Doctor Who: Survival
Aug. 30th, 2017 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayI'm slowly catching up on my podcasts from when I was away, and the episode of Verity! discussing Survival just came up in rotation. It's been interesting listening to the presenters discuss this episode and their feelings about it, particularly the way their feelings have changed over the years.
Season 26 includes some of my favourite classic Who serials (Battlefield, Curse of Fenric, Ghostlight) and has some of the best moments between Ace and Seven. It ends on Survival, though, and my feelings about that one are complicated. It's why I've never been able to wholeheartedly declare it's my favourite season.
As a kid, Survival scared the shit out of me. Maybe not quite as badly as Paradise Towers, but not far off. When I rewatched it as an adult a few years ago (probably more than a few - I think it might have been before we had any new Who), it wasn't as scary but it still made me deeply uncomfortable. I don't think it's entirely because it's the last classic Who series and, for a long time, the last ever Doctor Who we had. After all, I do like the little monologue as it ends, with the Doctor and Ace walking away to more adventures, so it's not about my sadness at their being no more Doctor Who.
It's all about Ace.
She's my favourite classic companion. For many years, she was my favourite full-stop, although Donna and Bill have now joined her. My feelings about her have always been very complicated: I was ten when the final episode aired and I wasn't conscious of having a crush on her (mostly because I didn't know that could be a *thing* yet - very sheltered childhood, yo), but my feelings went pretty deep and I know that I was deeply attached to her.
By the time I hit my teens, my complicated feelings were very complicated indeed. The only thing about Ghostlight that I remembered for a long, long time was Ace in that tuxedo. Ace's episodes (except Survival) were my most rewatched ones, I adored Fenric for reasons I couldn't articulate, and Battlefield was (and still is) my comfort Doctor Who serial.
The big reason that Survival makes me so uncomfortable, I think, is because Ace goes through some difficult and uncomfortable things and I didn't want her to. It shows a side to Ace - a violent, wild side - that runs deeper than what happened on the Cheetah people planet. Even in my ten year-old brain, I knew that one of the messages was that it was something that had always been there in her and would always be there, even after the planet was destroyed. That wasn't a very happy thought because, until then, Ace had always been this beacon of kick-ass awesome but somehow it was an innocent kick-ass awesome. After Survival, my rose-tinted glasses were a little smudged and I didn't like that. My Ace wasn't quite the same person any more and my intense adoration couldn't cope well with that. My solution was to dislike the whole serial and try my best to pretend it never ever happened.
Battlefield is my favourite because it has the best Ace. Even though tuxedo!Ace is quite the mental image, it's Battlefield Ace who represents everything I love about her. Plus, Battlefield has the best girlfriend of the week for Ace :-D
Survival Ace is almost the opposite of Battlefield Ace and I didn't like that.
Maybe it's time for me to rewatch Survival again and see how I feel now. I've changed and grown a lot since the last time I watched it. Maybe the extra maturity (hah!) I've developed will let me see it in a different way. Maybe I'll end up loving it at last. Or no longer shivering and backing away rapidly from any thoughts of it. Even that would be an improvement, because I'd be able to say without any footnotes or corollaries that season 26 is my favourite.
Anyone else have feelings about Survival?
Season 26 includes some of my favourite classic Who serials (Battlefield, Curse of Fenric, Ghostlight) and has some of the best moments between Ace and Seven. It ends on Survival, though, and my feelings about that one are complicated. It's why I've never been able to wholeheartedly declare it's my favourite season.
As a kid, Survival scared the shit out of me. Maybe not quite as badly as Paradise Towers, but not far off. When I rewatched it as an adult a few years ago (probably more than a few - I think it might have been before we had any new Who), it wasn't as scary but it still made me deeply uncomfortable. I don't think it's entirely because it's the last classic Who series and, for a long time, the last ever Doctor Who we had. After all, I do like the little monologue as it ends, with the Doctor and Ace walking away to more adventures, so it's not about my sadness at their being no more Doctor Who.
It's all about Ace.
She's my favourite classic companion. For many years, she was my favourite full-stop, although Donna and Bill have now joined her. My feelings about her have always been very complicated: I was ten when the final episode aired and I wasn't conscious of having a crush on her (mostly because I didn't know that could be a *thing* yet - very sheltered childhood, yo), but my feelings went pretty deep and I know that I was deeply attached to her.
By the time I hit my teens, my complicated feelings were very complicated indeed. The only thing about Ghostlight that I remembered for a long, long time was Ace in that tuxedo. Ace's episodes (except Survival) were my most rewatched ones, I adored Fenric for reasons I couldn't articulate, and Battlefield was (and still is) my comfort Doctor Who serial.
The big reason that Survival makes me so uncomfortable, I think, is because Ace goes through some difficult and uncomfortable things and I didn't want her to. It shows a side to Ace - a violent, wild side - that runs deeper than what happened on the Cheetah people planet. Even in my ten year-old brain, I knew that one of the messages was that it was something that had always been there in her and would always be there, even after the planet was destroyed. That wasn't a very happy thought because, until then, Ace had always been this beacon of kick-ass awesome but somehow it was an innocent kick-ass awesome. After Survival, my rose-tinted glasses were a little smudged and I didn't like that. My Ace wasn't quite the same person any more and my intense adoration couldn't cope well with that. My solution was to dislike the whole serial and try my best to pretend it never ever happened.
Battlefield is my favourite because it has the best Ace. Even though tuxedo!Ace is quite the mental image, it's Battlefield Ace who represents everything I love about her. Plus, Battlefield has the best girlfriend of the week for Ace :-D
Survival Ace is almost the opposite of Battlefield Ace and I didn't like that.
Maybe it's time for me to rewatch Survival again and see how I feel now. I've changed and grown a lot since the last time I watched it. Maybe the extra maturity (hah!) I've developed will let me see it in a different way. Maybe I'll end up loving it at last. Or no longer shivering and backing away rapidly from any thoughts of it. Even that would be an improvement, because I'd be able to say without any footnotes or corollaries that season 26 is my favourite.
Anyone else have feelings about Survival?
no subject
Date: 2017-08-31 06:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-31 08:21 am (UTC)I do get upset, though - because it was the last, and after that it just stopped and no rational thinking takes away from how it feels if I rewatch that last episode, so it does get left on my shelf a little more than Ghostlight and Fenric (which are the best Aces, sorry. ;-p Battlefield is great, though, too.) And I do think there is something very unnerving about how mundane the setting is, and how uneasy all the Cheetah Planet stuff feels when it's invading there, even if it's Puss in Boots and a fake animatronic cat that terrified my middle sis for years. I always find it weird when new Who fans treat Survival jokingly, because I still can't.
I think rewatching it is the only way to tell, so maybe you should. There is a lot to like in it, after all, and it finally gives Anthony Ainley something with a bit of depth to do, and he uses it well. Besides: "I thought you'd died. Or gone to Birmingham." <3 And that bit where Ace thinks the Doctor is dead and puts on his hat, before realising without looking that he isn't, and gives That Smile. (I love Seven and Ace way too much still.)