The Macra Terror episode 4 discussion:
Sp: That little French horn announcement sound – it’s catchy. One would even say cheerful, happy.
R: Yeah, I want that for a ring tone.
<laughter>
H: Every time you answer the phone though you have to say “The Macra do not exist. Hello?”
R: Yeah. Control needs to take some anti-psychotics or something.
Cz: “Stranger Danger!”
<laughter>
H: More stupid technical facts: As I said in previous weeks, there was only one Macra prop because it was so huge and expensive. So yes, the Macra we saw in the control was a repainted version of the same prop that chased Jamie, etc. They just painted it white.
K: I couldn’t tell, it was all in black and white.
H: Well, there other ones were dark.
K: But they were in the dark too. Anyway, hard to tell.
Sp: I see this episode has continued the fine tradition of not locking up the strangers the moment they’re found and letting them run amok. You can tell who the bad guys are among the NPCs because they’re the ones with the once of sense, who want to lock up the Doctor and companions immediately.
R: They definitely had a bit of a return of being stalked by the Venusian attack organ.
Sp: I thought somebody had just left their Atari on.
A: When I hear something like that I think, “The music department got a new Moog, and they’re trying it out.”
H: Everybody gets down on Dudley Simpson. He was the man.
P: If you had a new Moog, wouldn’t you want to try it out?
R: I don’t have a problem with the music per-say. I have a problem with the duration, intensity, and volume.
H: At least in this case you can hear the dialog over it.
R: I have a question. What was the deal with the salt in the mines?
P: My take was it was the original purpose of the mines. They were mining something and the gas was there. That’s the premise.
R: I guess I was just confused because salt was an awfully specific terms, and it look just like rock dust.
Sp: They mentioned it often enough that I thought it was a plot point. “Ah ha, the Macra are vulnerable to salt. And drawn butter. And lemon!!”
H: I don’t know what was in the camera script that they used for the recon. It was possible that salt was used to simulate the rock dust, and the shooting script mentioned salt. Or maybe it was Photobug’s idea. I don’t know.
Cz: I didn’t see the last episode, but what made the Pilot so willing to trust the Doctor at that point?
E: I was confused about that too. That was rather trusting of him.
Sp: The Doctor answered that, he has a trusting face.
K: Because the Doctor came back willingly to get captured. So the Pilot wanted to know why.
H: I’d also say that there is a progression in the Pilot. He keeps getting thrown this evidence, and by the end he was willing to consider it. His conditioning had been weakened by everything that the Doctor and everyone was telling him.
R: The colony is secretly run by the David Byrne cheer leading squad!
P: It was no secret.
R: We want something GAY… and cheerful.
H: Thankfully, as Americans above a certain age, we’ve never had to go to one of these holiday camps. But they honestly had stuff like that. They organized cheer-leading. Music piped in everywhere.
SG: Speak for yourself. I had to go to vacation Bible School.
<gasps of horror>
H: It’s not quite the same thing.
SG: But it’s that enforced cheeriness. Basically the same thing.
Sp: So I missed most of Ben’s story arc. Was he a double agent?
H: No, the brain washing actually took with him. So he spent the last episode or so being conflicted and fighting it. As I said last week, I think Michael Craze did a phenomenal job with the story.
E: Am I the only one that found the ending a little anti-climatic?
R: Yes. No.
P: No.
A: I just would have liked to have seen them dance.
SG: I’m sad that it’s lost forever.
H: Keep looking for those missing episodes, folks!
E: It was just kind of… the end where they were like “oh no, he’s turning on the gas valves” and suddenly the colony was saved.
H: That was the explosion.
E: I guess it doesn’t have the same effect with a recon for me.
H: My guess, assuming the explosion happened off screen, they couldn’t do too much near the Macra prop. But it could have been a little punchier. They also might have been running out of time.
Sp: They had to make sure there was maximum time for cheering.
E: If only I could have seen Jamie doing that dance on the spot. I can imagine him just going “okay.” I’m very, very sad that we don’t have that. Imagine how hilarious that dance would have been.
SG: Apparently it was very gay… and cheerful.
H: What are we, twelve?
R: They said it that way in the episode. You could hear the comma in the guy’s voice when he said it. Also, I have a couple of positive things to share.
H: There are lots of positive things to say about this episode.
R: I loved the shot that they picked out for the Pilot right after he looks through the porthole at the Macra. It’s just this perfect “Well… shit.” He suddenly realized the colony has been going in the wrong direction. And I can imagine how the actor pulled that off. It was just really beautiful.
Sp: Acting!
P: Poignant.
R: “Polly, leave the confusing to the experts.”
H: I loved that line. I love Pat Troughton’s Doctor. Now that you guys have seen some more Pat Throughton, I hope you can understand why I feel that Matt Smith echoes his Doctor so much.
E: Definitely.
R: And, just that whole scene, his lines were fantastic.
H: With the crazy math?
R: Yes. And his follow up line where he says something like “I’m the best at the world at turning an operation upside down.
K: While it wasn’t explicitly said, I think this was the first use of reversing the polarity of something on Doctor Who.
H: Certainly one of the first.
R: There was just a lot of really charming dialog in this one.
E: Yes there was.
H: So, final thoughts?
Cz: I liked this episode slightly more than most.
R: Gee, thanks for the ringing endorsement.
E: I really really liked the story as a whole. I enjoyed this episode the most out of the whole story, although I think the ending could have been done with a little more oomph. But I also understand that they could have had circumstances that kept them from adding said oomph to episode.
A: What she said.
SG: Well, I wonder A) What happened to the Cybermen. There seemed to be a lack of them.
K: That was months ago.
H: That was the last story, so it was a month ago.
SG: And, you know, B)…
H: ?
SG: I am disturbed by the cheering. I don’t really understand these Macra things. That’s because I was expecting Cybermen.
K: Then don’t skip the TARDIS Project for a month. 😛
Sp: Nice plug. But I understand this though. Sometimes I too, have gone to my favorite restaurant, and could not decide between the crab and the lobster. I order the lobster. I eat the lobster. My mouth is expecting the taste of crab. For a moment it’s the most horrible crab I’ve ever had. And then I say “crap! This is not crab.”
<laughter>
R: Leave confusion to the experts.
P: Uuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmm. Yeah. Okay, so I did like this arc. I’m not so sure in this episode. I think the previous episodes had greatness in them that were not carried over here. A fine example, the atmosphere of the colony not panicking when hearing panic in their leader’s voice.
K: They were brainwashed.
P: Also, it’s kind of strange that Ben can break the programming in a few days, when a lot of other people can break out of it. Advantage of being a Doctor Who companion.
H: I have an answer to that…
P: Yeah, not being under a lifetime of conditioning.
K: I thought it was interesting that Ben was vulnerable to the conditioning but the others were not.
H: Military. He’s trained to take orders.
Sp: Yes, if anyone is susceptible to suggestion by seafood, it’s a mariner.
P: I think this episode relied on the cleverness of the Doctor to save the colony. And it was sort of built that way as an aftertaste.
H: What do you mean by aftertaste?
Sp: I think he means afterthought?
P: It seemed like an almost unnecessary challenge for the episode.
Sp: Well, no one wants to see Polly figuring it all out.
H: Your turn.
Sp: The crab was cleverly malicious. The Doctor was maliciously clever.
<applause.>
R: Were we all listening to the same speech?
SG: Don’t encourage him.
R: Improve jazz has really gone down hill a lot in the 24th Century.
<laughter>
R: It was an enjoyable episode. The unintentional funny bits did not wreck the intentionally funny or dramatic bits. It’s a good show.
K: The recons are starting to drain on me. I want to see the damn dancing. <pout>
H: We’ll get moving pictures next week.
Everyone: Yay!
H: For one episode.
Everyone: Awwwww!
K: The story was okay. The idea of the happy colony was clever. The Doctor was pretty fricken awesome. I really wish I could have seen Jamie’s dance, although I’m almost glad I didn’t because now it will be perfect in my mind.
H: Much like Frazer Hines himself. Okay, me. Something I’m going to throw out there about this story, I feel like it’s the first story were Patrick Troughton’s character really comes together. We get the mischievousness and the tweaking of authority and the brilliance being masked by all of that. I feel like this is a story where the character really crystallizes into the character when we think of the second Doctor. Other than that, I think the story is a lot of fun. I remember being baffled by the first episode the first time I saw it, but on a second viewing it works really well. I like the idea of the brainwashing. The is no Macra, so no one can see them. No one thinks they can exist because they can’t possibly exist. And no one questions why they are doing these things that make no sense. And again, I love Ben’s journey in this story. This is also the first story that was written with Jamie in mind as a companion. So it’s nice to see a balance for the TARDIS team, where everyone is actually doing something. Even if Polly is a little…
Sp: Damsel in distress.
H: But she does help the Doctor out. So I think this story really worked quite well. And as always, I wish we could see it.
R: Hear hear.
<trumpet sounds>
—
