Survival is the final serial of the 26th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts on BBC1 from 22 November to 6 December 1989. It is also the final story of the series' original 26-year run; it did not return regularly until 2005. It marks the final regular television appearances of Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace, and is also the final appearance of Anthony Ainley as the Master, the latter appearing alongside McCoy's Doctor for the only time. Journalist Matthew Sweet has described Survival as "a parable about Thatcherism" that shares multiple characteristics with the later David Tennant era of Doctor Who. The Doctor brings Ace home to Perivale, where her friends have been transported to the planet of the Cheetah People. Plot The Seventh Doctor brings Ace back home to Perivale in west London. Ace becomes worried when most of her old friends seem to have disappeared, but the Doctor is more preoccupied with the black cat he sees skulking about. The cat appears to be selecting people and transporting them to another dimension. Ace finds herself being hunted down by a creature on horseback, which seems to be half-human, half-cheetah, and which hunts in tandem with the black cat. Later the Doctor and a keep-fit instructor called Paterson are chosen and teleported to another world, where the Doctor is greeted by his nemesis the Master. The Master explains the complex situation: they are on a sentient planet, which has the power to transform its inhabitants into animals. The formerly human inhabitants, which have since evolved into Cheetah People, originally bred the black cats as pets. The Master himself shows signs of transformation and needs the Doctor's help to escape from the planet. Ace finds her friends, Shreela and Midge, who are hiding in some woods with a young man called Derek. A Cheetah pack attacks and during the fight Midge kills one Cheetah while Ace injures another, called Karra. She begins to form an attachment to Karra and nurses her, tending her injuries, which worries the Doctor greatly. Ace's eyes change and she begins to transform into a Cheetah herself. Midge submits to the power of the planet and begins to transform. The Master seizes on this and uses Midge to teleport them both back to Earth and away from the