The Web of Fear episode 2 discussion:
R: “Not a sausage.” “Bugger all.” “Yes, I think you’d better had.” Getting really British up in this stuff.
Sc: So is Evans the first Welshman in Doctor Who.
K: The Moonbase, I think.
P: Didn’t we have one in The Ice Warriors?
H: Yes. And one can’t forget the Welsh Tibetan monk.
K: So we’ve had a lot in just this season. Did anyone else completely miss 1/3 of the conversation between Weams and whatever the other guys name is?
H: It was a little rough, but I managed to get it. It was a fast dialect. Or maybe a normal dialog that sounds fast to those of us who don’t know it.
K: It wasn’t the dialect. I don’t usually have a problem with that. It was the audio, and it effectively mumbling and just hard to hear. Anyway, I missed a bunch of that scene as a result.
Sc: Yeah, there was a lot of mumbling in this episode.
K: No Doctor in the Doctor Who this week. The only scene he was in was last week’s cliffhanger.
P: I was expected the whistling dude to be the Doctor, so I was actually caught off guard when he was not.
R & K & A: Same here.
R: It’s kind of a throwback episode. The Doctor is “Billied off” into oblivion somewhere, and we have a COOOOOOOOOT.
H: He wasn’t that cootish.
R: Dude, he was pretty damn cooted up.
K: I think the shot they have with his lips all pursed helps.
A: Yeah. Why was there so much existing film of the subway scenes? Was it borrowed from the first episode?
H: Two words: Australian censors. We will see more film.
K: Of people dying.
A: But the first show was just soldiers walking around the corner.
H: You also notice that Loose Cannon reused some of the previous footage very well. They reused footage of the soldiers walking, and the Yetis walking, but made it look different and fit in each time.
R: Some decent comic lines too. “Come tru the Post, ‘ennay.”
H: That was all part of the bit Ketina couldn’t hear very well. “Tell you what? Tink it’s a foreign power.” It’s a great conversation.
K: I’ll have to rewatch that bit sitting closer to the speakers.
R: It’s nice to see the professor back to. He has mellowed with age.
H: Well, kinda.
K: In a coot way.
R: <coot voice> “That’s the only way!” It’s just – we’ve seen a very few cases where characters have crossed over their tracks again. But I just really liked the way that he’s being portrayed and his relationship to his whole experience. I just thought it was cleverly written and not distracting, but additive to the overall story telling.
K: I liked the bit where his daughter is trying to convince him that the TARDIS crew are behind it all, yet he won’t have any of that.
H: Too bad Victoria had to overhear the first bit and not the second bit.
P: Yeah, it sounds like it will play into the plot.
R: Yeah, Doctor Who writer’s strategy number 32, activate.
M: You really think they have 32 plots?
K: Probably closer to 7.
R: Well, they are in a base.
H: And it is under siege.
<alas, the computer crashed at this point. We lost our discussion about how EVERYBODY hates the reporter, and how Jamie’s soldier companion is not as brave has he first appeared, given that he plans to leave Jamie at the first opportunity.>
K: I guess the crisis we just had means that we’re ready for final thoughts?
H: Sure. Let’s start with Schmallturm.
K: He did talk this week. J
Sc: Ah… I liked it.
K: Was it awesome?
Sc: Yes. Awe-Some.
K: Okay.
A: I liked it too. My favorite part was the Victoria and Travers scene.
H: Father and daughter in real life.
A: Oh, that’s right. I forgot.
K: You generally like the scenes with Victoria.
P: I like the end credits. It’s nice to know that they change it to match the story. Also I enjoyed what little animation we saw of the web actually moving. And I liked the fact the Doctor was gone, and the companions were concerned about him even at their own peril.
A: Since the cliffhanger with the Doctor was never resolved, and now that we have a new cliffhanger, now we have two unresolved cliffhangers.
P: Sort of. We know that the explosion didn’t happen.
A: But we still don’t KNOW what happened to the Doctor.
H: Anything more?
P: I like the new Yetis costumes.
K: We didn’t like them last time.
P: Maybe I just got a better view today, or maybe the CG helped them out. And I’m half blind <having trouble seeing due to minor eye injury>
R: I also noticed, for whatever reason, the Yeti costumes seemed to be better this week.
H: It’s not CG. That was real footage.
K: I guess they just looked better moving than standing as a creepy statue. Maybe it was the guns.
H: Moving on to Ronelyn.
R: “Curse these high heeled combat boots! You’ll have to go on without me, chaps!”
K: Yes. The first time we’ve seen a soldier trip.
R: The only thing that he didn’t do in that case was take off the shoe and throw it at the Yeti. But otherwise he nailed the whole stereotype right on the nose.
H: Yeah. We haven’t had a good twisted ankle in a long time.
K: The Highlanders.
H: That was quite some time ago. Victoria has yet to do that. That’s pretty impressive.
K: We like Victoria.
H: It’s now Ketina’s turn.
K: There’s one thing about this story, spoilerwise, that I am aware of, and it hasn’t happened yet.
H: Not it hasn’t.
K: And so I’m waiting really patiently for it, but it’s distracting me. Because I don’t know how I could miss it, but I keep thinking I’m going to miss it or something.
P: Is it the Doctor’s really the intelligence?
R: Don’t try to guess.
P: Okay.
K: It’s just something that relatively well known that is distracting me. But in any case, my point is waiting for it is getting in the way of my fully enjoying this story. Frustrating.
H: You want to talk about the episode itself?
K: Six episodes for this story? I felt like a lot more happened in the first episode. This one was mostly running around shooting at Yetis. Which was okay. I’m looking forward to more Travers bits, and companion bits. But I miss The Doctor, and not having him this week was disappointing.
A: I have a question. Would viewers back then know how many episodes were going to be in the story? Would they advertise it, or would you just show up and get what you got?
H: Well, the Radio Times did list things with episode numbers, once they changed from individual episode titles to episode numbers, it became easier to figure out. But they would have the episode and then a small capsule synopsis, like old printed TV Guides.
K: But how many weeks ahead would the viewers know about?
H: I’m not sure. But they’d know when a story was ending and when a new story was beginning.
K: If it was only one week ahead of time though that wasn’t going to tell them anything.
H: Oh, so it is my turn.
K: If you’d like.
H: It’s impossible for me to be objective about this episode because this is one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who stories, period.
K: I swear you’ve said that before.
H: I said something similar about Evil of the Daleks, but this one tops that for me. It’s difficult for me to talk in detail about this episode without talking about the rest of the story. So… I’m just going to say that I really enjoyed myself. And I’m really glad that you guys enjoyed it too. And I’ll talk to Ketina off-line about her spoiler.
