The Gunfighters part 4 discussion:
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Sc = Schmallturm
M = MisterMother
Sp = Spoo
P = Photobug
H = Historian
K = Ketina
R = Ronelyn
A = Altair
Cz = Cz
MS = MiniSpoo
Sc: <singing> “Now the Gunfighters is over… we won’t ask for more… the BBC’s music… has left us all sore…”
M: <singing> “They took out their pistols… they fired them long… but tried though they might… they couldn’t kill the song!”
Sp: Okay, I finally get the songs now. They’re sprinkled through so they don’t expose the children to a horrific blood bath.
P: Seriously, I would call the song that.
H: I’d like to make the point that we saw absolutely no blood on any sawdust.
K: Actually, I did. There were drops of what looked like blood at the Erps and Doc Holiday’s feet right at the end.
M: I thought those were discarded shells.
H: That’s what they looked like to me.
Sp: But my point still stands. The songs lighten the mood of what was otherwise brutal murder.
P: I’ve actually been to The Tombstone and the O.K. Coral and associate stuff.
H: Where the fight didn’t actually take place.
P: Thank you Historian, for totally disillusioning my childhood.
H: This is another one of those Historicals that deals with something that kids at the time would have no problem identifying, but kids today would have no idea. Westerns aren’t a big thing anymore.
M: It’s not on a blog.
H: Well, it’s probably on the internet somewhere, but not common.
Sp: <Facebook quoting> “Whet Earp has friended Doc Holiday”
R: “Doc Holiday has checked in at the OK Corral”
M: “Billy Clanton has now checked out at the OK Corral”
R: “Doc Holiday is now mayor of OK Corral”
H: So getting back to the episode…
P: Okay, they weren’t carrying that many bullets and couldn’t load that fast, darn it.
M: Well, gun fighters learn how to reload real quick.
P: They literally fired 100 rounds.
K: You counted?
H: But the last Clanton ran out of bullets at the absolutely appropriate dramatic moment.
K: And yet they shot him in cold blood!
H: I liked that. It told you a lot about Doc Holiday and the two Earps.
M: I thought the actor who played Doc Holiday was fantastic. You really got the impression in the gun fight that he just liked killing.
K: I liked the Doctor’s naivety about Doc Holiday and how he thought Doc and the Earps are “the good guys” when they really aren’t.
H: To be fair, this entire story, including the song, set them up as the good guys and the Clantons up as the bad guys.
R: It’s a Western, they’re the less bad guys.
P: It probably came down to the winner wrote the history, too.
H: And hey, Dodo got the chance to do something stupid again!
M: Yeah. Gratuitous Dodo scene.
R: It’s not luck, she really works to setup those opportunities.
H: But yeah, the gun fight was a little “Hollywood Western” but brutal.
Sc: I was surprised that the BBC showed that for a children’s show.
A: Also, Doc Holiday said “hell”
P: And also there was no blood.
H: Which would be the concession to the sensors.
Sc: It was the BBC.
K: But they were talking about blood throughout the whole thing. The song was saying blood on sawdust every two minutes.
M: There was no bloody sawdust. I wanted bloody sawdust.
Sc: You’ll have to wait for Sam Pekenpaw’s “The Gunfighters.”
P: I think each of the actors did a much better job on their accents today.
H: Except for Billy. I think he just stopped trying.
R: “We’ll be ready for those Eeeeerps”
H: Which was fine for me. By this point I just didn’t care about the accents at all. With the exceptions of Steven’s, as he was specifically going in and out of his fake accent. I thought that actually worked nicely.
K: I liked the idea that Johnny Ringo was this British badass. Because he always sounded British to me.
Sp: I think it was Irish or Welsh.
M: But not actually a badass, considering. He shot defenseless Charlie in cold blood, and then didn’t get a shot off in the gunfight…
Sp: And hid behind a girl!
H: Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Sp: A stupid girl but a girl nonetheless.
P: So you really think that a gunfighter is going to be stopped by hiding behind a girl.
H: Holiday is shown the entire time as being very chivalrous regarding women.
A: He may kill a guy for dinner, but he won’t kill a woman.
Sp: They did show a couple of times, in just a larger code that these guys were working on, that they didn’t take you for a back shooter. They didn’t shoot the messenger when Earp’s brother showed up at the house.
P: In that regard, they sure weren’t keeping a look out when Papa was home alone and the Doctor practically walked in the door before Papa reacted.
H: Following along from Spoo’s point, I continue to be impressed by the writing of this story. Good script and just enjoyable. I’ll say that for the 10th or 12th time now. 🙂
Sp: Everybody was really fleshed out well. In one scene and three lines we got Pa’s motivation and attitude pretty well. The whole empire building bit. And then how Wyatt reacts to his brother’s death, gearing up for war, everyone else getting pulled in. Just well crafted.
P: This story had a lot more movement to it, in that the story line progressed on a nice arc at a nice speed.
M: Also, while we’re complementing the scripting, even though we knew how the story was going to turn out, we still didn’t know what was going to happen.
P: I didn’t know that Dodo was almost extinct at the start of the story.
M: Exactly. We didn’t know how the Doctor and his companions were going to play out their parts and impact the story.
H: A lot of the best historicals have that. The Myth Makers as well, for example.
P: But rarely is it that you see the Doctor sort of violate the prime directive, as you will. Or he’s willingly part of the history of the moment.
H: That was an interesting point. He didn’t appear to know what was going to happen, and he really should have.
K: Maybe he’s never heard the story before.
H: This is possibly the first historical where he didn’t know what was going to happen.
K: Isn’t this the last historical too?
H: No. There are <redacted> more. Won’t say how many.
MS: I have nothing to say, no.
Cz: Did anyone comment how tired Dodo looked?
P: She had rings under her eyes during the first scene.
Cz: She was like “I’m sorry Doctor…”
P: “I’m trying to act, too tired.”
Sc: I don’t know why you all are so down on Dodo. I think she’s more effective than the previous female characters.
H: Vicki?
Sc: Maybe not Vicki. But she hasn’t sprained her ankle and she knows how to open a door.
M: And she doesn’t scream either.
Cz: Did anyone mention how she ran into Johnny Ringo’s arms?
Sc: I thought that scene was fine. She broke away from him at the end, and then Doc Holiday shot him. I’m saying that I see some Dodo hating here, and it’s not all justified.
H: You missed one or two of her worse moments in some previous episodes.
Sc: Arguably Dodo was a heck of a lot more effective in this whole story than Steven was.
P: Oh wow.
H: That’s certainly true.
Cz: Steven was looking good in this one.
P: Well, it doesn’t help that Steven’s dressed as a goofy 1960’s cowboy singer who has fake guns.
H: So, final thoughts?
Cz: Alas, I didn’t watch 50% of the story. I only saw the first and last one. I think the last one was much better than the first one. I think they got into the whole spirit of the thing. Or I got used to it.
M: And the undertone of that comment was that we’re all crazy for watching this every week.
Cz: Did you guys comment about the way the gun fight was kind of like “bang” <re-aims> “bang” with no action at all?
H: I thought it was fine. That was the way they used to do action.
Sp: Was it directed by John Woo? Then no.
M: I thought it was great that you saw the Clantons waving their guns all around, and the Earps are carefully aiming.
Cz: And you never see them reload.
Sp: They’re reloading when they’re off camera.
Cz: But you still hear banging when they’re off camera.
Sp: …
Cz: It seemed tense but really anti-climactic.
A: I liked the whole overall story. I think it was a good final episode. At the end of the gunfight I like the way it just showed their shoes.
H: I liked that too.
Sc: I thought they captured the spirit of a Western, and it’s such a classic concept, you sort of get sucked into it.
M: I think that I’ve pretty much said everything. To sum up the story line, it was really enjoyable. The mix of comic relief to story was really well done and I had a lot of fun watching it.
P: In a way this is very much not like Doctor Whos.
K: Yeah, there was singing.
Cz: There was no Scifi. There were guns.
P: Yeah, we dropped technology. For another, the Doctor didn’t, as commented earlier, act as he knew what was going on. He was sort of sucked into the story much more than usual. In other Doctor Whos he’s driving what’s going on. In this one he was an equal participant. It’s unusual he’s not the person bringing the change around, even though there isn’t any change here if you agree with the whole “don’t screw with the past thing.”
H: Most of the Historicals at this point didn’t have a scifi component. But I agree that he was much more reactive than proactive in this story.
K: His tooth hurt too much.
P: They must have removed a wisdom tooth.
Sp: Har har har.
H: It’s your turn, Spoo.
Sp: Ronelyn will appreciate this. The Doctor was very much a deputy on his own terms. If being a deputy is going in an shooting along side, he had no part in it. But the moment he had a chance to be a diplomat, he was all over it like brown on rice. So yeah, it’s a solid story and they dialed down how vicious and kid inappropriate this could have been. Seeing Doc Holiday take down his pray, deliberately and slowly approaching the kid and taking him down.
H: They dialed it down, but they didn’t compromise on anything. They didn’t talk down.
Sp: Yeah, it really worked.
P: It helps that Doc Holiday can hit anybody in the heart from any distance and not spill any blood. Even with his derringer.
Sp: Yeah, it was a nice bit of setup from the previous episode, knowing that Doc Holiday has a derringer. So, you saw exactly how he was setting up Johnny Ringo when he volunteered to put his gun down.
K: Yep, toddalee did!
R: It was pretty good. The accents did kind of vex me. But yeah, the writing itself was quite impressive. That part of it I really enjoyed. And the accents that were good were really good.
P: The stage, props, costumes, a lot of the non-musical noises, all of those things were strong, and so good that it immersed you in that world.
R: Come for the funny accents, stay for the compelling narrative.
Sp: Leave when they sing again.
P: With your hands over your ears.
K: Song bad. Accents funny. Story good. Set not bad. Back drops very noticeable, but maybe that was just me.
Sp: The horses accents were terrible.
H: Clearly English horses.
K: Okay, still my turn. Wouldn’t mind seeing about half the cast in another story.
H: I know Charlie shows up again in another Doctor Who episode. And gets killed again, in “The City of Death.”
M: And there was that unaired season, with Doc Holiday as the Doctor’s companion.
H: That would have been awesome.
Cz: Doc and Doctor. Together they fight crime.
R: “Doctor! Doctor!”
H: I find it difficult to understand how I could have not like the story years ago.
K: The song.
H: But I even like the song now. I like the idea of the song as a Greek chorus.
P: Did you watch it full through.
H: Likely.
P: And that’s the problem. And isn’t that the purpose of this experiment? To get the feel as the people who originally watched it got it. And I think that getting a little of the song once per week kind of numbs you to it, instead of getting it all at once and hating it.
H: But I don’t think it was just the song. I’m just surprised that I didn’t like it before. I now think this is a great story.
Cz: Yawn. End.
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