The Savages episode 2 discussion:
M = MisterMother
H = Historian
Sp = Spoo
R = Ronelyn
Sc = Schmallturm
MS = MiniSpoo
K = Ketina
Cz = Cz
M: So, how many cereal boxes does it take to make one of those helmets?
H: For clarification, Mr. Mother is referring to the guard’s helmets.
Sp: Is there a story explanation for the sweet potato fry helmets?
R: When all the guards are young, they take their little baby heads and they stick ’em through the bars in the cribs and they never take them out. Ever.
H: So, this episode did have the great moment where the Doctor gets to be righteously indignant, and the Doctor is never better than when he is righteously indignant.
Sc: That’s true.
R: “I thought you guys were cool! But you’re not cool.”
Sp: There is a nice nugget of morality play wrapped in questionable costume choices.
M: And the Doctor did get to do the first in a long line of speeches where he says “I stand against you like I stood against the Daleks,” etc. etc.
R: “And Mavek Chen. And those those large guys when I was really small. And those cave men. They were punks!”
MS: And the cave babies!
H: What were the cave babies?
M: And the squid monsters, on the planet of the… squid monsters.
H: You mean the Sensorites?
Sp: We’ve lost the thread here.
K: Okay, now that we’ve relived the first two plus seasons of Doctor Who… how about this story?
Sc: I thought it felt basically like “The Daleks.” You have the city, you have the Savages…
H: Several of you guys missed the first episode. I’m interested to hear what you have to think.
M: I just want to know if this story was the inspiration of Count Rugen’s machine from “The Princess Bride.”
H: It is very similar, yes.
R: Only Count Rugen didn’t have the good sense to bottle it.
H: He was kind of a tool, too.
R: The scene where poor Nanina…
H: The girl with the legs.
Sp: And a bit of tucchus too.
R: The scene where she was being hooked up to the machine. I can image an eight year old kid watching this being really scared. Her protests were really, pretty believable.
H: And that actually made Dodo’s peril more frightening. Dodo had no idea what was going on. But for the viewer it made it more frightening.
Sp: Kind of like watching a cat walk into the road.
M: That’s all true. But with the “woogy woogy” sounds, and the flashing lights, and the voices speaking random numbers, if felt like a vintage Hawkwind video to me.
Sp: Actually, the flashing lights and British accent scientists being very clinical and removed from the situation, actually made it more menacing. Very obviously coldly draining the life from this poor innocent girl.
M: I saw it on two levels. There was the creepy spooky level, and there was the this is trippy level.
H: I did appreciate how they apparently used real sound effect technology for their machines too. As the “Chumblies” were somehow involved. The Chumbly sound from when they transmitting was the same sound used for the machines.
Sp: While we’re talking about effects, I’m going to guess that the recon made the light gun effect work a lot better than it actually worked on film. The description of “trap them in their light gun and guide them” someplace sounded really corny. It’s an easy effect to produce, but a hard one to act.
K: Big flashlight weapons.
H: Although I do kinda like the idea that suddenly you’re stiff as a board and you just follow the light.
M: I think it’s a great symbol of their power and terror, that they can control you like that.
H: I think it could be creepy, but I have no idea what it looks like.
Sp: Mad props to Steven for saying what we all think about Dodo’s intelligence.
R: Although, I have to say, her reaction during the time when she was gone was actually pretty good. She responds to the guy, guides him down the hallway, and then threatens to break their science toys. “I’ve been hanging out with a nerd long enough to know how to scare you guys.”
M: She’s not stupid, she’s just lacking in sense.
Sp: I just realized the smidgen of foreshadowing they were going to do with the Doctor, when right before that when Avon and Aurac…
H: It’s Flower!
Sp: …were going to get punished. They made it sound that they were worried that they were going to get thrown into the machine. And then sweet potato guard guy implied that they were safe.
H: No, Avon said that to Flower. All the guard said was “wait for the other guard.”
Sp: But he implied it. The smart people aren’t put in the machine. But then they put the Doctor in anyway.
H: Yeah, now that line has been crossed.
Sp: And now no one’s safe. Everybody’s sucking everybody.
H: Moving on… so, Fredrick Yager is good as Jano.
Sc: Which one is that?
H: The leader.
R: The really tan looking guy.
H: He looked golden.
M: He’s eaten so much life force that he’s turned bronze.
H: Anyway, it’s first of many Doctor Who appearances from him. He also played the professor who made K9 in “the Invisible Enemy.”
Sc: I think it’s interesting that we don’t have much to say about this episode.
K: Not a lot happened.
Sp: The basic concept and conflicts are really simple.
R: “I don’t want to get sucked!”
M: I think the only question is whether or not Jano ends up in the booth.
Sc: I think at this point we’ve seen enough episodes that this is a typical Doctor Who story. The concepts and the conflict seems familiar from the previous 3 seasons that we’ve watched.
H: As I said before, the previous episode had a lot of the setup. You’re seeing the middle.
Sc: But I don’t feel that I missed anything.
M: Unless the setup changes how we view the factions and the characters.
H: But there was a lot of build up to this episode.
K: I did see last week, and I think nothing happened. Just cute hot chick running away and lots of droning machines and arguments.
M: Lots of talky bits.
Sp: And one giant “Billy Fluff” from one of the nerds.
M: Oh yes.
H: I’m intrigued by the more glimpses we get of the Savages. I want to find out how this society got setup. Are they really two separate societies? Was it two colonies? Was it a conflict?
Sp: Who is the Morlock and who is the Eloy?
M: I just want to see the Savages get savage on the elders. Wait, that doesn’t sound right.
Sp: Will there be sucking? Then no.
R: I felt, and maybe this is too advanced story telling from where Doctor Who was at this point, but I felt like they left money on the table by not playing up more the emotional conflict of the head extractor scientist.
Sp: They didn’t have any conflict.
R: No, the head guy… they made a point of lingering on his face. It was like “You want me to suck from him?”
H: This is a higher life form.
K: He didn’t want the Savage girl to die on the table while they were trying to hide her from Dodo.
H: Of course he didn’t, she’s a source of food.
M: I got the impression that Placenta…
Sp: Senta!
M: That if it could be done to the Doctor that it could be done to him.
Sp: Trival point, but I’m so glad they referred to it consistently as “Senta’s laboratory” and not “Senta’s workshop.”
M: Well, what is a placenta? It’s a thing that transfers vitality from one thing to another.
Sp & H: It might be where they got the name.
H: Okay, final thoughts?
Sc: I’ve to nothin’. I’ve said my piece.
M: Swirly things.
Cz: I liked it!
H: You didn’t watch it!
Cz: Exactly.
K: Hey. No comments if you didn’t watch it.
M: Actually, I do have a comment. It was very much an “Adam West Batman” cliffhanger ending.
Sp: Well, they haven’t established that the Doctor is an alien yet. The sense of common humanity he included himself.
M: He called himself human.
H: They established early, when Ian takes his vitals, that the Doctor appears to be human.
K: Just not a human from our time.
H: Exactly. And not from earth, presumably.
M: He did refer to his people in a vague sort of way. From somewhere far away.
R: “But this man on the forest floor is dead.” “No he’s not, he’s just tired and shagged out after a long squawk.”
M: “He’s just mostly dead!”
<and random “Princess Bride” references fly across the room.>
K: I can’t imagine where this one is going. That’s sarcasm, by the way. 🙂
Cz: Your sarcasm is showing.
H: I thought this was a good follow up to the first episode. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest. I thought the recon was very good. It’s nice to have telesnaps, by the way. I’m enjoying it. Not a really heck of a lot to say, as it’s not a complicated story. But it’s well written and well acted, as far as we can tell.
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