The recent news from Mount Moffat was such pure catnip (pun intended) that the Tour Brain Wizards simply couldn’t pass it up. It dribbled out this week that amongst the Series 10 writers is Rona Munro. She penned Survival, the last story aired (though not produced we hasten to add) in the classic series run in 1989.
We last wrote about Survival three years ago as part of the run-up to the 50th Anniversary, and honestly don’t have much more to add about it since then. It’s certainly a product of its time, and that’s certainly a good thing. Doctor Who had staggered out of a confused period that began with the ‘Trial’ Season 23 but had found a more consistent, agreeable tone that still allowed from some experimentation such as in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy or The Happiness Patrol. Survival was part, indeed the final part as it turned out, of that reclamation. They didn’t all succeed of course, but nearly 30 years they wear well enough. It also made our 50 for 50 list at the time.
The pity (or remorse in striving for a post pun) is that reaching back to use a classic series writer hadn’t happened before now.
Would you be curious to see Terrance Dicks take a crack at Capaldi, or, and here we veer into the impossible, how David Tennant would have sounded with Robert Holmes dialogue?
What a delicious thought.
