impossible Things 