The Web of Fear episode 3 discussion:
Sp: So I missed last week… which means I apparently missed out on the beginning of this dueling accents thing with his friend and his other friend.
H: That’s only one guy. He’s Welsh.
Sp: Well there you go.
K: More Welsh jokes this week? Really?
Sp: Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart! Yay!
H: Yes, isn’t it awesome. Bret Vyon’s back.
Sp:Yeah! Wait, what?
P: Yeah, Who?
H: You know. Nicholas Courtney. He played Bret Vyon in the Dalek’s Master Plan.
R: I hope this new character lasts a lot longer than he did.
<general laughter>
MS: Please don’t talk about the Daleks. I watched them being destroyed in front of my face. I don’t want to remember in.
H: Which time that you watched them destroyed that you’re talking about.
MS: You know, the big mother of all Daleks getting destroyed in front of my face.
H: Ah, in the Evil of the Daleks. And <sarcasm> there were never anymore Daleks ever again.
Sp: So, back in the London Underground…
MS: People are doing stuff.
A: That about sums it up.
Sp: So I wasn’t here last week. Did Victoria spend all last week worrying about Jamie too.
H: No
K: No, she spent all last week worrying about the Doctor.
Sp: Oh.
K: I like Travers. I hope he’ll be okay.
Sp: I liked the bit of back and forth with Travers and the Doctor. The Doctor talking as a sympathetic, mostly equal thinking along with Travers as he was describing about he accidentally brought one of the Yeti back. “No you didn’t… oh, dear.”
R: <British accent> “When my wretched curiosity got the better of me.”
R: The one other thing to say about Travers is, they’re still using the coooooot photograph.
Sp: Yes.
R: I understand that they only have a few limited images to go with, but wow.
E: Well, it certainly keeps your attention.
R: It does that.
K: What about his final pick in this episode, with the Yeti coming for him?
E: Dear god, the poor guy. <laughs>
H: So, there was a significant plot development in this episode. Someone let Yeti in.
K: We know who let the Yeti in.
H: We do?
K: The reporter. That’s like the Doctor and the Brida… Colonel were all like, oh no.. Chorley. He was the one who locked Victoria and the Doctor in the room, right?
H: But he’s not necessarily the one who let the Yeti in. Which happened well before that.
K: From all that we know yet, all fingers point to Chorley. Your spoilers are implying that it wasn’t Chorley.
H: There’s actually evidence that it may not have been Chorley.
P: In fact, it’s so obvious that it is him, it’s probably not him.
K: I figured that it was obviously him, at least until we learn otherwise, since he’s the one running off to steal the TARDIS. He could only hope to control it, maybe, if the Great Intelligence was controlling him.
H: Unless he thinks it’s just a matter of driving. We don’t know what Victoria told him, except that it’s a way out.
K: She said “We landed in the TARDIS” based on that I would think it’s some kind of boat or plane. Cars don’t “land.” Anyway, I don’t know why he’d think he’ll be able to drive it.
Sp: There was an awful lot of people saluting each other in this episode.
H: It’s the army. One of the reasons why I didn’t want to talk about your spoiler last week, Ketina, is that it’s a bummer that we’re spoiled about it. Because Lethbridge-Stewart really does look like he could be the traitor. There’s a lot of evidence that he could be, but because we know who he is, we know that he’s not.
P:So, to counter that point, we know that the intelligence can control people. Which means that he still could be.
K: So, that would imply that the plot resolution is that the Doctor and crew rescue him. So, then it’s EITHER Chorley or the Briga… Colonel.
H: Or someone else. There are to my mind, four people who it couldn’t be.
P: Three of whom arrived in the TARDIS.
H: And one of whom is dead.
K: Travers isn’t dead yet!
H: No, Weems.
K: It’s not Travers either, because the Yeti are attacking him.
Sp: No, it’s a classic double bluff.
K: Well, my money’s on Chorley until we see more evidence otherwise. Of course with 3 episodes to go, who knows how this is going to turn. There may be an entirely civilization of yet more people living in the under Underground.
<general laughter>
Sp: Alright, so the plan to seal up the underground and make things safer involved putting a bunch of explosives on a cart…
P: “Yes, this is the wrong gage, but we’ll fix that.” Really, you’re going to resize the wheels in ten minutes?
Sp: And then the explosives are on a timer and a contact switch.
H: Yeah.
Sp: And Jamie’s out there somewhere.
H: Yeah? You missed last week.
Sp: Well, you better hope that the cart misses Jamie then.
H: They don’t know where Jamie is.
Sp: Well, they better hope Jamie isn’t in the path of the cart.
H: That’s what Victoria is worried about.
K: Well, they’re not doing explosives anyway, because they were in the bright lit glow-y room.
H: But now the soldiers are trying to get to Holburn, where there are more explosives.
K: But that just bought them more time to find Jamie.
H: And Jamie has now been found.
MS: I just realized, if the cart does hit Jamie, that’s one ruined Jamie.
Sp: Why did they have all those explosives in the subway anyway? I missed last week.
K: We know.
H: They brought them down to stock the military HQ, I think.
K: You’re demonstrating how much we missed you last week, Spoo.
Sp: D’aww…
R: I really like Lethbridge-Stewart regardless. “You’d like to help hey!” “Well I…” “Of course you would.” And “Well, that’s enough diplomacy for one day.” What I can only assume to be a classic line. But yeah, that was some very witty writing.
Sp: Yeah, the whole “get him all setup with a proper desk and chair and pen and paper.”
H: I’m considering going to final thoughts here, given the focus…
K: Or lack there of.
H: That we’ve got here.
K: Let’s do that then.
E: Curiosity killed the cat.
MS: Please don’t say that. I love cats.
E: It’s an idiom.
P: Why are you saying Curiosity killed the cat.
H: Travers said he was curious, and he got the thing working, and now they’re in all this trouble.
E: Yes.
P: I appreciated the new graphics with the slide show. I thought that was a great way to bring the backstory into the story. Of course, like everybody else, I brightened up as soon as I saw our Colonel arrive.
R: If that is your real name.
H: I noticed there was no sound track this week <providing Photobug with some fodder for his typical commentary.>
P: Yeah. I agree that there was not music input. I appreciated that there was a lot more going on in the story than there was previously. I think it was commented, but the last shot in the recon was a really nice, clear photograph…
K: Of Travers almost dying…
H: We hope only almost.
P: That’s it.
H: Okay. Moving on…
MS: Eh.
K: Eh? That’s it?
MS: Des cool. Mostly because des TNT. And Yetis! I love this episode already.
H: Someone was playing with his DS throughout the whole episode. Clearly Pokemon are more exciting than Yetis.
MS: I’m playing Mario and Luigi, Luigi’s Dream World.
<off topic discussion of Nintendo games. OMG>
LUIGI!
H: So, moving on to Spoo.
Sp: Ah, yes, I’m over here. <thinks> so, somebody could be a traitor… they want to blow up the underground – it was on the table anyway. As Photobug alluded to, there was some very clever use of slideshow to move along some exposition, paint a picture in the mind’s eye of London under siege. Victoria was cute. She’s always cute.
R: <Mario voice> Vic-tor-ia!
Sp: Vic-tor-ia! Eh!
<laughter>
Sp: Yeah, and there’s a lot of saluting. Okay, that’s an episode. Three more, you say?
H: Yes. I like how they reused the footage from the first episode with staff Sergeant Arnold coming in and saluting.
Sp: So yeah. Three more. Feels about right for things they introduced in this episode, where they’re going, and the kinds of things that the Doctor was discovering right now. And especially the very enjoyable camaraderie <sorry about that word, Ketina> between the Doctor and Travers setting up, what is bound to be Travers gruesome death.
K: No!
H: Remember how everyone wrote Travers off in EVERY EPISODE of the Abominable Snowmen?
R: Because he was an ass!
Sp: And that feeds my point exactly. Because now Travers is loveable. And old. And a friend of the Doctor. Which means he’s doooooomed.
MS: Of course Yetis attack him. He’s smart. Why does every enemy seem to go for smart people. That’s why I don’t want to be a nerd – because they always getting attacked by animatrons.
K: You just said animatrons Minispoo. You are a nerd. Sorry.
MS: I’m not a nerd, because I saw that in a book when I was in kindergarden. And I asked my teacher and that’s what she said it meant. Just if anyone offers you a ride in the TARDIS, do not go.
H: Oh mean, I’d go in a second.
A: I think we all would.
MS: Okay, see you in 2 thousand years. Unless they gave out snacks.
H: So what you’re saying is that all I need to do is offer you snacks and you’ll enter my vehicle. Spoo, you need to talk with your boy.
MS: No.
Sp: <offers firm fatherly stare. Then looks at Minispoo.> Why yes, Historian, I am done with my final thoughts.
H: Okay… Ronelyn?
R: <deep breath> WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMS!
K: Which one was Weems?
H: The dead one.
R: You insensitive bitch!
<everybody laughs>
P: Too soon?
Sp: I was stepping out for a glass of water and I thought Ronelyn was really enjoying the episode for a moment… weeee!
H: Go on.
R: That was pretty much it.
K: I missed that it was Weems outside of the armory door dead. Man, that sucks.
Sp: Oh! I missed that too.
H: Do you even know who Weems was?
Sp: No, I missed last week.
R: <sobs in corner>
K: Well, despite Weems’ untimely demise… It’s the Briga… Colonel! Whoohoo! I’m going to enjoy this one. Even if the rest of the story sucks, I’m going to enjoy this one. That was, of course, the spoiler I was referring to last week. I know this story is pre-UNIT. So I’m really interested to see how things shake out for Briga-Col Lethbridge-Stewart.
H: It may be a pre-UNIT story, but a third of the actors from the UNIT family are in it.
K: Cool!
H: Because John Levene is playing a Yeti.
K: <laughs>
P: Maybe it’s because UNIT is such an underground… <look from the Historian> never mind.
K: Your go, Historian.
H: So, I hope you guys are starting to get an idea of why I love this story so much. Normally by the third episode we’re into the…
Sp: Grind!
H: Bit where we’re treading water after the initial setup. Whereas in this story, new things are popping up even in the third episode.
Sp: Traitors. Explosions. Yetis.
R: Fog machines!
Sp: Rocket sounds!
H: Exactly! Anyway, I hope you continue to like it. And I’m just looking forward to next week.
K: We don’t have to wait. We have it on tape now!
H: Stop that.
K: I haven’t done that in three years.
H: Yeah, I know. I know.
