The last of the old Doctor Who stories (Doctor Who - Survival (DVD))

Member Name: IanM73

Product:	Doctor Who - Survival (DVD)
Date:	11/12/07 (130 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A good performance by all

Disadvantages: The last one

What I am reviewing is the two disk DVD Doctor Who story "Survival"

Picture 4:3
English soundtrack
72 minutes running time
192 minutes special features
Region 2 & 4 compatable

Broadcast 22 November to 6 December 1989


The cast of the show had had a very good year as season 26 had very good storylines and was going in a very good direction for the series as the stories were going now a lot more behind the Doctor and Ace's past and revealing a lot more about their background.
The two previous stories "Ghost Light" and "The curse of Fenric" built this season up nicely and it was time to make the last of the season.
Anthony Ainley was set to return as the Doctors most known rival "The Master" who hadn't been seen since "Trial of a time lord" in 1986.
The producer John Nathan Turner wanted to continue the good running of the season by a face to face battle with the Master and the Doctor and had to think up a good way to do this as you couldn't just put the two together without a good storyline.

He had soon came up with one and this was to be a three part story to end the season. He also added the cameo appearances of the comedy duo "Hale and Pace" who were a big hit in the 80's to run a little shop that the Doctor goes into.
He also thought of a way for present day Earth to co-incide with a new alien World and their inhabitants.


Little did any of the cast of crew know but this was to be the last Doctor Who story (the old series) as the programme was cancelled by the head of BBC broadcasting.



Storyline :

The Doctor and Ace return to present day Earth where Ace discovers that all of her friends have been going missing and nobody knows where they are. The Doctor starts to investigate after more go missing and tries to follow Ace as she gets taken to a new World by one of the cat like people who live there controlled by the Master.
The Doctor soon follows suit and is faced with a new World with the cat creatures and has to find a way to help all the people sucked into this place to try and get them back home. There is also the matter of the Master to deal with.....



After this was broadcast an epilogue was dubbed onto the show in the closing moments letting everybody know what had now happened to the series which now ended it's twenty six years on television.


The Doctor : Sylvester Mc Coy
Ace: Sophie Aldred
The Master : Anthony Ainley


Special Features :


Commentary by Sylvester Mc Coy, Sophie Aldred, and Andrew Cartmel (script editor)
This gives a good insight into the making of the story and has valuable insight and lots of memories from the cast and crew.



Fan commentary on episode 3


Cat Flap : A two part documentary covering the making of Survival
A good feature length two part documentary of all around the making of Survival.


Deleted and extended scenes
A fair few delected and extended scenes for you to have a look at. In some you can see why they were cut.


Out Takes
This has various out takes from the making of Survival.


Continuities
These pick up before the programme starts and at the end when they introduce the next episode and tell you a little about the previous weeks.


Photo Gallery
Various photos from production of Survival.


Isolated score
This gives you the music soundtrack from the story.


Radio times listings
This gives you radio times listings of the story and a bit of info.


Endgame : A documentary about why Doctor Who was cancelled after season 26
This tells you why the series was cancelled by the BBC controller Peter Creegan and his reasons for behind doing so.


Search out science : A schools programme featuring the Doctor, Ace and K9


Little girl lost : A look into Ace's character and how she developed over the years


Destiny of the Doctors : Anthony Ainleys last appearance as the Master in the links from a 1997 computer game.



What I thought :

I actually remembered this story very well as I was so used to watching the series week after week and couldn't believe that the programme was cancelled after all those years on the TV.
It was a huge blow to all Doctor Who fans and many had grown up with the series.

The story I found was a good storyline and just how I remembered it, and the performances were very good for this last story. I thought Sylvester Mc Coy was at his very best in his performance as the Doctor and had really started taking the role as his own as he had turned the character around from his regeneration.
Sophie Aldred had a lot of time dedicated to her character Ace in this story and it was good to learn about where she came from and go into a bit more background detail bout her character.
I thought it was good to see Anthony Ainley again in the programme and he didn't disappoint.

The cat creatures were well done for the time without that many special effects or any CGI. This was unheard of at the time anyway and the effects were done very well with the BBC budget.


I found that the sound and picture quality were very good and was almost like watching it yesterday. The sound was very clear and so was the picture. It didn't really need that much tweaking with either as it was only broadcast in 1989.


With the special features I liked them all really and they served a purpose for being on the disk. I wanted to know why the programme was cancelled and the Endgame documentary told me what I wanted to know.
The commentary with Sylvester, Sophie and Andrew was as good as always and goes behind a lot from this story.
Cat Flap was also very interesting to watch and this was probably my favourite of the special features as it takes you through almost everything about this story.


If you like Doctor Who and remember any of the older series then this one is a very good one to watch as it is the ending of the original series and one of Sylvester Mc Coys best performances.

Summary: Good decent send off for the Doctor in 1989