The Tomb of the Cybermen episode 1 discussion:
E: Why doesn’t anyone listen to the Doctor.
Cz: “But I already pulled the lever!”
E: If he tells you not to mess with something you shouldn’t mess with it!
A: Once again the Doctor sounded like he wanted the guy to get into the vault. “Of course here’s the answer. But… I wouldn’t do it.”
E: I really liked the Doctor’s attitude in this episode as a whole. He just seemed kind of smug or snarky. I don’t know what the word is…
Cz: Doctory?
E: Yeah, that’s it. He gave a few nice burns in this episode too.
P: So easily tricked though.
R & A: No.
E: No, he knew better.
P: Well you gotta move the plot forward.
MS: Why don’t people listen to the Doctor?
P: It just wouldn’t be interesting if it was titled “The Unopened Tomb of the Cybermen”
H: It was just so wonderful to actually be able to WATCH Patrick Troughton act.
Everyone: Yes.
H: He’s just so awesome.
R: “Really? Does it show?”
H: And let me formally welcome everyone to season 5 of Doctor Who.
Everyone: Yay!
Cz: I like Season five. Things move.
H: Alas, mostly only for this story.
Cz: You lied to me!
H: No I didn’t.
Cz: <whines>
Sp: Well, as bad as the situation is in the room with Jamie and the other expedition member…
MS: Who’s dead.
Sp: … Well, at least neither of the women or the large black man touched anything in there. That would have made things much worse. “Leave the women behind. Oh, we have the large black man to protect them.” Oh please! Other than it was just fine.
R: I’m still sad they killed ensign Skippy. The electrocuted guy.
Sp: No emotional reaction from the rest of the expedition.
H: To be fair, the captain of the ship was pretty upset.
K: Yeah.
H: He tried to get everyone to go back to the spaceship. He said “no money is worth this” because his crewman died.
Sp: Well, this show is in black and white, so I couldn’t tell if his shirt was red.
H: Anyway.
Sp: The introduction to the TARDIS was nice. The obligatory “oh, we have a new companion. So let’s remind everyone that it’s bigger on the inside and how it works and we have a wardrobe. Oh, and don’t touch any controls.” In fact, you could take the controls part as a bit of foreshadowing.
H: It was also just a great beginning of the season summary of “this is the premise of the show.” And I think it’s the first time we’ve had a bit of film stuff, then the title, then into the episode as well. It’s interesting because they didn’t do that again for a long time.
Sp: It’s the first mention of his age too.
P: Right.
K: 450.
H: A little factoid about that: in the original written premise for the series the number 650 for the Doctor’s age was thrown out there. And the idea for the production team by saying 450 was that his body had been renewed by about 200 years. That was the thinking behind it. Because of course regeneration… what’s that? It’s referred to as a renewal. And the idea was that his body renewed itself.
P: So why didn’t he look like Yoda?
H: Because when 450 years old he was he looked better than Yoda did.
R: Because Yoda doesn’t use cheat codes.
<laughter>
Sp: Alright, so… let’s play guess the accent.
Cz: I liked the manly American one.
Sp: That’s who I was thinking of. Where did they find him?
H: There were plenty of American actors in Britain at the time.
R: “I was a wrestler at a preestigious mid-western Colleege.”
Sp: And it’s a good thing they filmed some of this outdoors. Evil woman needed a lot of scenery to chew.
H: Kaftan!
Sp: Seriously?
H: Yup.
P: Yet another quarry.
Sp: Yay quarry.
R: You’ll be spellbound by the exciting cliff climbing scene.
K: I thought that went a little long.
H: I thought that was a really good scene as it showed the effort that they were making. The scrambling around – I thought it was really cool.
R: Well, that’s very nice for you.
K: It was an incredibly long scene where they showed the entire expedition crew climb the hill. At the time I was wondering if they were really going to show ALL of them climb, and so they did. Even with the slow guy at the end puffing his way up the path.
H: That actually demonstrates a point about his character. Klieg is not a…
K: Man of action?
H: Yes. He’s not there as a strong archaeologist type….
R: I don’t know, all off the archaeologists I know are kind of lumpy and full of doughnuts.
H: Shush you! He’s definitely out of place. And he’s there for his own reasons. Which gets brought out again later in dialog, as he’s co-funding the expedition with Kaftan.
Sp: So Klieg has a high Int but a low Wisdom.
R: Welcome to the entire party.
Sp: “Hi! I’m new here and I’m wondering around the tomb of a dead race of super beings. Let’s push all the buttons.”
R: “Yank all the things”
Sp: “Pull all the levers.”
P: And ignore the rule about archaeologists: “The first rule is not to touch before it is recorded.”
R: “The second rule is the oldest guy gets to poke the shiny stuff first.”
Sp: And Kaftan says “I know.” <sigh>
Sp: “So, hello rival archaeological team. We don’t trust you!” They let them in. “We sort of trust you.” They let them further in. “Right, let’s split the party and pair up all the strangers.”
P: Yeah, but the person who said that was the person who was plotting.
Sp: No, the person who split the party was professor Parry.
H: And actually the way he split things up made sense. He didn’t allow more than one of the strangers in one party. He split them up.
Sp: It grates on me that he put the women together with the black man.
H: Toberman is Kaftan’s servant and he’s specifically brought to protect her. It made sense that he went with her. But yeah, he is yet another black servant two stories in a row.
Sp: Yeah, black mute servant.
H & K: He’s NOT mute!
P: Is that a product of the times?
Cz: Were they American?
H: Were who American?
Cz: The servant people. Did they have American accents?
H: No.
P: Is a man who is a servant black because it is a product of the times? Is that a fair thing to say?
H: I guess so. Definitely the strong black servant was a fairly standard trope of adventure fiction.
R: At least he’s not magical.
H: That’s a later trope introduced in the 80’s or 90’s.
P: Gentle take off please. Also the TARDIS didn’t materialize in place like it usually does. Apparently, we were told, that it came down and landed behind that hill.
A: They were going by the sound.
R: I think the assumed it was a space craft. There were just a lot of really snappy lines in this. “Unless he’s afraid. Ah! No, no, he’s not afraid.”
H: Definitely thanks to Gerry Davis, who until before this story was the story editor. He actually resigned from Doctor Who, so he got a script of out it.
P: Wait… he resigned so huh?
H: Because he was a story editor he wasn’t allowed to take a co-script credit on earlier Cybermen stories. This actually is kind of a weirdness transitional story in the production team, that I’m not going to go into know because I’m not going to make Ketina type about it.
K: Yet you made me type me type the explanation why. And I’m typing this too.
Sp: No, you made you type that. Remember, we’re all figments of your imagination.
K: You wish.
Sp: No, you wish. Inception!
K: Go ahead and talk about it.
H: So, the producer of Doctor Who at this point was a guy named Innes Lloyd. Prior to this story Gerry Davis was the script editor, and his assistant was a guy named Peter Bryant. Innes Lloyd was starting to talk about leaving. And the Gerry Davis was offered his job but turned it down. They then offered the job to Peter Bryant, but he didn’t have any experience producing. So he started out shadowing Innes Lloyd…
R: “Would you stop following me?!”
H: <ignores her> and was allowed as test to produce this story. Because of this, a guy named Victor Pemberton, who by the way had a acting part in the story the Moon Base. He played Jules. He was acting as script editor. He was offered the script editor job on a permanent bases once Peter Bryant took over as producer, but turned it down.
MS: Many people turned it down.
H: So for this story only Peter Bryant is the producer and Victor Pemberton is the story editor. Next story…
K: They switch?
H: No. Next story Innes Lloyd goes back to being the producer for a while. And Peter Bryant goes back to being script editor for a while. And that’s the overcomplicated production explanation for this story. Aren’t you glad you asked.
MS: I am.
K: So he failed the test?
H: No. He took over later in the season. We’ll get to that when we get to it.
K: So he passed the test?
Sp: Two things. One, that’s quite a lot of shuffling and different hats behind the scenes. Two, for our reading audience let me note that the historian pulled all of this off to the top of his head.
H: To be fair…
Sp: Shush! However, he needed to consult the internet to look up the names of the people in the story that we just watched! I am both in awe and confused by him.
R: He’s the Historian not the Summarian.
H: Well, I would be if I ever started updating the web site again.
Sp: Historian, Tumblr turns his lonely eye to you. Woo, woo, woo.
<to note, Cz discovered a Tumblr fan of the TARDIS project. We have failed them. But we are challenged again to actually put all this on our web site some day again.>
Sp: So, the Tomb of the Cybermen!
P: The name suggests that the Cybermen are here.
K: We saw one, sort of, at the end of the episode.
H: We saw a suit at the end of the episode. Apparently there wasn’t anything in it.
P: Maybe. Could be perhaps some very old meat and bones.
R: <Cybervoice> “You kids get off of my lawn!”
H: So, are we making our way to final thoughts?
P: How about that drastic music drop before the explosion.
A: It was like that little device turned the music down.
P: Secondly they blasted away a perfectly clean doorway. It looked so weird. It should have been partially covered or something.
E: They were just very precise in setting the explosives. As you could see later they were very good at math.
R: <coughs throat> It’s almost as if the doorway WANTED to be found!
H: I wasn’t gonna say it.
Cz: I like how the wimpiest guy was the one who was like “I’ll open it.”
R: For someone so wirey, he wasn’t very conductive.
<general applause>
E: That was beautiful.
K: That was worthy of Photobug.
P: Oh, I got a compliment. I faint! Okay, thank you. I got more. So, I thought the line “Man, you just blew yourself a pair of doors was so hick.”
K: I loved that line!
A: Ray Manzeric and Jim Morrisson approve.
P: I also found the line “No danger, unless he is afraid” was a line that piqued my curiosity. And then, of course I’m geeky enough with someone saying “We have to be back at the ship by 16:30. So we meet here at 16:25 and that will give us an hour to look for anyone who is missing.”
K: And hour. 5 minutes. What’s the difference. Oh because an hour IS 5 minutes on this planet!
R: This planet’s time is metric.
P: Or 12 times slow.
H: Yeah, I noticed that too. I’m betting that you’re right that an actor got it wrong and they just didn’t have time or the money to reshoot the scene.
MS: It’s like he wants them to be lost. It’s like he’s planning on it for at least two people to be lost.
P: I think he’s preparing ahead.
R: He’s obviously scene archaeologist episodes of Doctor Who before.
P: And the scene with Jamie and the archaeological in the room full of moving pictures surely is worthy of discussion.
H: We touched on it earlier but didn’t discuss it.
MS: That one hypnotized me.
P: I think the graphics for the day are pretty impressive.
MS: I wish they were in color.
Sp: Yeah, their testing methods leave something to be desired.
R: They’re everything methods leave something to be desired.
Sp: “Okay, so I’ll look at and you work the controls. But, you don’t look at it.” “Oh, you mean look at that? All hail Hypnotoad!”
P: Also, “As dead as a stone.” No sir, not for long.
E: I’m sitting here thinking “you’re going to jinx it if… nope, too late.”
H: There are things shown in this episode. But they might mean different things in future ones. Ronelyn made a good point regarding that earlier in the discussion. So, more final thoughts?
E: I kind of fell in love with the writing very fast here. I’m really enjoying this episode. I think it’s quickly taking a spot on my favorites list. And it moves! Oh my god!
K: I think it’s only becoming your favorite because it moves.
H: Don’t get used to it.
E: No, I really did enjoy the writing here. It was very amusing and the Doctor being the Doctor was just excellently entertaining. Also, probably my favorite line from the whole thing when the Doctor was talking about his technique and he mentions keeping his eyes open and his mouth shut. I just sat there thinking “apply cool water to the burn.”
A: I don’t really have any final thoughts, honestly. I enjoyed the episode. I like the pretty symbols on the big round wheel.
R: I just got this image of a Cymberman with a string and someone pulls on it and it goes “The Earthman says: Oh, god! Get it off! Get if off!”
A: The little cybermat was pretty cute.
H: Yeah, they were designed for this story because “hello merchandising.”
Sp: Oh, the dried Fraggle.
<Ketina runs off to get a Fraggle, and discussion ensues. Photobug looks a lot like Junior Gorg if he actually caught Boober.>
R: Meanwhile, the piles of dead British people…
Cz: Did you guys mention how the protective maneuvering of the hands was just beautiful. To block the screen.
MS: It was just awesome. I like everything, but still. I wonder how they actually got it to look darker when it’s black and white for when he got staticy. When the guy tried to open the gate he got staticed.
H: When he got electrocuted.
MS: I don’t know how they made it so it looked like he did even in black and white.
P: Well, the whole world used to be in black and white…
Sp: No!
MS: No, continue. I want to hear this.
Sp: No.
P: According to Calvin’s dad the world was black and white until the late 1960’s, at which point everything turned to color except photographs and films. And that’s why photographs are in black and white and everything else is in color. Do you believe me.
MS: Yes, definitely.
P: Are you sure?
MS: Yes!
P: Do you know who you’re talking to?
MS: No.
P: Then don’t believe me.
Sp: This is the fine intellectual discussion that that fine people of Tumblr have been missing. Hello Tumblrs. Aren’t you so bloody glad you’re here.
H: Mini-spoos point is actually a good point. I don’t know how they did that effect. I don’t know if it was a practical effect or something they did to the film.
R: “Well, we can’t stop shooting, and we only got the one take. Someone scrape him off, and someone else rewrite that part of the script.”
Sp: I loved the bit where they were mathing at each other.
K: Reminded me of a mishmash of bad college math. Random quotes from calculus and power series.
Sp: Actually, it reminded me of me from high school. It was like “oh yes, yes. Or gates. Yes, with you. Logical series, with you.” And then the Doctor just speaks on some totally other level. And when I wake up there’s numbers on my paper. And I did kind of suspect that the Doctor wasn’t foolish enough to give him the entire code. “No, you fool. Don’t do that thing I asked you not to do. Oh, you did it. Good thing I only gave you half of it. Stupid.” Plus one on Patrick’s acting and actually getting to see him move. It just really makes me wish we had more moving pictures of the other ones, and puts a nice underline of the Historian in past write ups of how much we’re missing out not getting to see all the little subtle things that Patrick can do. He’s a fun Doctor.
P: So, why doesn’t the Doctor go into the past in time and prevent us from cleaning out the vaults.
H: Because even he is not more powerful than BBC bureaucracy.
P: Fiddlesticks.
H: Ronelyn, final thoughts?
R: Good scientists look with their eyes, not their hands.
H: That’s it?
R: <whispers.> That’s it. It’s kind of my idiom.
Sp: I was not a good scientist in high school.
K: Okay. I do adore this one. I also remember it quite well, so I have to be very quiet about future bits. It was nice seeing it back to back with the previous story, and I now get the discussion at the start about Victoria’s past. And I don’t remember the cast being this large, which implies that a lot of people die before the end. Oops. Spoilers. I’ll just hush now.
H: I remember when this story was found in 1992. And a complete story coming from the Hong Kong TV archive, which previously had claimed not to have any. And not just any story, but one of the stories that everybody wanted to see again. It was just amazing. And the first time I saw this story it totally lived up to my expectations. Which wasn’t the case for everyone, but maybe my expectations were different. It’s not my favorite Troughton story, but it might be my favorite complete Troughton story, and this episode just shows why. Really great direction. Snappy writing. And a good plot with a good pace. And I’m really looking forward to next week, because there is a scene that I love dearly. See you then.
