Fury from the Deep episode 1 discussion:
P: In event of a water landing…
R: The Doctor’s ego will inflate. Yeah, those Australian censors picked some really weird clips to drop out of the show.
H: In all seriousness, I do have an explanation as to why the clip of the TARDIS landing was in there.
P: I know! They had the special effects reel.
H: No, it’s even simpler than that. The TARDIS landing and taking off in this story, uniquely, because they never made it look like this again, was the same.
K: So they reversed the film.
H: So they reversed the film because they had it as the ending reprise in the next story. So that’s a little bit of a spoiler.
A: Not really. We know they go somewhere else.
P: I thought they died in this one.
K: Not quite yet.
R: As far as excitement <holds up hand as if holding a screw driver> “mee mee mee mee mee mee.”
H: You’ll note, in it’s first appearance, IT UNSCREWS SOMETHING. It’s not a @#&*(@ magic wand!
<applause>
Cz: Blasphemy.
P: I’ve seen enough Doctor Who to feel worried about playing the foam.
R: Yeah, my immediate reaction was “oh gawd, me eyes!”
E: The background music gave it away too, a little bit. Because even though the actors were all “yay, we’re playing in the foam” the music was all ominous.
Sp: The title of the story gave it away too.
R: When you are on a fairly industrial coastline, and there’s a giant pipeline going into the ocean, and a huge unnatural raft of foam coming out the ocean, the first thing you do is RUB IT IN YOUR EYES!
E: Because what could possibly go wrong.
H: I’m not sure it was an unnatural raft of foam. It was a patch of foam – it didn’t see like it was huge, but whatever.
R: In the pictures it’s like 30 feet across. And they as “is that sea foam?” “Well, it never comes in a size like that.”
K: Only when they put soap in it. I know I wouldn’t be touching the stuff that close to the pipeline.
H: They actually saw the foam well before they saw the pipeline.
MS: It’s all fun and games until you see the pipeline.
Sp: I like how the stern official guy…
R: Robson?
Sp: Yes. Is all like, “This is a restricted area! How did you get here? What are you doing here?” And the Doctor responds “oh, I was just curious.” And that’s okay. He’s not arrested, he’s not detained…
K: He was detained. They broke out!
Sp: Because no one was watching them. And a hairpin later and he’s got free rein of the place.
K: Just to point out, they’d been doing the capture / escape SINCE THE SHOW STARTED!
H: But I actually have a point that makes this work story wise – you’ll note that the second in command, Harris, has an extremely different way of working than Robson. Robson orders them detained. Harris is the one who actually leads them to the room, apologizes to them, dismisses the guards and leaves them there. This is a definite demonstration of the differences in command between Robson and Harris.
K: So Harris is inevidably going to betray them all.
SG: It’s not just a difference in leadership ability – it also shows them incompetent in completely different ways. One is the “they seem like nice people, and fill them in on some of what we’ve been up to, and take them at their word, in this high security facility”…
MS: “We are so bad at security that we let them in, eh? That’s how we do it.”
<Mini-spoo has just seen the recovered Enemy of the World a few days ago>
SG: And then Robson is so busy showing that he’s in charge that he isn’t actually being an effectively leader listening to anybody.
MS: “I so great I don’t listen to anybody, eh? You can forget about listening.”
R: Yeah, speaking of security – my dad worked for an oil company, and I have never been to an oil company office of any kind that had double bank vault doors to prevent any one from getting OUT.
H: It’s interesting. I don’t know a heck of a lot about the North Sea oil and gas thing, but it was just starting up really around this time. So, I think it was a high security thing because of NATO and all that at this time.
P: That and because it’s explosive.
H: So I think this could have been sort of an extrapolation of what the future of the North Sea gas would have been like.
K: It’s clear to me that the timeframe of this story is supposed to be in the “near future”
R: I’ll give you that they made have assumed that’s what it’s like, but I can tell you even in Uganda and Nigeria oil company offices in the 60’s they didn’t have troops of Oliver Cromwell stormtroopers. Oilmen just kind of went around.
<discussion of security of oil companies, African security, and OMG I’m not even attempting to type it all up.>
H: When you get right down to it, Mondos was supposed to have been destroyed in the sky in 1986. We were supposed to have a space control in Antarctica.
R: I do find it amusing that they got the setting a hell of a lot better in Terror of the Zygons than they got here.
<more discussion of how pipelines work that I can’t really follow. Something about shunts. Or something. Blah blah blah>
R: But yeah, that brings up another point – oil rigs die easier than Englishmen in this series. If you’re on an oil rig on Doctor Who, get out. It’s even worse that being on something called a “base.”
H: You’ll note that right now they’re actually on a base on the mainland right now.
SG: They’ll get there. They’ll be on an oil rig in outerspace talking to aliens while drilling into the North Pole.
H: That would be an awesome story.
K: No touch pod. Anyway…
Sp: But Doctor, how did they fit an entire quarry under the north pole?
R: And, in another example of “bad accent theater”, we discovered that Salamander was apparently Dutch. <referring to the Doctor explaining to the companions about how there was a Dutch representative there.>
H: I think that actor was actually Dutch. But I could be wrong.
Sp: Wooden shoes! Splitting the bill! Rocket sounds!
A: Shouldn’t that be windmill sounds?
<laughter>
R: <bad Dutch? Accent> Excuse me while I ride my bicycle.
H: <looks it up> No, you’re right – he was English. His parents were Italian, but he was born in England. And he’s been in a bunch of Doctor Who stories and Blake’s 7.
R: And my last bit – and after this I’ll be serious – is “cough… cough… too much oxygen… choking me!” It’ll make you drunk, but you won’t cough.
H: Isn’t it very dangerous. Not just flammable?
<discussion of the impact of breathing pure oxygen, etc.>
P: So they never really explained, or have yet to have explained, the rig B or D?
R: They mentioned both B and D.
P: That’s what I wondered. They lost two men and they sort of alluded that the conversation between Robson and the rig was weird.
K: Yeah. Guy on the rig – totally being mind controlled. You don’t say “everything’s fine” that may times in a row without things not being fine at all in any way.
R: Maybe he was just Dutch.
H: So, while I was impressed with this recon, which is fairly recently done, my God do we need the real episode. Because this felt… I’m going to say it… slow. I have seen this story reconstructed watching the full story in one sitting, and I don’t remember the first episode being this slow.
Sp: If no other reason that we’ve been denied Victoria and Jamie frolicking in the foam in short skirts.
H: Speaking of frolicking in short shirts that anyone else was thinking, in the scene where Jamie is standing on the Doctor’s shoulders to get through the grate over the door, “don’t look up! Don’t look up, Doctor!” And yet, the picture shows us that not only is the Doctor glancing up, but he’s got a smile on his face.
Sp: So, since we’re on that scene, again: Magic Hair Pin! A little of forshading for the sonic screw driver becoming the all purpose tool.
H: To be fair, hairpins and locks are kind of a trope.
<discussion of hair pins and locks… OMG, these people are such geeks. Pick you subject, they’ve got opinions. I’m channeling Ronelyn here.>
H: I think we’re at final thoughts at this point.
R: Unless anyone wants to talk seriously about those Cromwell helmets.
Several folks: No.
H: That scene might have been kind of ominous if we’d actually been able to see it.
E: Well, I could already tell this was going to be good when they jinxed themselves right near the beginning of this episode. They were all like “We feel like we’re being watched” and they were being watched.
R: Ezio’s modicum of Doctor Who – if someone says “I think we’re being watched” they are.
E: So don’t say it! You could avoid all this trouble by just not saying anything.
K: But the was a ton of episodes where they haven’t said it and they were still being watched.
P: But that’s the contrapositive case.
Everybody: Oooo.
R: Ronelyn’s corollary to Ezio’s modicum, if anyone in a Doctor Who episode says “I think we’re safe now” they’re not.
E: You never are. Also, the cliffhanger was pretty friggen good. I’m looking forward to the rest of the story as that was the best worst best place to leave off.
R: She’s being stalked by a washing machine vent. There’s a washing machine stuck in the pipeline.
E: I knew it!
Sp: And it may be the same washing machine from the Ice Warriors.
R: Or down in the London Subways.
K: They do like their foamy effects. Remember, we also had the Cyberman die of foamy chest foam thing in Tomb of the Cybermen.
H: Okay, we’re going to move on.
SG: I did like Jamie at the beginning. They’re like “Where are we?” “Well, England of course.”
H: He said “Aye, the weather makes it obvious.”
SG: We’ve got this time machine, but we’re still in England all the time. We’ve got the time traveling down, but the space traveling not so much.
H: Moving on…
MS: Crazy! I finally said something other than just awesome.
H: Was it crazy in a good way or bad way.
MS: Both.
H: Fair enough.
P: Okay, so like the wife getting bitten by the seaweed, throws it out, it pulses, and then she drinks a lot of water. I think something’s about to go wrong.
H: Could be!
P: And I really liked the scene in the very beginning where they were actually being their playful selves.
<final pun restrained>
Cz: I have no opinion on this matter.
Sp: So let’s see. Predictions: wifey is going to turn into Sigmond the Seamonster…
R: Do they have the budget for Sigmond the Seamonster?
Sp: Just put a week old salad in a quarry and call it good. Um.. the sea foam will turn out to be completely harmless.
K: Nope.
Sp: To our heros, because they’re are seasoned time travellers who have touched EVERYTHING. Their immune systems are insane by now.
E: He has a pretty good point.
R: I think the seafoam is going to be a friendly alien who’s trying to protect them from the real threat, but not one believes it because “oh, I’m seafoam, so I’m stupid.”
K: That was Galaxy 4.
R: The makeup was better in the Galaxy 4. That seafoam was actually scary.
P: To stubborn stains, maybe.
Sp: “I tried to protect you from the Yeti, but would you listen?”
H: Did you have any more predictions, or anything else to say?
Sp: We will never see the stethoscope again.
K: Nope.
<discussion of items found in Doctor pockets, which among other things, always includes stethoscopes.>
Sp: And the gentle pipe technician will be the first to die.
K: Surprisingly, no one has died yet.
P: Am I alone is seeing the sea water flowing in to the oxygen room?
H: It was foam and a bit of seaweed.
P: Thanks.
Sp: This episode didn’t give me much to do with. One down, five to go. Move along.
H: Ronelyn?
R: “You shot us down like animals.” “No we didn’t. We shot you down like people.”
K: Okay. I know one impressive spoiler about this story. But it’s not really plot related, but I’m looking forward to it. But beyond that this is all new to me. But this story, and I can tell by our discussion so far, is very much a feel of a “Doctor Who story” to the point where it’s actually getting derivative of many previous Doctor Who stories we’ve already seen as part of the TARDIS project.
R: Yeah. If they escape out the back of a cave I’m calling it.
K: So, I feels predictable. I’m hoping that it’s not going to be as predictable as it feels so far.
Sp: So it’s a “pipe under siege” story?
H: I don’t believe it’s going to be as predictable as you fear, for everybody.
K: Good.
H: And I think that’s all I’m going to say.
