Flipping Cats!

This week I finally chanced upon the method by which to watch Classic 'Doctor Who' with my wife (she only enjoys the modern series).  When she (exhausted from her theatrical exertions at the Fringe festival) passed into slumber beside me on the couch, I popped 'Survival' in the DVD player and we had a wonderful time!

She was awakened by the synthesized theme music long enough to see one of the villains of the piece: a teleporting alien feline scavenger called a Kitling.  To her, of course, it was 'Basement Cat'.  I lookeded that up here.  Soon she was in dreamland once more.  

And, albeit still conscious, so was I!

'Survival' was the final aired story of classic 'Doctor Who' in 1989. Written by Rona Munro, directed by Alan Wareing, it has a poetic, dream-logic quality and could rightly be called a fairy tale as much as a science fiction story.  Here are some of the things that make it wonderful, despite its (mostly budgetary) limitations.

Here we soon see the Doctor's long-serving companion, Ace, on the run as usual. In three short episodes, she goes on the offense, on the defense, helps someone in need, needs help herself, and leaves her old home behind for her new home.  Always a survivor.

"Don't you know any nice people?  Not power crazed nutters trying to take over the galaxy?"

We see the Master again in his 1980's body.  He's on the prowl here, slave to a strange maddening malady turning him more feral.  Hunting, cutting, putting a young man called Midge on a leash, putting Midge under his control, putting Midge to death.  The Master leads his pack, culls the herd, finally gets his claws around the Doctor's throat once more.  And he is seemingly destroyed, but by now we can be sure of his survival.  

"We shall become animals." he snarls, in one of this incarnations' most menacing turns ever.

We see the Doctor trying to catch a cat.  Setting up elaborate traps, but only falling into them himself.  We see him scared and poised to run, but standing his ground.  We see him solve a mystery and pose further questions.  He juggles cat toys and rides a deadly motorcycle chicken race with equal bravery.  

At one point in the final episode he is up-ended and looking foolish on the rubbish heap (where he started long ago), but he saves the day by refusing to give in to his own aggression, and strides off arm in arm with his companion.  

"Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold.  Come on, Ace, we've got work to do."

It's all here.  The song, even diminished, even humbled by a crescendo of American sci-fi, still remains.  This was a good show and getting better, but all things end.

I praise it here as a personal favorite, not only because August 20th is MY birthday (1976), but the birthday of all three leads in 'Survival', the final classic story.  Sylvester 'The Doctor' McCoy (1943), Anthony 'The Master' Ainley (1932), and Sophie 'Ace' Aldred (1962) are all August 20th Leos in a story about cats!

So 'run beyond the horizon and catch your hunger', but keep your head: 'if we live like animals, we die like animals'!

Anybody Remotely Interesting is Mad in Some Way.

The Doctor: I don't suppose you've completely ignored my instructions and secretly prepared any Nitro-9, have you?

Ace: What if I had?

The Doctor: And naturally, you wouldn't do anything so

 insanely dangerous as to carry it around with you, would you?

Ace: Of course not. I'm a good girl and do what I'm told.

The Doctor: Excellent. Blow up that vehicle.

On 'Doctor Who' the Seventh version of the Doctor had 14 televised stories.  Unless 'Ghost Light' doesn't, every one of them has an explosion!  

Also, I ENJOYED every one of them, unless I later remember I didn't.

The Seventh Doctor had a lot on his to-do list in such a short time.

Outfoxing the Rani.  Besting the petty despots of Paradise Towers.  Helping true love win the day at a holiday camp.  Saving Ice World from a dragon.  A final conflagration with the Daleks.  Toppling an empire of deadly candy and phony smiles.  A showdown  with the Cybermen.  Playing the spoons for the Gods of Ragnarok. Tipping his hat at knights and witches. Unraveling the mystery of a haunted mansion. Chess games with demons.  A hissy fit with the Master for the fate of Perivale. 

He's not as nice as 5.  He's not as loud as 6.  He liked both jazz and classical music.  Sometimes he was manic, and sometimes a little depressive. He might have drawn the 'short' plank, but he's always got something up his sleeve.

Sylvester McCoy (Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith) born August 20, 1943, is a Scottish actor raised in Dublin by his Irish mother.  His father died in World War 2 a month before his birth. Young PJP trained for the priesthood, liked girls too much to stay, and got a job in insurance.  The stage beckoned.  He got his stage name from a comedy act where he famously put ferrets in his trousers.  He played Stan Laurel and Buster Keaton in one-man shows.  More recently he auditioned for Peter Jackson's Bilbo Baggins (as Tom Baker had tried out for Gandalf.  The Ians did just fine, but imagine a parallel world with an ALL-WHO Lord of the Rings!  Colin as Denethor! Peter as Strider! Sophie Aldred as Arwen!  Fifi the Stygorax as Gollum!  But I gibber...) In 2007, Syl played the Fool in 'King Lear' opposite the tall Ian (Sir McKellan).  McCoy has portrayed the Mikado and Mr. Mushnik, too. Talk about range!

He was the first to play the Doctor with a Scottish accent.  His own, but with a bit more 'rrrr' in it now and then.  Between 1987 and 1996 he was the seventh Doctor, and he's been so kind as to never go completely away.

The Seventh Doctor is not an easy kettle of fish to put before the cart.  He liked to mix-up his aphorisms now and again:  "Ahh, well, every dogma has its day." "Time and Tide melts the snowman." or "There's many a slap 'twixt the cup and the lap."  At times he seemed like a pantomime version of the Doctor, but he could be many things, not all of them silly. He might act like a vaudevillian, but he's a manipulative schemer, seemingly one step ahead of everyone, or like Daphne Moon "a bit psychic".  It has been suggested that he is so experienced a time-traveller that he prepares for every contingency, leaving himself messages in his own past.  IE: he cheats. 

He was 953 when he started out, dressing and behaving rather like a quirky college professor, with a question marked sweater, and a question mark umbrella.  For MYSTERY was his game!  Subtlety, thy name is Theta Sigma (the Seventh Doctor flippantly said this was his 'college nickname').  He carried embossed cards with those symbols, a gold question mark, and the presidential seal of Gallifrey (a presidential position he earned as the 4th Doctor, fled as the 5th, abdicated as the 6th, and tried to use for clout as the 7th).  For with less than average height, less than average looks, and a quiet, thoughtful demeanor, Seven needed all the clout he could muster.  He had to struggle to seem intimidating, but he had his moments.  He once joined in sarcastically with Davros' megalomaniacal rant:

"CRUSH THE LESSER RACES!  CONQUER THE GALAXY! UNIMAGINABLE POWER! UNLIMITED RICE PUDDING! ETCETERA! ETCETERA!"

And followed it up with a cunning plan, tricking the Daleks into making a particularly devastating use of the Hand of Omega super-weapon.  The Br'er Rabbit maneuver, I believe.

He rarely needed to take direct action against villainy.  He had a companion for that.  More on that subject anon.

The Seventh is my favorite Doctor of the 80's and 90's.  Steven Moffat described his own difficulty liking this Doctor's era at first, saying the show was looking 'cheap' and 'embarrassed'.  But he admits McCoy eventually found his voice: "Cos clowns are meaningless, clowns are boring- but a SAD clown, that's the story of EVERYONE."

FAVORITE SEVENTH DOCTOR STORY: The Happiness Patrol (Alternately, everything in season 26.  Or 'Delta and the Bannermen'! I can't eat just one!)

LEAST FAVORITE SEVENTH DOCTOR STORY: Time and The Rani (That's the one I'd eat least.   But it's got a giant pulsing brain and the Rani screeching about 'the loyhargil', so there's that.  And he plays the spoons.)

FAVORITE SEVENTH DOCTOR QUOTE: 'I can't stand burnt toast.  I loathe bus stations.  Terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls... and then there's unrequited love, and tyranny, and cruelty..."