The Seeds of Death, part 2. Even seedier! And go!
-Spoo
First aired 1 February 1969
H = Historian
K = Ketina
R = Ronelyn
Sp = Spoo
P = Photobug
E = Ezio
Cz = Cz
—
K: Saw that cliffhanger coming.
Sp: More of a cliff floater. So. My favorite part of this episode is that about 40 seconds or so after I thought “why don’t they just use the TARDIS to go to the moon” they gave a fantastic reason not to use the TARDIS to go to the moon.
R: <Jamie voice> “Aye. We’d like to actually get there.”
Sp: It makes so much sense for this specific episode and generally works for explaining almost any Doctor Who episode ever.
K: The “short hops” excuse pretty much lasts until the 90’s Movie.
H: Tom Baker. He could do short hops, when the story demanded it.
K: But it’s still an explanation in the Baker years and onward.
P: The psychological horror that our rocket engineer is horrifying to watch. The poor guy doesn’t want his dream to launch because it may not launch.
R: <old man voice> “It would be much safer to stay on earth where we can starve to death.”
H: Worth noting, this was filmed in late 1968, shown in February of 1969..
P: Which is just after…
H: Just BEFORE the moon landing. We landed on the moon in August of 1969.
Sp: I liked the conveluted radio transmitter / lizard death trap.
Cz: Yeah, what the hell was that.
P: I liked it. It was a microwave.
Cz: Yeah, but how did it work?
P: Solar energy.
Cz: But why didn’t it kill the guy.
Sp: Because he wasn’t standing in the triangle.
K: None of the dishes were actually pointing towards technician guy.
R: And also he wasn’t made of ice.
P: Or lizards. I was sort of expecting a tail to pop off of him and for him to run away. <reference to lizards in Florida>
K: This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the Ice Warriors though.
R: Is it the first time we’ve seen them moving? <were they only in recons before?>
H: No. But it’s the first time we’ve seen a different kind of Ice Warrior. Yeah, I thought that was extremely clever. And it made all of the scenes of the technician putting it together paid off. It made it worth it.
Sp: Chekov’s Greenhouse. If you assemble a bunch of heat lamps in act 1, you must fry a bad guy with them by act 3.
R: My only problem with the solar array is that it doesn’t sound as good as the Ice Warriors weapon.
Everybody: Woobawoobawoobawoobawoobawooba.
P: Also somebody has a muffin bottom. I like how he’s just wide enough that he can get through the door and bump into things in the store room.
R: Gunk. “Ouch!”
K: And apparently Ice Warriors don’t need peripheral vision of Mars.
H: Worst searchers ever.
P: Maybe it was because he wasn’t moving.
Cz: No, it’s because he <the technician> slightly tilted his head further away into the corner.
Sp: It’s not a lack of peripheral vision. It’s a lack of a neck and a waist.
H: Although to be fair, they really don’t have peripheral vision in those helmets.
P: To be fair, preditors generally have forward facing vision, and prey generally has wide vision. Think tiger verse cow, as far as the eyes.
Sp: Who will win, tiger or cow?
P: I think the tiger.
K: But there’s frontal vision and there’s tunnel vision.
Cz: Are you guys sure they even had eyes?
H: Yes.
Sp: So in dialog this episode was pretty tightly plotted. At each turn, as with the “why don’t we just use the TARDIS” bit, they pretty well explained why DW and companions were the ones to go in the rocket, why Ms Kelly was needed on the ground, how and why she got up there anyway when the T-Mat (T stands for TRAP!) was activated. How the skitish living moon technician guy (I’m not big on names)…
R: Just call him Wile E.
H: No, because he wasn’t.
Sp: …Was able to keep the landing party going while not giving away the lizard dudes right around the corner.
R: Like RIGHT around the corner. The Ice Warriors aren’t the only ones with bad peripheral vision.
<laughter>
Sp: But yeah, generally all the problems, if you could call them problems, with the episode were quirks of direction or costume design, and not really problems with the plot or dialog or acting. This one’s doing really good so far. (And I’m not just saying because we just came off a bitch session about new Who).
H: I can give a lot of credit to the script editor, Terrence Dicks for that. He wound up having to do a bunch of editing and rewriting of Brian Hills’ scripts for various reasons.
P: Well, lets talk about the humor of G-forces.
Sp: We must defeat them! Sorry, wrong G-Force.
Cz & R: <pulls their faces back with her hands>
Sp: <legs in the air>
Cz: I’m in spaaaaace.
R: I’ve seen 9 year olds do that better.
H: I think I can lay that down to one big thing.
Sp: Budget cuts.
Everybody: Budget cuts.
Sp: Because man, that’s an awful lot of twine.
H: Some of you might remember, back in season 3 in the Dalek Master Plan, they actually had gravity effects that were supposedly so convincing that Stanley Kubrick’s office called them to ask them how they did it. Then in season 4 we had the effects of jumping around on the moon, which it’s hard to say because it was a recon, because they looked pretty awesome.
Sp: And Stanley Kubrick’s office called to ask them how they did it.
H: No.
Sp: And then we have this episode. With legs in the air. And artificial gravity on a single stage rocket. And Roger Corman’s office called them to ask them how they did it.
H: <laughter. Like serious ROFL>
P: If only they waited 10 minutes more they wouldn’t have had to go in the rocket. But no, we had to have a plot here. Gosh, normally the Doctor would have brought the TARDIS, and I’m supremely curious why he did not.
R: Normally some jerk would say “we’re going to put the TARDIS here so you can’t get at it.”
P: True.
H: Also, I don’t know if the TARDIS would have fit on the rocket. And there’s the full costs.
K: They could have replaced Jamie and the Doctor (since Zoe did all the flying) with the TARDIS for weight, and put the Doctor, Jamie, Ms. Kelly, and half of dozen other technicians in the TARDIS, and got everybody on the moon.
H: Only the TARDIS wouldn’t have fit in the tiny capsule, not matter what.
Sp: And, six people couldn’t fit in the T-Mat booth. So the T-Mat party had to be the size that it was, and the rocket party could be the size that it was.
R: So, they put the rocket in the TARDIS. They T-Mat the TARDIS to the moon…
Sp: And the T-Mat explodes because it couldn’t handling transporting the TARDIS.
R: And then you have to put the chicken and the fox both in the boat.
H: Speaking of the T-Mat, we actually saw the effect of someone arriving that we didn’t see last week.
Sp: Budget surplus! Demonstrating the level of special effects as last seen on Zoom, or the Electric Company.
H: You’re thinking about the future. That’s the 70’s.
R: So, speaking of special effects…
P & Sp: Special!
R: What was up with the QR-Code in the middle of the count down?
P: I loved it! It’s the first QR-Code ever.
H: My only idea as to why they did that – to make a talking head scene visually more interesting.
R: These shots are dull. We should probably put some kind of technospooge on them.
H: It looked cool. I don’t know.
<discussion derails for awhile about random other things…>
K: So, final thoughts?
Sp: It was awesome.
E: “They’re getting away! Quick – waddle after them!”
<laughter>
P: Also, you missed!
Sp: I couldn’t tell if that guy who was hit, was actually hit by the Ice Warrior and just collapsed and died outside the door, or whether the character just barely dodged and the actor had some sort of spontanous hernia or something.
Several people: Woobawoobawoobawoobawoobawooba.
Sp: It’s like we’ve got a Three Stooges episode going on in here.
H: Moving on.
P: It seems weird to be on the Moon base and not see the moon. Is it me? You just sort of expected a space suit goes on and people are hopping up and down in slow motion.
H & R: <sings> “We’re whalers on the moon. We carry a harpoon. But they’re ain’t no whales, so we tell tall tales, and sing this whaling tune.”
P: Wailing tune.
H: Do you have more?
P: It’s nice to see the Doctor and Zoe be good at what they’re good at, and that is smarts and things like that. Science.
H & Cz: Science!
Sp: <both thumbs up and nodding> Rocket sounds. Oh yeah.
P: Also, how does rocket get to moon so darn fast?
K: It’s the future!
R: Also, Rocket Ion drive! Or something like that.
P: I kind of like counting down by 4’s.
Sp: Or three’s, or the Fibonacci sequence, or whatever. It ticked me off. It was trying to count along with her and she kept being one second early.
Cz: The countdown was so slow until the end. And then 10987 6 5 4 3…
K: I actually looked at the clock to see if she was actually counting down every second. And no, she was going faster than every second at the end.
H: Are you set?
P: This discussion happened the same week that humans landed on a comet!
H: So cool!
P: Yes.
<discussion derails again for a bit. Comet!>
Sp: Cz, what do you and your weird internet friends think of this episode?
Cz: <removes headphones> I just kept looking up and seeing these giant lizard hips wattling around.
H & Sp: Lizard hips!
Cz: And yeah.. I… That’s all.
H: So, moving onto the Spoo. Again.
Sp: Still awesome! Thank you.
H: Alright. Ronelyn?
R: So the moment that stood out to me this week, in terms of humor to me at least, was when “old man Rocketton” was saying <old man voice> “There’s no way they can make it. It will take a miracle!”
H: What are they, storming a castle?
R: Smash cut to Trogdor the iceman hobbling his way down the corridor. Trogdor, the creepiest miracle.
H: Are you saying the Ice Warriors are burninating all over the station? <old meme, kids>
R: No, I was thinking weirdest Christmas special ever.
H: Okay. Anymore?
R: Nope.
K: This one’s fun. I totally remember the solar gun scene. Plugging the thing in again and again.
Sp: Completely convincing totally not hollow and cardboard props and boxes.
H: At least they looked good.
K: There was one thing that I thought looked like an old PC case covered in aluminum foil. It really looked like a junk room of where you throw your old space station crap.
Sp: I’ve got a pile of Goodwill stuff piling up in my garage. I think I’ll create a communications array / alien fryer.
H: Don’t forget to poke the holes in the alien before you cook it.
Sp: Or it will explode, and my whole garage will smell like Ice Warrior for a month.
K: This one I am again remembering it as we watch it. It’s been years since we’ve seen it, so I can remember the whole story, but I’m remembering details and scenes as they come up. Like which technicians survive on the moon, and how the Ice Warriors react in this one. Weird and interesting seeing it broken up by episode and with the big week long gaps between them this way. But it works well for this story. And I’m happy that it’s still interesting, so far, even though it’s a six parter, which are typically not as consistently enjoyable. Onto you Historian.
H: I’m going to shock you… ditto Ketina. Ditto.
—
Take us home, Spoo.
You are home. This is your house. Dingus.
NEXT WEEK: THE SEEDS OF DEATH PART 3 – The Search for Seeds
