The Tomb of the Cybermen episode 3 discussion:
P: Oh my gosh, it’s a trap!
MS: They killed the Doctor!
P: For smart people.
A: Nerd trap.
P: Okay, why did they keep calling her “Vic?”
H: Because they’re ‘Mericans!
R: Grrr. America. Burgers, baseball, you’s guys, rocket sound!
K: Didn’t we have enough of this last week?
H: Never enough!
R: Apparently not given how much of it was going on in the episode this week.
Sp: For pity’s sake, he was fighting the Cybermen with fireworks! What’s more American than that?
R: Shooting them!
P: Supersize me while you’re at it.
R: Yeah, it was when the captain turned to his body and said “You go do this” and the buddy said “Rrrright!”
H: Okay, let’s the talk about the elephant in the room.
K: There was an elephant in the room?
P: I’m losing weight, thank you very much.
Sp: The absolutely adorable cybermats?
H: No, but we’ll get to them. I just want to say that in 1967 the television signal would not have been in high definition, and we probably wouldn’t have seen those wire.
Sp: You could see the cable and the hook attached to Toberman.
MS: That sucked.
<MiniSpoo is chastised by Spoo for saying “suck”>
R: Although he does have a point. It was a pretty effective scene. Toberman is fighting kind of effectively for a bit, but then the Cybermen just goes…
SG: Yeah, I’m done playing.
Sp: He does the “lifts the toddler off the floor” thing.
P: Except you don’t want to throw your toddler afterwards. They might call them “bouncing baby boys” but they don’t, trust me.
SG: I’d like to talk about the fantastic stylings of this episode. Evil Natashia…
H: Kaftan. Although you’re not the first to call her that.
SG: Had an absolutely bitchen beehive mullet going.
R: “The higher the hair the closer to logic!”
SG: And I love that the Cyberman are into street art and tagging all over the place. I want that Cybermen stencil and it will be everywhere.
R: That would be kind of awesome actually. Just go around downtown doing that. And the captain of the ship had some skatery feathered hair going on there.
SG: Also I want to know what colors the walls were, because they were all this chevron patterned. They were pretty trippy.
P: They were all colored black and white. Everything was black and white… in fact before 1960….
Everyone: Yeah, yeah. We all know that joke.
SG: The final fabulous styling was the Doctor’s fabulous cape. It was rocking.
H: It was cool.
R: Capes are cool.
SG: Everyone has a warm little jacket, but the Doctor says “Screw that, I’ve got a bitchin’ cape.”
Sp: Okay, so it was a major plot point in an episode ago to “use superior logic” to get the combination of levers to open the hatch. But the ‘Merican just pulled off a few panels and crossed some wires. Yee-haw, moo cow!
R: Burgers, baseball, rocket sound.
H: This is the difference between a logician doing a job and an electrical engineer doing a job.
P: That’s why the logician is not repairing the rocket ship.
R: “Only three of these leeevers have power going to them. So it’s gotta be one of those. Yous guys.”
SG: It’s worse that watching American movies that try to portray the South. Because they can’t even decide which part of American they’re trying to portray.
Sc: That’s because they’re from the Ganymede colony, and that’s how they sound from their.
H: I have one defense of these English people doing American accents – Kevin Costner.
<discussion of actors doing bad accents…>
MS: Seriously, the Cybermen have one human. By the looks of it, they’re trying to turn him into a Cyberman. So basically, humans 0, Cybermen 1.
K: You are very insightful.
R: The humans are doing a great job of killing each other off.
MS: Yes. Actually I think the Cybermen should just grab some popcorn and watch.
Sp: I was going to make the same basic quip. If they were going to preserve the Cybermen, why did they freeze them after the through cancer.
H: It’s the same as “The Moonbase.”
<argument regarding Cybermen voices in this story being the same or different than the voices in the Moonbase. But we do agree that it’s a different voice than in the Tenth Planet. We agree on that. Yes.>
Sp: Well, in any case, I couldn’t understand a fricken’ in this one. So I like that they deduced that Toberman was unsuitable for Cybermanning because he “still had fear” and then they cut to shots of Toberman cringing in fear from the scrubbing bubbles. I like that the portrayal with the “scrubbing bubbles” <the Cybermats> was provoking his fear.
H: So, let’s talk about the Cybermats.
Cz: I want a Cybermat.
R: The one’s this week were definitely on ‘roids. Their eyes looked alive.
A: Their eyes looked organic.
H: So Mini-Spoo, I’m curious what you thought about the Cybermats. The little bug guys.
MS: Hum. <thinks> I think I know how they moved.
H: Okay.
MS: They just basically put windup toys in them and dressed them up. But it’s black and white, so you can’t tell exactly what’s inside of them. I could see fans and paper inside of the them… a little, little fan blowing out on paper. Made all of the effects on it. And they just press a button and it does that.
Sp: You mean for the eyes pulsing?
MS: Yes. I could actually see a little crinkle, and then it blew out again.
H: So, did you like them?
MS: Yeeees, because they got lots of good parts. Like I like how they made the detail on the bottom when they were on their sides. You could see all the stuff that if it was colored it would be pink.
H: Did you think they were scary at all?
MS: No way!
P: We were all snickering during the scene when the menacing little rug rats all came out. I think the power of cute outweighs the power of menace.
R: Vicki got to take a watch!
H: Victoria. Don’t confuse us. Vicki entirely different other not chap.
R: I missed the crack about Vic.
P: She said “I hate being a woman.” and the captain said “Not that you would know.”
H: Presumably because she was still young. But it could be taken in a much worse way.
MS: It’s good that they kept her up there because she would have gotten turned into a Cyberman right way.
K: Because she’s awesome, and she’d make an awesome Cyberman!
MS: She would be given Cyberman guns.
A: I really liked Victoria’s little screaming diversion. That was awesome.
Sp: Yeah. Simple and effective.
H: And this episode does have one of my favorite moments of what exist from Troughton, which is the conversation that he has with Victoria that evening. “I can remember <my family> when I want to, but otherwise they just sleep in my mind.” It’s a wonderful conversation, and a wonderful bit of characterization.
A: “No one else in the Universe can do what it is that we are doing.”
K: That was a cool scene.
H: That’s the scene I’ve been looking forward to this whole time.
P: So what’s the deal with the guy obsessing about being “the master” because he has “the gun?”
R: You’ve read Freud, right?
SG: What does Evil Natashia not focus on what is right in front of her. She’s always looking off camera, and not what she’s interacting with.
MS: It’s like she’s looking at a script right beside the camera. Because she looks a little bit off, and then she says lines, and I could see her eyes going like she is reading. It was weird.
<laughter>
R: “Team Logic” is just not really setup well to succeed. I mean, Klege is like the anti-Spock. “I’m logical! Hahahahaha! I’m scared! I’m excited! I’m happy! See how logical I am!”
Sp: So Klege is pregnant.
R: And Kaftan’s the father.
P: I thought the scene with the cybermat being on ship crewman Callam and being casually knocked off as sort of being even more anti-climactic for that scene. Also, whoever shot the gun to kill the one Cybermat once again demonstrated they had no idea how to shoot a gun.
R: Victoria one shot across the room, Cybermat dead. Callam, full clip, might have winged one. In a room full of them.
Sp: Because he was “shootin’ the ‘Merican way” by shaking the bullets out at it like a salt shaker.
MS: The old fashion way, if you don’t know how it works then just flip it over and just start hitting with it. But make sure there is no bullets before you flip it over. It may take some time, so you need backup. Don’t try this at home.
H: Which leads us to…
All: Final thoughts!
Cz: I… the part where the Cyberman was getting back, beaten into the hatch, he was like making this weird noise. He wasn’t saying words. It was like he was screaming in Cyberness. I liked it. It was weird.
K: They were doing that earlier during the chase scene too.
R: It sounded like they were being chased by mouth harps. “Run, the metal red-necks are after us!”
Cz: <Cybervoice> That’s all. I don’t like how they enunciate the end of their sentences. It really pissed me off.
A: I really enjoyed the episode. I thought it was paced well. Great cliffhanger. Yeah, there you go.
MS: <hides behind sofa> I’ll tell you when I have one <final thought>. I’m going down to my thinking lab.
SG: This show was fabulous. Cause it was that fabulous. Fabulous capes. Fabulous mullets. Cyberman graffiti. Just rockin’. Although I didn’t really understand the actual fear of the robotic horseshoe crabs.
R: When you put it that way! “I’m a billion years old, and I’m still in your yard!”
P: “In fact, you’re in my yard!”
Sp: <Cybervoice> “Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and US!”
MS: I got my idea now!
SG: I wasn’t done yet!
MS: Okay, you do it.
SG: But, the robotic horseshoe crabs would have been a whole lot scarier if instead of having scrubbing bubble mustaches, they had whirling blades of death!
MS: I got my idea now was my idea. That was my idea.
H: That they would have whirling blades of death.
MS: What Spooky-Girl said. That’s what I had.
H: Okay.
P: So the dude who completely nutted out when he got the gun…
H: Klege.
P: He added more character to this episode more than anyone else as far as I’m concerned.
R: That’s good, because he ate so much scenery.
P: Okay, so his quote of “if only I’d had a stronger position to bargain from” just showed how far down the rabbit hole he was. Also, let’s see… I enjoyed the slapstick scene where the kilt gets away until he is shocked.
H: You mean Jamie?
P: We all know who I mean here.
Sp: <sings> “Brave, brave, brave Sir McCrimmon! Bravely ran away…” okay, that’s enough Monty Python for the week.
P: Okay, and then finally describing the mental breakdown as what’s wrong with the Cybermats.
H: I loved the horrible Metal breakdown pun, and Jamie’s reaction to it.
P: I missed it! I missed the pun! Don’t you see the problem!
H: Okay.
P: If I missed that then I’m good for nothing. 😛
MS: When the guys gets shot with the ray gun he goes “ohh” and then when he gets shot the second time the Cyberman gently puts him down so he doesn’t fall hard on the floor. It was like “go to sleep, we’ll give you a special pillow.”
H: That’s actually a good observation.
MS: It was like “don’t drop him too hard.”
R: “Come on! Run this way you guyyys!”
H: That’s it?
R: Pretty much.
Sp: Way to help me stall. <As Spoo tries to think of something>
R: Tell me in advance and I’ll get something setup.
<group whistles Jeopardy theme>
Sp: Yes, I agree with the Historian.
K: What!
Sp: About the Doctor’s conversation with Victoria. It’s a lovely little bit of back story. And it makes him seem more alien, without overdoing it or minimizing the danger around them. It’s almost as if he’s just kind of playing along, like “Yes, this is frightening. But isn’t it also exciting. It’s the exciting bit that I like.” Like playing games with your grandpa. It’s a nice surprise given all of the Mummy Movie / Horror Movie sorts of antics to just have this nice quiet moment dropped into the middle of the story. It’s neat.
H: One of the things that I really love about it is how caring the Doctor is portrayed as, because Victoria just lost her father, and is missing her father.
K: And the Doctor is like a new father figure in her life.
H: And that’s why she’s so concerned about him, and about getting out of the hatch, and why she’s so concerned about him.
Sp: And let’s him sleep.
H: And lets him sleep! But, where I was going… is that the Doctor is comforting her. The whole thing about his family sleeping in his mind is trying to get her to understand that the sharp pain that she feels now will slowly become good memories. It’s about grieving, and it’s really well written.
P: It’s like good television, it’s really spoken to the viewer in this case.
Sp: I just wish there was subtitling for the Cybermen. I think that’s the only thing that struck me as odd about this one. Everything else was fun.
K: I will miss these moving pictures in a few weeks. I liked this episode more than last weeks, silly moments aside. I think Kaftan and Klieg are a little unnecessary at this point. The Cybermen are enough of a bad guy for the rest of the story.
H: I don’t agree, but I’m not sure we want to go into that at this point.
K: Just that I think that Kaftan and Klieg have now served their purpose. And now I’ve started an actual debate! Ah ha!
Sp: No you haven’t.
H: She did!
Sp: Ding! Good morning.
K: I thought we were done with Monty Python quotes for today!
H: I don’t have anything to add, honestly. Most of what I’d want to talk about we’ve talked about.
R: For all the funny bits this was a solid, decent, well put together episode.
P: I want a pony and a Cybermat!
