Tuesday 23 October 2012

700 Survival Part Two

"Do you know any nice people? Y'know, normal everyday people, not power-crazed nutters trying to take over the universe?"

EPISODE: Survival Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 700
STORY NUMBER: 160
TRANSMITTED: Wednesday 29 November 1989
WRITER: Rona Munro
DIRECTOR: Alan Wareing
SCRIPT EDITOR: Andrew Cartmel
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 4.8 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Survival

The Doctor & Patterson escape on horseback and find Ace & her friends. The Master sends one of the Kittlings to find the Doctor as he struggles to maintain control of himself. The Kitling on Earth brings a Milkman to their planet which is attacked by the Cheetah people provoking battle between them and the humans causing Ace to be separated from the Doctor. The Doctor & Master meet as the Doctor realises the planet is heading for destruction. The Master needs his help and explains that if they stay there they'll become more like the Cheetah people. His eyes glow yellow and he bares fangs at the Doctor. Ace helps an injured member of the Cheetah People bringing her some water. The Doctor finds them and they decide to look after the creature. The Doctor tells her they need an animal who's home is Earth to get back there. Patterson gathers the surviving human youths together to try to survive. Ace starts to feel like she belongs on the alien world. They find the humans but Midge has begun to transform into one of the Cheetah people and runs away. The Master catches him and uses Mitch to return to Earth.The Doctor explains that one of them must change to return to Earth as Ace's eyes becomes cat like and she begins to change too.....

Good stuff again this episode, almost entirely confined to the alien world with the alien race, how they work and the planet's difficulties being laid out clearly before us. Patterson's philosophy is to survive but the Doctor is thinking beyond that, how to get home, and there's indications quite early on that he thinks Ace may be changing and represents a possible route back home.

A big hurrah for Anthony Ainley returning as The Master for the first time in three years for his first appearance against the Seventh Doctor. He's the only member of the Survival Cast to have been in Doctor Who before or since, but Lisa Bowerman, as Karra the horse riding Cheetah Person we've seen, later found Doctor Who fame voicing the Seventh Doctor's companion Bernice Summerfield. Bernice was introduced in the novels and later starred in a series of audio stories for Big Finish. Outside of Doctor Who she's best known for playing paramedic Sandra Mute in Casualty (partnered with The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood's Robert Pugh) where in 1987 she became the first regular character in that series to die.

The spot the Milkman is taken from is Medway Drive in Perivale, close to the other Perivale locations..... and looking at the map on the linked page I've just realised I've driven past these locations loads of times on the A40 journeying out towards Aylesbury (and the Logopolis lay-by location)! Meanwhile the location for the Cheetah People planet is Warmwell Quarry in Dorset, used the previous year during Greatest Show in the Galaxy and close to locations used this year for Curse of Fenric & Ghost Light. Quarries used in Caves of Androzani, Death to the Daleks & Destiny of the Daleks are all close by.

This is, if you count the cancelled story Shada, the 700th Doctor Who episode. It's also the penultimate episode of the original run of Doctor Who. Join us tomorrow to find out how it all ended and what happened next.....

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