Fury from the Deep episode 2 discussion:
E: So I think we discovered the origin of Dub Step
Much of the room: Untz untz untz untz
K: So, what were the names of the pair of villains in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere?
R: Croup and Vandemeer. Or something like that.
H: Yes. They were based on Oat and Quill. He said that that clip is one of the single scariest memories of his childhood in Doctor Who viewing.
K: I could tell. That scene and one other coming up are what I’d seen of this story.
H: Why? Because Australian censors, that’s why!
Sp: I think I agree with the censors.
R: I’m surprised they didn’t censor Oak and Quills introduction. That looked like the creepiest introduction to a porn film ever.
Sp: It took me a second to figure out what they were actually doing to her, or two the room.
Ab (Abhorsen): I was expecting there to be some kind of a bug to crawl from their throats. Like a face hugger.
E: It’s okay. I didn’t need to sleep tonight.
R: No, what you don’t know is the British dentistry is really, really bad.
Ab: That was the scary part of the scene, their teeth.
H: We’re back to the British dentistry jokes, I see.
A: New people should get a pass.
R: Yeah, and we don’t have any French or Americans to make fun of in this episode.
H: We have Dutch.
R: <bad Dutch accent> “Wooten shoes! Vintmills! Rocket Sount!” At least he sounds Dutch in this episode.
H: I don’t think he sounds anymore Dutch than he did last week.
R: He slipped a few times, but he got it more right this time.
H: Ja!
R: And I have decided that the worst super hero ever is “The Hysterical Girl!”
K: I could not understand a word she was saying in that scene.
R:<unintelligable thing about bubbles>
<various Beaker the Muppet impressions.>
Sp: I thought that her performance at the beginning was pitch perfect for the overall horror movie vibe they were going with for this episode.
H: It was method.
R: “Now pretend you’re at home and the washing machine is overflowing! And now it’s walking towards you like it’s got a bag of sneakers in it.”
P: While being asphyxiated.
Sp: suffocated! SUFFOCATED! Also, while I’m thinking of it, I’m really torn about the sound design for this week.
R: The technoclubbing bubbles?
Sp: See, on the one hand, that disco rave heartbeat theme really, really works. It’s creepy, it’s insidious, and really kind of stitches the episode together. And the sound design on the rig, on the machinery was really good. All of the little engine knocks and pings and speeds up and slows down.
P: Impeller.
Sp: Impeller. Yes. And then there was the synthesizer.
H: See, I kinda liked it, but I’ve always liked Dudley Simpson soundtracks.
A: It worked for me too.
R: I was okay with it until the moment when I actually heard untz untz untz untz. Zern zern zern.
M: It might have been because you heard it through modern ears.
R: I agree, but I just could not hear that without hearing some flaming club kid going “this is the best rave ever!”
M: So Doctor Who was ahead of it’s time?
H: Always.
Sp: This might be someplace also where the music wouldn’t have been so intrusive if we had a full episode. But because it’s a recon and we had still images I could focus on the music more, and it just jumped at me more.
K: My problem was that the music and the sound effects were happening at the same time and I couldn’t tell them apart. It was hard to tell that it was a heartbeat and not just a drum beat in the soundtrack sometimes.
P: I thought the setup where the wife, Maggie, is slowly being Zombified is in itself spooky. And then to add in Oak and Quill really added to the climax of that moment.
H: Yeah. And the clip really brought home the fact that, with this story especially, we are really only getting a vague impression of how it works. It had to have just been so much zippier and flowed so much better than we can tell from the recon. As before, I really do hope some of the craziest rumors are true and they’ve found this one.
Sp: Yeah, I hope so too because full motion might have helped me stay focused for all of the gas pipeline / oil rig office politics stuff going on to introduce all of the non-time lordy people in this episode. I admit I glossed over all of the secondary background people stuff.
R: “The gas must flow.”
<bad Dune references occur that I will not repeat here>
R: I did like the one bit of turn about that they did on Robson where one of the scientists says “listen sir, I understand that he’s difficult to work with, but I worked with him four years one of the rigs, he knows every bit and bolt of those things. I trust him implicitly.” It was nice to see a bit more justification given to why they trust this guy, even though he’s a raving putz. Unlike in some previous episodes where there’s some jerk in charge, and everybody sort of lets him stay in charge because he’s got the paper hat, in this case there actually is a reason they trust this guy.
H: To be fair, the boss in the Ice Warriors had an awesome leotard.
K: Not a paper hat.
R: And a suit that looked like a neck brace.
P: I think that his arrogance is a shortcoming in tis episode that is poorly reflective of a leader. Or even a subject expert.
R: Yeah. He’s still a putz, but there’s an explanation of why people put up with him, even though he’s a putz.
K: Can I get that explanation for most of my co-workers?
R: Nope. They’re badly written.
Sp: Untz untz untz untz untz untz untz untz
R: Zern zern zern zern.
<pause>
R: Yeah. I felt really bad for the husband and wife. I don’t want her to die. They seemed like a really cute couple.
Sp: I’ll give it this, though, with this much going on between all of the people on the station, and how much pride and arrogance the leader of the station has, it is completely believable that some sudsy sea monster thing could creep up on the lot of them.
K: Nothing can creep up on them with the rave sounds.
H: Are we at final thoughts?
P: I know we covered the choking by oxygen last week.
H: Which apparently she wasn’t.
P: That’s what I was getting at. I find it amazing that the impeller stopped and then restarted and Robson is not interested in uncovering the root cause of the problem.
K: Unless he’s behind it all, moohoohahaha.
H: Well, he does have the chief looking into it when the impeller stops, trying to get it started again. The issue is that he doesn’t believe Van Lutyens’s theory as to what could be wrong. And I don’t believe that they’ve gotten it started again as the end of the episode, but I could be wrong.
Sp: Well, I give them some slack on that one because he’s been overseeing a huge complex mechanical thing for years. So he was probably expecting to find the proper panel to wack. Give it some percussive maintenance.
H: So you’re saying Robson is Fonzie and the impeller is a juke box.
K & Sp (at the same time): No! Robson is Han Solo and the impeller is the Millennium Falcon.
Sp: unnntz… unnntz… uuuuntttz…. pow! Untz untz untz untz.
H: Okay, I think we’re at final thoughts somehow. We’re going to start with our new friend.
Ab: I think you guys pretty much covered the episode.
K: Did you like it?
Ab: Yes.
Sp: Would you say it was AW-Some?
R: Don’t let him trick you!
Ab: No.
H: What did you think of the reconstruction. This is your first recon?
Ab: Yeah. Before this I didn’t realize that there were old Who’s reconstructed. I had seen some of the color episodes, but hadn’t seen any of the earlier ones. I thought it was interesting how the atmosphere has stayed the same throughout the ages.
K: Ah, you haven’t seen seasons 1 and 2 yet. You’ll have to read our backlog of the TARDIS Project.
Ab: It reminded me of one of those produced radio shows from like the 50’s. A full cast audio show. I enjoyed it, wacky sound effects and all.
E: Untz untz untz untz.
H: Is that all you have to say this week?
E: Pretty much.
A: I enjoyed it. It was creepy. I’m enjoying the scenes with the wife more than the scenes with the Doctor and Companions.
P: I’ve really liked the stuff growing on the patio. I made me sort of think about… like they’re cloning her or something?
H: Like ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’?
P: Yeah. Which further feeds into the fear of the episode when you get to Oak and Quill. I like the fact the Victoria was the smart one that picked up a chair and broke the window.
H: It was Jamie actually, at least that’s what the caption said.
P: In my mind I thought it was Victoria. And it’s also weird that no one cares that they lost contact with dozens of men on two rigs. But I guess as long as the gas is flowing they’re not really going to investigate. And Victoria had an interesting comment that she hates seaweed because it’s slimy and horrible.
K: I think it was more that it moved.
H: She specifically said that it’s slimy and horrible, and then she said it moved.
P: So yes, I liked it. It was awesome in one word.
Cz: Four words. Aww-sa-um-me.
Sp: Keeping in theme with the whole lack of oxygen to the brain, yeah.
K: It’s actually your turn, Spoo.
<the room> untz untz untz untz untz…
Sp: No do it without laughing.
<they really are trying… mostly>
Sp: You can’t do it, can you! This is the sound engineering genius of the people on Doctor Who. They can make this whole Sigmond the Seamonster heartbeat thing for a whole episode. You guys can’t do it for two seconds without cracking up. So, pop quiz for the room…
H: Ahha.
Sp: Quick! What did the Doctor do this episode?
K: He examined the wife lady.
H: Maggie Harris.
K: That’s what he did. And pointed out that, no, seaweed is not supposed to do that.
H: He did do one other thing right at the beginning, which is get Victoria the hell out of that room.
Sp: Jamie did that.
H: Fair point.
Sp: So, yeah. Unless the Doctor’s examination of “the wife lady” is pivotal to some revelation about Sigmond, like three episodes from now, Doctor Who was not necessary in this episode at all.
A: That was kind of my point.
H: But it’s kind of the second Doctor’s M.O. To be sneaking around, watching things, not necessarily being active, and then making things come together in the end.
Sp: Yeah, but we didn’t really see sneaking.
K: The sneaking was last week, and this is a six parter.
Sp: Ugh. The heartbeat really carried this one. And the entire Oak and Dagger whoever they were there. That was creepy, soap suds or no soap suds. That looked like the start of a much darker theme that I would have expected to see in Doctor Who, just based on the screen shots we got, and how they talked their way into the house. And “Oh, my husband’s not at home” and it’s pretty disturbing stuff for Who. It’s well done.
R: Despite the fact that the main enemy is a form of dish soap.
H: I think if we go back and we look at our discussions we’re actually going to see people saying “it’s a darker theme than I would have thought in Doctor Who” multiple times over the course of the Project.
H: I think it’s Ronelyn’s turn.
R: “Next week’s Syfy’s original movie ‘Foamnado!’”
M: I’ve seen a Foamnado and there was techno music involved.
Several people: Wow!
Sp: Have you ever been attacked by the sea? Have you ever been attacked by the sea on weed?
P: Yeah, that’s the Maui Wowie!
Sp: We haven’t seen everything the weed does to them yet, so you may closer than you think.
H: Do you have anything more?
R: Nope. That’s it.
K: Oh my. What a crowd tonight. So, I knew at some point in this story that we’d get to see Oak and Quill, and I recognized them as soon as they appeared. So I was waiting that whole scene for the horror. It was like “No, don’t open the door! Something terrible will happen!” So that kept me a bit distracted. And I admit, like Spoo, I had no serious interested in what was happening to the…
Sp: Non-time lords.
K: Sure. The dutch guy and Robson were vaguely interesting, but really I was looking forward to the bits with Harris and his wife and all of that. Glad that he dragged the Doctor into that plot and away from the boring plot.
Sp: Obviously the solution here is that sudsy McSeasalad need to get a goin’ with the killin’. We need less characters.
Cz: It’s not going to make the plot go by any faster.
<brief discussion of who would win in a fight, a Dalek or a Mine Craft Creeper… this stuff just happens. I don’t normally mention it.>
K: All yours, Historian.
H: Alright. I like what Loose Cannon is trying to do with the recon…
Sp: Spin cycle?
H: But I don’t feel like it’s servicing this story as well as some of the others. I feel like I’m never going to get a good feel for this story unless or until I actually see it.
Sp: What could Loose Cannon do differently?
H: I have no idea. Some parts of this week flowed really well. Some parts seemed to drag. But I feel like I can’t give this story an honest assessment. The last time I saw it was a different recon and was all in one go, and I don’t recall feeling like it started and stalled like I got this week. I don’t know if it’s just me, the reconstruction, or the story. I like the story in general, because I know the whole arc of it, but some parts of it really did feel draggy this week.
<Ketina and Spoo give each other a look>
Sp: Let it go.
H: This is one of the first time’s I’ve really felt this way, which is why I’m mentioning it. I’m well aware of the rest of you, and how you’ve felt with some of those other episodes. So stop looking at me like that Spoo.
<Ketina and Spoo exchange a fist bump>
