The Enemy of the World episode 4 discussion:
H: Alas, I have to leave on an emergency, so I’m going to miss the discussion. But I’ll summarize by saying that, alas, I continue to be disappointed with this story. But I am very impressed by the reconstruction, especially as there were no telesnaps available for this episode.
<Historian leaves>
Sp: Right, so final thoughts!
K: Not quite yet, Spoo. I guess I’m playing “ref” today.
Sp: No, I was just mimicking the experience that we just had watching the recon. Because the recon was missing a couple of scenes, so obviously the write-up needs to be missing a couple of scenes. I have no idea how we got here.
<Explanation: The recon was missing a scene in the middle. We paused at the point and read the scene from the script, which did slow things down quite a bit this week. And then the Historian had to leave early, see above.>
K: So, I am enjoying this story. I was very amused by the people underground part. Spoilers – I reminded me of a plot from a future Pertwee story a few seasons from now. As a six parter it add a nice twice 2/3rds of the way through to give a longer story like this one more meat, in my opinion.
Sp: The people underground part was a complete surprise.
E & R: Yeah. In a good way.
Sp: In a very good way because now he’s actually a bad guy.
K: Unambiguously a bad guy. I think he was always a bad guy, making volcanoes and poisoning people.
Sp: Yeah. Making volcanoes is super villain. Poisoning people is mustache twirling. Duping an entire underground colony into thinking they’re surviving some post-apocalyptic horror? That’s A BAD GUY. I like it.
K: I like it too. Especially the reading the newspaper.
Sp: The newspaper and the cigar did it.
MS: Doesn’t he know you’re not supposed to smoke?
K: He’s a bad guy!
E: This is why you don’t smoke, kids.
R: <Accent> “How do you like my human ant colony, eh eh? If you tap the glass the get excited. Eh? Eh?”
Sp: I don’t get why the Doctor suddenly had stage fright over being Salamander when he did it once before.
R: Six episodes.
P: They’re dragging out the plot.
E: He probably works really well under pressure.
Sp: He’s a procrastinator. I relate.
P: He’s got all the time in the… well hell, all the time.
Sp: A procrastinator with a time machine? That’s awesome.
P: I’ll get to it before I die. Or after I die in the next regeneration.
R: I didn’t really see the point of bringing Fariah back into this just to kill her off.
K: Bummer that was the scene we missed. But more of a bummer that she’s gone. And there was no cook in this one either. I liked him.
P: Or even Jamie or Victoria.
K: Yeah! No Jamie.
P: But somehow they got two Doctors.
K: <glare> Moving on.
R: I mean, they brought Fariah back, she waved an incriminating file at them, and then she got shot. And then they waved an incriminating file at Salamander.
K: She get some kind of death scene, according to the script.
R: Yeah, but that’s still like, hanging a gun on the wall in the first act, and then throwing it in the fire place in the third act. They just didn’t use her character for anything. That was a brief moment of Salamander going “I have been betraying by my inner circle” but that’s already happened like four times this story.
MS: I think they’re trying to say that Fariah is not coming back because people would be like “where is she, where’d she go off to.” And without that they wouldn’t know that she died.
Sp: So they brought her back to kill her off to show she was there.
P: The irony is that she’s the one person who could easily kill him.
R: <choking> It tastes fine. <gasp> Fooled you.
Sp: I spent the last 20 years developing an immunity to Iocaine.
P: So I’m really impressed by the graphics for the CG. I was so impressed that it took me out of the story, because dang, they did a lot of good work here.
Sp: That was the point that brought me into the story. Because the rest of the plot was kind of washing over me up to that point. But when he got into that tube thing I was completely interested.
R: He was a vampire? With that crossing the arms thing.
Sp: I had no idea what he was doing. It was like “I’ve made my volcanos, and now I’m going to lay low for a century or something is suspended animation.” I had no idea what the tube was.
R: And then he gets out and puts on the coveralls like “It’s a love-a-ly day in the underworld! IA love-a-ly day for a neighbor. Would you be mine?”
Sp: Eh?
P: Could you be mine.
Sp: Eh?
P: Won’t you be my minion.
Sp: Now I want to see “EH?” on Picture Picture.
<This has been a reference to the children’s show Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. Brought to you by the letters E and H. Look it up.>
MS: Was I the only one that actually spotted what they were doing, and how they were doing that. When he sat down his face looked like a mini-figure until he did the vampire thing and then he looked normal again. His face started to look like a mini-figure.
K: Bad CG.
Sp: People who create computer graphics create simpler graphics so they can do it easier.
MS: He looked like a mini-figure that I have seen. Pants, sweatshirt, the whole thing with a painted face. Exactly like what we saw.
K: Final thoughts?
MS: I thought we were already on final thoughts.
<laughter>
E: Ah… well I liked this episode. The underground thing took me by surprise, as it did everyone. And, for all the screen shots being spliced together, like the Historian said they were, that was really impressive, so I could not tell. So yeah, sweet episode.
A: It was awesome.
P: This is one of those rare times where the real gem of this episode is the recon plus the actual story. And I imagine that if we had moving pictures we’d have more treasures that just those in this episode. So I’m going to go check under my bed to see if this episode is just laying around.
K: If only it worked that way.
MS: It was awesome. I used all my final thoughts when I thought it was final thoughts already.
P: I also think they did a mostly good job with the sound effects. With the exception of the phone/buzzer thing during the CG part.
R: BEEP! BEEP!
Sp: I’m just glad that there was that whole missing bit in the episode. Because I thought it was just me seriously derping on the plot and spending too much time keeping up with the Mariner game <Seattle baseball team> on my phone. I also liked Historian’s dramatic reading of the missing script bit.
K: Very dramatic.
R: Eh! It was stolen.
K: Final thoughts, Ronelyn?
R: Welcome to NERV HQ Mr. Salamander.
Sp: <laugh>
R: That’s it.
K: Guess it’s up to me to do the Historian’s wrap up job this week.
Sp: Especially since we haven’t really said anything about the underground people, and scowl at us for basically missing discussing a third of the episode. So, please scowl at us, and fill in what we missed about how cool that entirely new plot thread is.
K: <attempts scowl>
Sp: That was more of a Cz scowl.
K: Okay. Lacking seeing the great air ducts battle, I admit was starting to tune out. But the CG bit on and into the underground part definitely caught my interest. I’m really curious about these weird people. Two teenagers underground for five years huh. Wonder what’s been going on there. Eh?
Sp: Eh?
P: I thought they’d all be pastier than that.
MS: Meh. I don’t care.
K: I’m keeping up an interested in a six parter that does not involve Daleks. That is rare for me.
Sp: Actually, my theory is, you’re interested in a six parter because you could almost treat it as a three parter that is followed by a new three parter.
K: Three and a half then two and a half, but yes. Like the Arc. Anyway, I’m looking forward to more.
P: Super psyched for more.
Sp: Insert Historian’s gasp of horror after reading our recap, and four paragraphs of backstory explaining what we’re missing. Likely including a couple of production notes, a script editor we’ve never heard of, and interesting bit of errata about one of the costume designers, and an admonishment that we really just aren’t keeping up… Love you Historian!
