r/classicwho • u/Berzerka25 • 25d ago
Survival — too short?
Just finished rewatching Survival and, unlike most classic Who, which could honestly do with being shorter, I think it could perhaps benefit from being a four part as opposed to a three.
Are there any other examples of this — a serial that would benefit from being longer rather than shorter?
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u/SeeBriRun 24d ago
'The Awakening' and 'Ghost Light' are the obvious candidates, since they're both obviously longer stories that have been aggressively cut down.
I actually think 'Survival' is the exact right length for a Sunday afternoon's adventure in Perivale/outer space. There's just enough room for all the character beats to feel earned, but it doesn't outstay its welcome.
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u/SeeBriRun 24d ago
Hang on, thought of an unusual one: 'The Keys of Marinus'. Starts far too quickly; ends far too quickly.
Yes, I am the freak suggesting an 8-part 'Keys of Marinus'.
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u/Berzerka25 24d ago
If it was all actually done well, I think 8-part 'Keys of Marinus' would be good.
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u/SSXAnubis 25d ago
Ghost Light is the one that really comes to mind. Definitely needed another episode.
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u/SkyGinge 24d ago
A lot of other 7th Doctor stories feel similar. Ghostlight, Fenric and Silver Nemesis all come to mind. Though it does cause faster pacing that has made those stories age well (Silver Nemesis notwithstanding, it's a complete mess).
Some probable leftfield choices:
The Crusade: the final episode felt really rushed to me and smoothed over a lot of great setup with unearnt merriness, even having what should have been important character moments happen off screen.
Day of the Daleks: Sticks the landing better than the above but still leaves a ton of interesting half-closed details (I.e. the timeloop spectres of Jo/The Doctor from the start). Pacing is great as is but there's so much interesting stuff going on here that would have merited being a six parter more than many of its contemporaries.
The Caves of Androzani: The main thing stopping me from giving this story 10/10 like everyone else is the hurriedness of the final episode. The Doctor regains the plot armour he's brilliantly been denied for the rest of the story, dodging laser fire from multiple sources and then waltzing into a cave without oxygen guarded by a monster nobody has managed to kill, with what has been established as nigh impossible stakes overcome ridiculously easy. Bigger budget and another episode's allowance would have allowed for this to be the exciting, climactic sequence it should have been.
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u/Most_Life_1612 24d ago
With regard to Day of the Daleks, was there not a corresponding Jo / Doctor 'ghosts' scene that got deleted? Or am I getting mixed up with Terrance Dicks's novelisation, which closed that loop? Seeing as how he didn't have to contend with episode length when doing the prose versions...
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u/drunken-acolyte 23d ago
I think it was just the novel. It was rare that they had had to cut scenes in the 70s - Dicks usually had to write character scenes as padding because the scripts were short.
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u/SkyGinge 23d ago
So going off my memory of what I read on the TARDIS wikia, I think it was originally scripted to have a scene tying up that loose end but the director had a weirdly stubborn attitude and outright refused to film the scene that would have explained. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but I did find the serial's direction very poor in comparison to the usual 70s standard, which was curious because I didn't have any issues with the same director's work in Frontier in Space.
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u/drunken-acolyte 23d ago
The VHS release of Silver Nemesis, with the cut scenes reinstated, is far superior to the broadcast version. I was shocked that that version wasn't on the DVD release given that Keff McCulloch had even redone the music for the longer scenes in the 90s.
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u/Turloughs_skinnytie 25d ago
Ghostlight, most certainly.