The Savages episode 1 discussion:
P = Photobug
H = Historian
Cz = Cz
A = Altair
R = Ronelyn
K = Ketina
P: So, last night I had this dream… it was the Daleks’ musical episode! With the Daleks singing!
H: That would be kind of awesome. Anyway, this week.. say goodbye to individual episode titles.
Cz: Goodbye! <waves>
P: The old guy makeup was kind of scary. It was either really awesome or really not right.
H: I think it will make more sense as the story goes on.
A: I can see that.
Cz: That was the best episode of old Doctor Who I ever did read off a TV screen.
R: I can venture a guess as to why Dodo hates guided tours. Because there’s no opportunities for her to off herself.
H: I actually thought it was interesting this week that Dodo and Steven seem to have switched roles from how they were in the Celestial Toymaker. In the Celestial Toymaker, Steven was the one who was all suspicious of everything, and wasn’t taking things at face value. This week it was Dodo doing that, and using her impulsiveness to further the story.
R: I was just making a Dodo joke.
H: Yeah, but I thought it was an interesting observation.
P: Also, if someone is throwing spears at you, you;re going to be a bit more cautious when someone shows up, not just turn your back on the spear throwers and talk to new people.
K: I was under the impression that the spear throwers ran away when they saw the guard guys.
H: I think a caption may have described that, but I don’t see how Steven and Dodo could have known that, since they couldn’t see the one throwing the spears. And Ketina, there was a scream this week!
K: Yeah, we haven’t had a good scream in a while.
P: Speak for yourself.
H: There was several screams this week. Also, a technical point about the recon – the sound quality of the recording was fantastic this week. I thought it was incredible this week.
Cz: The violins weren’t that bad either. Usually the music in this makes me go “ahahahahah!!”
P: Yeah, it had good tonal and dynamic range from quiets to louds.
H: I thought the incidental music was really good as well. I was also pretty impressed with the level of scripting. Ian Stewart-Black did a find script. Yes, I could see where the script was going, but that’s more an artifact of having read a lot of science-fiction. I think it was build very well and the dialog was very good.
P: As for the dialog, I thought also that even though we were seeing a recon, I thought the actors and actresses were doing a very good job non-vocally in the faces and body language in the stills.
H: Except for the still of Exorse looking stupid.
Cz: This was the first episode where it was going “no, why did it end. I want more.” I think the writers finally got the science in the science fiction after that HORRIBLE western.
P: Let’s sing it.
Cz: Nope, it’s gone. Gone forever.
R: I’m constructing a verse of it right now.
Cz: Stop it! Stop it! I’ll go take a walk and you guys can do whatever you want.
P: So, there’s a plot point that I want to talk about. It does make sense when you get to a planet you send out the Doctor first, because you know he’s <sarcasm> disposable.
R: He’s bridge crew, of course he goes out with the landing party!
P: And you leave the other two outside of the supposedly locked TARDIS.
H: I’d like to make the point that I don’t think the Doctor got sent out, it was more that the Doctor went. He went to take readings to confirm where they were. Also Steven and Dodo were still in the TARDIS when he left. The Doctor leaves and then they have to follow, it wasn’t “send the Doctor first.”
P: But, if you have a freakin’ time machine, why don’t you have a freakin’ drone?
A: I don’t think the Doctor likes to play it safe.
P: Okay, I agree with you that this is not a plot point of this story. But I think it’s so weak.
R: They’re all bridge crew, of course they go.
H: The Doctor is insatiably curious. In the second story he’s willing to sabotage his ship to ensure they would explore the city back in “The Daleks.”
R: And the Doctor only brings people on board the TARDIS who are dumb enough to go “Oh look, a Police Box. I think I’ll go in.”
H: Well, Steven was a refuge from an exploding city.
P: He’s sure come a long way.
Cz: Steven reminds me of less sexy version of Captain Jack.
P: Really, Captain Jack is sexy?
K: Yes.
Cz: Yes.
A: Yes.
R: Meh.
P: Okay, I know what I’m going next Halloween as.
R: Rose Tyler.
P: Nooooo.
K: Anyway, back to CLASSIC Doctor Who! Actually, I was thinking, because of the whole “Oh, the Time Traveler, we’ve heard of you!” thing in this story, I kept wondering if there’s references to this story or concept in future Doctor Who stories.
H: Following from your point, I think this is actually the first episode, and one of the few in the scope of the project, and people (who are not Daleks) know exactly who the Doctor is. He doesn’t have to explain himself, introduce himself, no one takes him as an intruder. And I think this is the first time so far when that’s happened.
P: Gosh, I wonder if he landed here in their past / his future.
K: We did have that already with “The Ark”
H: Yeah, but that was within a story. They came, they took him as an intruder, and then he came back.
R: The Toymaker knew who he was.
H: Oh, good point.
R: And um, they actually specifically say “we’ve watched your travels for ages and ages, but we never thought you’d actually land here and we’d get to meet you.”
K: Anyway, I wonder if all those recordings of his travels contain travels that haven’t happened yet?
P: Ooo, interesting conundrum. As for the taking life energy plan here, I find the concept interesting that I even thought to myself “Gosh, do they still eat?” I wonder if they’ll cover that.
H: I don’t think anyone has mentioned food yet.
Cz: They breathe, I think.
P: But how lazy can you be? If everyone is an artist or similar, do they grow their own food, does someone clean the sewer?
R: “Once we had material bodies like yours, but now we have evolved beyond the need for such crude things as pee-pee or poo-poo.”
P: If I were human beings being hunted by advanced people, I sure would move away from the city.
Cz: They were probably harvesting them.
P: They were catch and release. I would get the hell out of the area after being released.
K: Actually, the caves had no vegetation around them. The city might be the only place where there’s food for the Savages.
H: And we’ve seen that after they’re released they have no vitality. They’ve maybe culled them enough that they can’t go very far.
P: But if that was true, you wouldn’t have the youngsters with the spears and axes walking around.
H: Maybe there will be an explanation in the next few weeks.
P: Maybe there’s a rabbit fence around the place.
R: Oh god. Now I’m picturing Savages around the laboratory. And one has injured himself and is wearing the “collar of shame.”
H: One of those cone things vets put on pets.
P: Trust me, I nearly drowned when it rained.
Cz: Wait, I don’t get it. Cone… and then water… oh! Can I try that? Even with duct tape? It sounds like fun. Like it would REALY have to be raining.
P: It sucks. You can’t scratch your knee with your face.
H: Alright, do you have anything else to say?
P: I didn’t see any gaffs. I mean, there weren’t any long speeches for the opportunity. I guess the Doctor sobered up during his vacation. I mean no disrespect though.
R: I noticed a couple of… Billy mumbles. But there were no Billy Fluffs.
H: I thought it was more acting than a gaffe.
P: I thought the recon was very good. It helped that the sound was great. They did well with the sounds they had. They even animated the spear throwing.
H: I think this is one of the first recons they did where they had a full selection of telesnaps. They were all pictures taken of the monitor during the filming.
K: Blurrier though.
P: There’s a problem when you’re photographing a TV <says the photographer> that there’s a re-bar in it. And there were many scenes where he took the picture when the image changed. So you see parts of both images in the picture.
H: That’s also why you have the curve around the pictures. I also think there were a lot of telesnaps that they didn’t keep, so these are the best of them.
R: So what was the intended purpose the telesnaps? Was it for publicity?
H: I know it was partly for archives. I know the Marco Polo telesnaps were lost for a long time until they found that the director still had some of them. They were discovered right after the recon for Marco Polo was created, and they may redo that recon as a result.
K: Anyway, back to “The Savages?”
H: Final thoughts?
Cz: I don’t know why I liked it, but I did.
H: Are you looking forward to next week?
Cz: I don’t know. I’m not used to having to wait for stuff like this. Usually I watch stuff in one big splurge, so I might have lost interest by next week.
P: But no singing cowboys or Daleks.
R: And no singing cowboy Daleks.
P: I imagine a giant hat with an eyestalk sticking out.
A: I liked it too. I’m a little curious what’s going to happen when the Doctor finds out how they’re getting their energy.
P: I think he just did.
H: He doesn’t know exactly where they are getting it. All he knows is that it is some form of higher animal.
K: The human one! Dundundun!
A: He’s probably not going to be completely shocked.
P: Maybe I’m spoiled in my 21st Century, but this story was a little slow. The beginning half was nice, and then it slowed down, and then it sped up when the Doctor is spoon fed the organization. I think Dodo made the big discovery of the day and viewers could piece the story together without the individual characters having the pieces together yet.
R: Soylant Utopia is made of people!
K: I don’t think I liked it as much as Cz did. It was bad, but it didn’t do much for me. I found it kind of predictable – I could see that “Soylant Green” thing coming for a while. (Google it if you don’t get the reference.) But the Savage chick was hot.
P: Yeah!
H: Eh, she was alright.
R: Yeah, I was down with that. She can warm my elders living in a cave anytime.
H: Okay. Well, I was impressed with the quality of the recon. And I thought the story… yeah, it’s predictable for us, but I’m not sure it would have been so predictable at the time. One of the things that I liked that we haven’t actually talked about… there was the point where the elders were talking to the Doctor and they kept cutting between that and what Steven and Dodo were doing. It really kept the flow going and avoided things getting bogged down in exposition. I just thought the script was really well constructed in that way.
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