#tremas

Doctor Who could probably have continued to battle monsters across space and time going from face to face for years. But even the Troughton era’s new visage could not overcome the rut writers had found themselves in with aimless base-in-peril stories. The Doctor needed a more personal threat. Daleks and Cybermen were of course classic baddies, but they were generally faceless and emotionless. Perhaps the villains should also have a face. Some of the more popular one-off antagonists were individuals who possessed strong wills and personalities. For example- the Toymaker, the Meddling Monk, Mavic Chen, or the ironically faceless Great Intelligence. It wasn’t until the Pertwee Era did the Doctor find his ultimate foe in the Master.

The introduction of the Time Lords sacrificed a bit of the mystery of the Doctor’s character. Suddenly, the cosmic vagabond had a home and a species. It’s only fair that in this sacrifice, we gained the Doctor’s perfect antagonist. The Master is everything the Doctor isn’t, while being exactly what the Doctor is. They both know the secrets of time travel. They both regenerate. They both have TARDISes. But the Master is that twisted reflection of the Doctor. The Twelfth Doctor once said “Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose.” But in the trolley problem that is life, the Master’s choices are self-serving and sadistic. The Master is the man who would have still bashed the caveman’s skull with a rock. This sort of sadism, masculinity, and war are at the forefront of first-time Doctor Who writer Rona Munro’s script.

Having recently explored Ace’s personal history in both “Ghost Light,” and “The Curse of Fenric,” it seems fitting that the Doctor and Ace should end up back in her hometown of Perivale. While the character arc of learning why she burned down the Gabriel Chase mansion as a child seems like a fitting end for her character, I would argue it’s just as interesting to see Ace return home. Rarely in classic Doctor Who were we shown the companions returning home, and usually it was always to say goodbye. Had we seen a season 27, this would have marked the first time a companion returned home only to continue travelling with the Doctor. This is just one of many ways in which Ace was the proto-modern companion. We often see modern Doctor Who companions returning home to check in with family and have a cuppa. These moments give us a glimpse into the way travelling with the Doctor has changed them. Ace’s reaction to Perivale is on par. But it’s not just Ace who has changed while she was away. Things in Perivale don’t exactly add up. Old friends have gone missing. And the local community centre is now populated by macho self-defence classes taught by a paranoid military man named Paterson.

I mentioned earlier that the budget put massive strains on the production crew. Despite this, they make excellent use of story craft. “Survival,” plays out more like an independent film than a serial from a classic BBC series. In some respects, this was Doctor Who back to its roots- a small ragtag crew putting emphasis on writing and creative problem-solving. There is an attempt at atmosphere. Perivale feels gritty and a bit run down, a detail Munro attributed to the town due to her own youth in a grittier Scotland under Margaret Thatcher. She would later reflect that when she actually saw Perivale, she found it charming. Mind you, the real Perivale never acted as a nexus for extraterrestrial kitty cats. And as a cat owner myself, those little fuckers do not respect personal property. They dig up the garden. They claw the sofa. They make nerds washing their cars disappear. 

It would be easy to say that these first couple of episodes are sparse. Their synopses are among the shortest you’ll find on TARDIS Data Core. But that doesn’t mean they’re entirely empty either. The script to David Lynch’s Eraserhead was only 20 pages and it made an 88-minute film that my wife said felt like three hours. I would argue that building tone can be just as effective as narrative. Much of the first episode in particular feels like building a sense of desperation. There is desperation to leave Perivale. Desperation to find the missing youth of the town. Desperation to survive.

Perhaps the most desperate to survive is the Master. We’ve seen him on his last regeneration. We’ve seen him extra crispy. In the Eighth Doctor movie we see him so desperate to escape death that he’ll snake his way down Eric Roberts’ throat. And here we find the Tremas Master, wearing someone else’s face using the minds and bodies of the youth of Perivale to escape a sentient planet where he got himself trapped. For a newer writer and first timer to Doctor Who, I would argue that Munro absolutely nails the Master’s character. The Master will stoop to anything that will ensure his survival. It’s in his name. He must control others. He must control his destiny. He refuses to let death be his master. Even years later when John Simm’s Master chooses death, it is in his defiance of the Doctor. It is his refusal to let the Doctor control him. In the Master’s mind, other people exist only to serve his means.

Meanwhile, the equally astounding eternal god that is the Doctor is having trouble with catfood and the neighbourhood watch. I find no end of enjoyment in watching the Doctor shoo a dog away from cat food, so much so that I made it into a ten-minute loop. He’s escaped a Dalek holding cell, survived a murderous satellite, and avoided ritualistic execution. But at this moment, he just needs this dog to stop eating his cat food long enough to trap a Kitling. Having been spotted hiding away in some old nan’s garden, the neighbourhood watch is called in to see to the Doctor. This brings us back to Paterson, because of course it does. Paterson is exactly the kind of twit to be up in everyone’s business. I don’t blame the old nan though, you do what you gotta do to feel safe, boo.

It’s Ace’s scream that brings the Doctor and Paterson to the playground where Ace is being chased about by a “Cheetah People.” They really dug deep on that name there. Something I found myself enjoying was the way in which Ace used the metal playground structures to evade capture. It made me think about how Ace may have played in this very jungle gym as a child. Would she have made up stories in her head where she pretended to evade invisible enemies? In this way, Ace has a home-team advantage. This advantage is short-lived, however, after she is transported to the Cheetah Planet (another cracker of a name). The Doctor and Paterson also find themselves transported under its red sky as the Master stands by to greet them.

I joke about the name of the Cheetah Planet and the Cheetah People, but I do actually like some of the ambiguity. Sure, it maybe sounds like Charleton Heston is about to find half a Statue of Liberty, but I like that they’re a bit of a mystery. Even though the Doctor has heard of them, he doesn’t really know anything about them. We don’t know what to expect from our feline friends, but the introduction of the Master shows us that they’re probably victims as well. Once again the Master is using others for his own purposes. 

Storywise, I would say episode two is probably the weakest of the three. Most of the episode is Ace avoiding Cheetah People and discovering her missing friends from Perivale, some of whom have been surviving on the Cheetah Planet for weeks. Something about the Cheetah Planet causes people to become feral. First changing their minds and slowly, over time, their bodies as well. This primal source holds the power to transform people into Cheetah People. Now, when Munro had originally written the script, she was thinking something a little more subtle. The Cheetah People were never meant to be in full masks, but rather closer to the facial prosthetics of Star Trek. You would have been able to see the actor’s performance underneath their new catlike features.

I mention this because the look of the Cheetah People is a sticking point for a lot of fans. Not even the cast or crew were happy with their look. Even Rona Munro complained that the masks were distracting from her lesbian subplot between Ace and Karra. Because if you can look beyond the mask, you’ll find a deeper story. While some furry Whovians out there may not have much trouble accepting a story about Cheetah People in bad fursuits, to others it was offputting. Because of that, I think Survival struggled and continues to struggle with being taken seriously. For me, it’s on par with “The Web Planet,” and the Menoptera, a similar story and creature that are often maligned by people who find them embarrassing. And like “The Web Planet,” you’ll find a story about anthropomorphic animals being controlled by a single sadist. They’re like Doctor Who’s Ewoks in that way. And like Ewoks, some people think they’re a mistake. Those people are wrong, by the way.

The Master does his best to look as though the Doctor has fallen into his trap, but what seems like a grand scheme is little more than a last-ditch effort to escape the Cheetah Planet. Due to the Kitlings’ ability to trap people there, the Master’s hope is to use this power to leave. He makes a great effort to look like the supreme overlord of this empire of dirt, but the Doctor sees right through him as always. He sees the Master’s gambit for what it is- the boasts of the most powerful man in prison. And the longer the Master finds himself on this forsaken planet, the less control he feels. Sure, the Master loves a bit of carnage, but it’s this loss of self that frightens him. Losing control of himself to the wild nature of the Cheetah Planet is another form of death, and as we know, the Master possesses a deep seated fear of losing control.

You’ll forgive me if my memory of the events that follow are a bit hazy. I’ve seen Survival several times and even now I struggle to recall key plot points. What’s important is that Ace has formed a bond with one of the Cheetah People, Karra (played by Doctor Who royalty Lisa Bowerman), and their running together has begun to turn Ace feral. It’s implied that running with the Cheetah People hastens the transition into ferality, but even with that consideration, Ace’s change feels abrupt. Some of Ace’s cohorts had been trapped for weeks without so much as a whisker. It’s a minor gripe from a serial plagued with minor gripes. I’m probably being fairer to Survival than I normally would because of the extenuating circumstances surrounding the production. An inexperienced writer, a show on the brink of cancellation, and a budget slashed to hell do this story no favours. In that way, it feels like a mean thing to judge it too harshly. And as we’ve seen from her return with “The Eaters of Light,” Munro can actually write.

Another thing this story does that acts as a sort of pre-cursor to modern Doctor Who (or in the continuity of the show- its very next episode) is the way the Master will take on companions of his own. Much like Chang Lee, Ace’s pal Midge is lied to and manipulated by the Master. The Master uses his feral nature to transport him back to Perivale which is exactly what he wanted. We can hand wave away how the Master knew Ace and the Doctor would ever return to Perivale long enough to notice all of Ace’s mates have gone missing. Like I said, minor gripes. Now in Perivale with kitty cat Midge, the Master literally pilots Midge around looking to recruit more young men into his harem… er… army.

Having escaped a catastrophe with the Cheetah People (with no thanks to the cowardly Paterson) the Doctor and Ace are now back in Perivale ready to square off against the Master and his group of misanthropes who may as well be carrying tiki torches if it wasn’t for the fact that it was broad daylight. The big showdown, however, appears in the form of the Doctor and Midge running motor bikes at one another in a game of chicken. By that description, the scene sounds less clever than it actually is, but when you follow the theme of the story, it says a lot. Initially, it is Ace who volunteers to run down Midge, but the Doctor knows if she were to engage, it would turn her completely feral. Knowing that his own mind is at stake, the Doctor still takes her place, refusing to let her fight his battles for him. The Master, on the other hand, is far more comfortable sending Midge in his stead. At this moment, we are given a visual representation of the fundamental difference between the Doctor and the Master’s ideologies. It is this scene that makes me believe Survival is actually the best choice they could have made for a final Doctor Who story.

Unable to accept defeat and leave well enough alone, the Master pulls the Doctor back to the Cheetah Planet for one final bestial showdown. But even in his increasingly feral state, the Doctor’s compasion overrides the instinct to bash the Master’s brain in with a skull. I referenced the First Doctor’s feeble attempt at bashing a caveman’s skull with a rock, and that wasn’t without reason. In an accidental manner, the show has brought the Doctor around full circle by echoing his first story. Originally it was Ian who had stayed his hand, and now, through years of travelling with human companions, it is the Doctor who stays his own hand. The Doctor refuses to live and die as an animal, and because of this, he is able to walk off into the sunset for future adventures.