The Evil of the Daleks episode 1 discussion:
MS: I hate this episode because the Daleks come out right when it ends. He’s like “WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?”
P: I swore when the Daleks appeared.
MS: And the episode when the Chameleons appeared they had a sliding book case with electronics in it. And in this episode they had a book case with electronics in it, only this time they had a key instead of a book to open it. I wish I knew how they used that book to open the bookcase. That is all I have to say.
Sp: So yeah, quite the detective work.
P: It’s a little too hard to drive the plot.
R: Huh?
P: It’s pretty clear to us these are plots within plots within plots. And it’s pretty clear that the Doctor can see the plot within the plot.
E: Plotception
H: I love the bit where Jamie said “Do you think it’s a trap?” And the Doctor says “Yes… yes it is. I’m glad you’re catching up.”
SG: I think that Jamie is just overenthused after the last adventure that he’s just fully accepting his role as a caper solving member of the team. And he’s just itching for the next thing to solve here.
Sp: “I think I’ve got the hang of this! Doctor, we’re covered in clues!”
H: Jinkies, a matchbook!
K: And the guy was left handed!
H: Okay, that was pretty awesome.
R: <sings Scooby Doo music>
K: We’re getting close to the Scooby Doo era.
H: Speaking of 1967…
R: Dig that groovy music, man.
H: It’s the only good thing about this episode being lost, we have the original soundtrack. I will bet you if this episode is ever found and officially released, they will have to scrub the Beatles off of it like they did with The Chase.
SG: Or pay them a lot of money.
H: This is the BBC. They’re not going to pay the money.
K: How did they get the rights to play the song in the first place?
H: They didn’t ask. They just sort of did it.
R: It was a more innocent age. Before people realized they could make money for standing up and shouting “Miiiiiiiiine!!”
< copyrights rant happens>
E: I’m still amused by the scene “Jamie, there’s someone staring at me. Is there something wrong with my hair?” He’s totally used to it by now.
H: I read a little bit of the camera script that the recon is based on, that the recon doesn’t have. And in the filming the Doctor gestures to his head that the recon didn’t include in the description. And that’s where Jamie gets his “you mean up there” line.
Sp: All hail the recon. There was some really slick camera tricks. The receding background during the driving.
H: The one that really impressed me was that they actually used a little clip of the Doctor and Jamie walking from the Faceless Ones and superimposed it on an entirely different background. That was neat.
<general agreement on the super neatness>
R: Yeah, I have to say this episode it was just really ticking over. I tried to be snarky right at the very beginning, thinking about how Brady Bunchy the initial music was. But it just took off. I really enjoyed it. I thought that the “bad guy” was really intriguing.
H: You mean Edward Waterfield?
R: Yeah. I picked up pretty quickly what I think is going on with him, but it was just really neat to see somebody leading the Doctor on with these little breadcrumbs that were actually clever, instead of faux clever.
P: He has the classic bad guy problem of stupid henchmen.
H: Or greedy henchmen.
Sp: They weren’t let in enough of the plan to be smart or be stupid. Which is part of what makes the breadcrumb trail actually clever.
H: David Whittaker. Among other things, he wrote the Power of the Daleks, he was the first story editor for the first season of the show. So he is one of the four people responsible for the formulation of Doctor Who.
R: This script largely as written would not feel out of place shot with Matt Smith.
H: That’s certainly the way that Steven Moffat feels.
Sp: Not a wasted moment in this episode, actually. All the dialog, characters we saw, pace of it. Just absolutely rushed by in a good way.
K: Even the Beatles bit?
Sp: Especially the Beatles bit.
P: Has this recon been done more than once?
H: It’s been done by other people, but this is the first Loose Cannon recon of it. It’s just one of the more recent ones.
R: There were so many great writing bits from this. “I’m not foreign, you’re foreign. I’m Scottish.” And the other one that I particularly liked “Why don’t you go talk to the airport Commandant?” “No, I don’t think we need to bother him.” Again.
SG: He was done with them. That or he’d sic his secretary on them.
Sp: What does a Dalek need with a safe?
P: Hands?
Sp: How does a Dalek open a safe?
E: Carefully.
MS: It blasts the safe.
R: No, it blows up the building and sorts through the rubble.
H: The serious answer…
Sp: You’re not fun anymore.
H: … is that it was Waterfield’s safe.
SG: That’s what I assumed.
K: Duh.
H: The Dalek’s appeared and disappeared in that Trans-whatever it is.
Sp: Transmat?
K: Yes.
P: I think this episode will bring in new viewers to Doctor Who.
K: I think this episode first aired 45 years ago. So it needed to do that a while ago.
P: <jokingly> That proves my point. They’re expanding the plot to include what might be a more intrigue based plot, which is something we do see in later Doctor Whos which I don’t think we’ve seen before. But I notoriously misremember stuff. What we need is a historian.
H: I think you’re right about the definite change in feel. It’s sort of a continuation of the Faceless Ones in that that story started going towards this intrigue idea more than anything else. But the interesting thing here is they’re changing the tone up, but this is the last story of the season. So there’s a 6-8 week break between seasons. So it’s interesting that you think that this would draw in new viewers at the end of the season, rather than in the beginning.
A: So it’s more like the awesome season finale to get you to come back next year.
K: Who killed JR! Okay, bad example.
Sp: Actually, yeah, the intrigue bit does explain why the plot and the pace were so interesting to me because the central question of the episode was “Why” rather than “What.” The episode was about why they were leading the Doctor on and what they were going to do to him, and not “I wonder what the monster is going to be this week.”
K: Yeah, we already knew the monster was going to be the Daleks from the story title in the opening credits.
P: Missed that bit.
R: The Evil of… some guy.
K: Where’s Mavic Chen?
H & Sp: <Mavic Chen / Nute Gunray voice> But he would ne-ver do anything….
<off topic Star Wars discussion derails us for a bit… sorry>
H: Speaking of Daleks… I think we’re at final thoughts.
MS: <hides>
K: Guess not from him.
H: Okay.
MS: For you information, that means no.
E: I thought this was a very clever episode. It was good, but it was also pretty fricken clever. I enjoyed it.
A: <strangely dressed as Ezio for Halloween> I don’t have anything to add that hasn’t already been said, but I enjoyed the episode.
<and E is strangely dressed as Raz from Psychonauts, but I digress>
P: Arrrr! Fine I don’t look like a pirate. I don’t care. This story is more people than science or history. And I find that a refreshing change. I like the concept of someone stealing the TARDIS just to taunt the Doctor.
R: Not even to taunt. Just to introduce themselves.
P: Music, nice. I usually don’t have such a fine selection to think about.
H: I saw mention somewhere a while back, but I hadn’t seen a recon of this for ages. The Dalek music theme was based on the Doctor Who theme when they appeared. It was specifically intended to be based on the baseline.
Sp: It was a monotone version.
A: It sounded like “Mars, the Bringer of War.”
H: I just thought that was cool.
<general agreement>
P: Like everyone else, I appreciate this recon for what it is.
R: Muttonchops!
K: I don’t think Mr. Waterfield is from the 1960’s!
Sp: Spoilers!
MS: I don’t think I understand. If Mr. Waterfield has been seeing the Daleks, why isn’t he dead too. If he was the first one to see them… the Daleks don’t usually do anything with humans. They usually try to destroy them. EXTERMINATE! DETERMINATE! DIE-SOMETIME!
K: Actually, even at this point, the Daleks have tricked humans before.
MS: Well, at first they have to get the humans to do what they want. And then Ztt! If you trust them they will kill you. If you don’t trust them they will kill you. You die either way. Don’t meet a Dalek or else you… will… die!
H: It’s almost like Mini-Spoo had a final thought.
MS: I’m just saying what my dad is making up in his mind and mixing it up with my own stuff.
Sp: My son is picking up what I’m laying down. <high five>
Sp: Waterfield, in the chair facing the strange device…
H: With the wrench?
R: Darmoc and Gelad in the Study with the Candlestick! Su-gar! <That was a mildly obscure ST:TNG reference with a dash of the game Clue>
Sp: It was pretty creepy, actually. Knowing that he was facing a pretty Dalek sized hole in the apparatus and sounding all desperate and scared there.
K: I’ve actually been looking forward to this specific recon for a while after seeing some clips from it on You Tube.
Sp: Yeah, I’ve seen the same clip. It’s spectacular.
K: I really like Waterfield’s portrayal as someone who, at least from my observation, clearly is from about the Victorian era trying to pass in the 60’s.
H: “50 Guineas a week.”
K: Exactly. I thought all the dialog around that was very clever. Fun story so far. Looking forward to the rest. One extra thought – we’ve haven’t said “wow, that was a bad story” in quiet a long time, have we?
H: Funny that. It’s almost as if they’re good stories.
Sp: Well, you think they’re all good stories.
H: Alright. I think this is one of the best opening episodes of a story ever. It starts the setup, but it doesn’t feel like it’s all about setup. It actually leads you through an intriguing path, you have no idea where it’s going to go, little clues dropped we’re discovering them as the Doctor does. We don’t know what Waterfield’s motivation is at all.
K: Other than it’s involving the Daleks in some capacity because of the story title.
H: And then bang, cliffhanger, suddenly the Daleks appear. It’s just an amazingly well crafted script. And it’s a fantastic opening to the story, which will hopefully live up to it.
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