The lads over in Classic Capitology pulled a fast one on the THT Supremos with their latest addition. The argument put forward was that if they were to cover the whole of Classic Who, then they needed to cover it to the very end. This despite our admonition that we needed only true classics as the days to the 50th dwindled ever further. But they argued the series didn’t really have an end in the way a more modern version of a series finale would be thought of, and that their choice was the first proper Master story since The King’s Demons. While this was something of a surprise, the more it was remembered that the Master was shoehorned into The Five Doctors (obviously), The Mark of the Rani (painfully), and The Ultimate Foe (needlessly) it made some sense. Besides the story in question had ‘enough’ (their words) going for it to merit capping at this time, hence we present a new, improved set of caps for Survival.
The odd thing is how looking at Survival is how many nu-Who stories it echoes (or rather that echo it). Fear Her (definitely), The Idiot’s Lantern (possibly), and The Lodger (speculatively) come to mind in this regard.
But Survival is it’s own animal, figuratively and literally and, appropriately for this era, is primarily an Ace story. Just looking at Sophie Aldred, who granted never looked her actual age as Ace, it was almost distractingly apparent she was no longer the waif who came into the TARDIS in Dragonfire, but the allure of the feral side of her nature worked. Also, quite unusually, Survival was a rare three-part story which actually fit the episodes allotted, and wasn’t crammed down from four episodes to fit.
Somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhen else there’s more Classic Capitology, perhaps even a true classic this time, to come. We’ve got work to do.