Survival

What did you think of the final story of the original series? Did you think it was a fitting conclusion to it and wrapped it up well or it was underwhelming and could've been much better?

I think the most fitting note for the show to conclude on would've been The Visitation. Pretty much all loose ends were tied up by then. After that it just began to carry on too long.

Survival I think was mostly good until the climax, which just seemed to end abruptly at random and come off as a rush job. It should've been the final fight on the Genesis planet in Search For Spock, but it ended up being little more than a random soundbite really.

What worked I suppose about it as an ending is that it was Ace's return home (which she refused) and it did seem the final battle with the Master before his degeneration. And meanwhile Remebrance, Silver Nemesis and Curse of Fenric had seemed to resolve everything else. So Survival was a final puzzle piece coming into place.

So I think it was a fitting enough ending, but could've been better. Maybe it needed a part four to be really complete and satisfying.

As the finale of season 26, it's satisfactory, it shows Seven and Ace have fully formed as a tandem, Ace has an arc that gets her to explore her very identity, there's great poetic analogies on the need to survive and to experience the call of the wild. There's a more feral Master who still finds time to come up with tricks and traps and assemble an army...showing even animal instinct can't diminish his cunning and resources. The Doctor feels only slightly in control, while also swept up in everyone else's stories and tries to keep things together as best he can.

As the finale of Classic Who, it works even better. With what happens to The Master, you get the jist that The Doctor's dealt with virtually everyone now, and came full circle when he refuses to beat someone over the head with a skull (where as he almost did that in his first incarnation). He has a companion that is steadily maturing into an equal and more a daughter/granddaughter to him than Susan ever was, the two are fully capable of handling anything that comes up against them. You can certainly see them doing this forever.

The portrayal of the Master seemed okay.

I'd take Battlefield over this one now. I think Fenric would have been a better way to the end the series.

Classic story. The series should have ended here.

I think this is the weakest of the season, so in that sense it was a shame not to end on one of the stronger stories like Fenric.
Doesn't help that Ainley phoned in his part, but it's really just not that much of a story.

Much like the rest of Season 26, episode one is good and shows potential, the second episode starts to come off the rails narratively and contain incoherent and inconsistent incidents, and by the last episode you have half a dozen characters all rapidly babbling gibberish or having mental breakdowns and running around directionless without any rhyme or reason.