Survival | Sophisticated Idiots

Rishi Sunak wasn’t to blame for the Tories’ election humiliation in 2024.

His calamitous predecessor – who should never have been chosen in the first place – had rendered things unsalvageable. Yet the rot really set in with the previous figurehead: that blond floppy bombshell was simply the wrong figurehead at the wrong time.

A cool quarter-century earlier, Sylvester McCoy similarly brought a sense of dignity to a lost cause.

The end of Who was guaranteed after the short-lived omnishambles of Colin Baker/Liz Truss, which itself was a response to the ill-advised Peter Davison/Boris Johnson gamble.

And Survival is a decent enough send-off for Classic Who (replete with a deliciously ironic title).

Time – and general consensus – has been kinder to this story than it entirely merits but rose-tinted filters are inevitable for a serial with such a pivotal place in the series.

The same's true of An Unearthly Child, which is equally tricksy to judge dispassionately.

And the parallels between the stories that bookend this bonkers show don’t end there:

• Both open with a contemporary London setting.
• Events are propelled by initial concerns around the homelife of a young female occupant of the TARDIS.
• There’s sand aplenty from Part Two onwards.
• Our heroes try to escape a savage race.
• Oh, and the Doctor almost bashes someone’s brains in.

This final point is a delightful coincidence (we presume).

Anyone watching the first and last entries in the Classic Who canon (which would be an insane choice of back-to-back viewing, but anyway) would think our Time Lord has a dangerous penchant for skull-smashing.

The fact he hasn't committed such out-of-character antics during the intervening 150-plus stories probably saves him from being classed as a sociopath. His restraint is admirable.

Survival is a prime example of Who's resurgent twilight years, in which the modus operandi is to brazenly mash together wildly contrasting styles.

It doesn’t always work (fusing jazz with Cybermen, for example…) but this final lap of honour manages to get away with it – but only by the skin of its fangs.

Of this latter-day renaissance, Survival finds a kindred spirit in the previous season’s Happiness Patrol: a child-friendly main attraction (here, the Kandyman allure is taken by the Cheetah People, which are too cute to ever be scary) and general CBBC vibes distract from the hard-hitting themes and a gritty edge. And we don’t just mean the Byker Grove youth club hangout.

You’ll find a case in point in the 80s hallmark of needless cameos. If this were a Colin story, we’d have Hale and Pace transported to the Cat Planet to dash about in slapstick overload.

Thankfully, we’re dealing with a more serious production team these days.

Which means the token C-list celeb pop-up is fleeting enough to earn its intended chuckle and disappear before the eye-rolling can begin.

This oh-so-revolutionary approach of taking matters seriously also serves us a tremendous setup: teenagers going missing from a tired community that doesn’t really seem to care, has Doctor Who written all over it.

The opening scene is an absolute belter too, with car-washing Dave hunted by a crane-cam (he’d have been safe if he’d listened to his dear mum and been prompt for dinner. Just saying).

At least he does his bit for equality by tripping while fleeing – flimsy ankles are usually the Who preserve of the female companions.

In fact – important sidenote – we’re damn impressed by how strongly Sophie Aldred runs during her repeated requirement to leg-it in this story. She doesn’t just make the likes of Sarah Jane or Susan look ropey by comparison – even Tom Cruise would eat her dust.

Okay, it was probably foolish of her to attempt to outrun a horse but this is more than made up for by the Naked Gun-esque slow-mo dashing with Cara later on.

Let's get back to scratching the serious underbelly of Survival. In keeping with most of Season 26, it’s: All. About. The. Companion (another Unearthly Child echo).

And what a companion we’ve been blessed with for these final nine stories. Ace is easily the best-written of all the Doctor's buddies in the entire series.

The lashings of backstory that dominated Ghost Light and Fenric culminate in this fascinating visit to Ace’s hometown (which, by the way, is far more middle-class than the dump we’d been led to believe she’d fled).

But Ace also enjoys wonderful character moments that come thick and fast. And which are pure catnip to us.

For example, we adore the understated moment when she arrives on a terrifying planet overrun by giant cats and within an eye-blink anoints herself leader of the ragtag gang of miscreants.

While Survival's focus on Ace generates plenty of emotional depth and hefty stakes, it does have the downside of reducing the Doctor to the role of comedy sidekick.

We love Seven but he's given little more to do here than fumble about as the kooky stranger who sticks out like a sore paw in Normalsville (rightly attracting the attention of Sergeant Neighbourhood Watch) before being strung up by his ankles ala the Silver Nemesis Nazis.

He then reaches a nadir when the entire cast roundly ignores his pleas for passivism during the way-too-long Cat Planet melee. House of Commons Speakers no doubt sympathise.

Needless to say, Sylvester does all this brilliantly (despite being “not in the best of shape”).

So much so that we’ll even forgive the bizarre finger superpower he’s randomly developed.

However, having heaped praise on McCoy, it’s difficult to question the decision to axe the show when the Doctor hops onto a motorbike for a spot of high-speed jousting. Jon Pertwee must be the only person who thinks such absurd action scenes belong in this show.

And then it's all rounded off with a lame grappling match between the Doctor and the Master (Ainley in Not Hammy Shock) on a domestic driveway. As climactic, series-ending squibs go, it's distinctly damp.

Still, even if this story uses up its ninth life with this hairball of a third episode, the afterthought voiceover about sleeping seas and tepid tea is near-purrfection. *Wipes tear*

It also reminds us that, while Survival is hardly a moment of triumph for Sylv, he wasn’t at fault for the landslide defeat. Moreover, he led this listing British stalwart with sufficient gusto to lay the foundations for a comeback further down the line.

Oh, and we appreciate that Sylv’s political leanings suggest he won’t thank us for the Sunak analogy – but we hope he takes it in the spirit we intended.

And refrains from using his magic finger on us. Or bashing our brains in.