Fury from the Deep episode 6 discussion:
MS: Another one lost on the Doctor Who adventure. There’s been so many partners lost.
Sp: I has a sad!
E: I also has a sad.
R: Really?
Sp: We did legitimately miss out on what was probably some pretty good acting in the various farewell scenes in the last 15 minutes or so.
K: That was a really, really long denouement. I kept waiting for something horrible to happen.
Sp: [sobs] Something horrible did happen.
R: But yeah, I get your point. Especially when they cut back to the rig I was like “oh my god.” The end… or is it?
MS: Bum bum bum!
Sp: Missed out on a little fan fic moment too. “You’re not going to leave without saying goodbye?” “Not until the morning.”
R: [sings love theme for Doctor Who]
K: So did anyone actually die?
H: No. As the Ninth Doctor would say “everybody lives!”
E: “Just this once, everybody lives!”
H: Yeah. This was actually the answer to a trivia question I remember posting for the 30th season.
K: Prior to 2004, it was “Inside the Spaceship”, “Fury from the Deep”, and…?
Sp: So while Historian is researching that: sonic laser with sound waves.
K: They did introduce the sonic screwdriver earlier in this story.
H: Remember, Alexi Sayle can destroy Daleks with pure unadulterated Rock and Roll. [reference to “Revelation of the Daleks”]
Sp: But to be fair, the sound effect for the sound weapon was bad ass.
K: It was Victoria’s screams with some modifications.
Sp: It was Skinny Puppy from about 1996. It was awesome.
H: All hail Radiophonics Workshop.
R: Sonic shrew driver.
[groans]
K: So I noticed something extremely subtle, that some of you will probably deny. One of the crewmen, during the big fight with the foam weedmonsters… and loved the weed monster effects by the way, since we actually got to see some of them…
Sp: Yeah, that was creepy as hell.
[room agrees]
K: Anyway, one of the crewmen refers to the monsters as “sea devils.” I heard that. Makes me wonder if this a sort of precursor to the Silurians / Sea Devils.
H: Well, pretty much no one involved in the production of this story had anything to do with the later too. But maybe the name stuck in someone’s head. I don’t know.
K: Just saying that it maps continuity. And when I heard that I thought it was really cool.
H: And confirmation – it was only those two stories prior to 2005. Honorable mentions could go to the Celestials Toymaker, and one other story coming up soon in the Project. But we do see people at least appear to die in those last two.
P: Would have loved to have seen the footage of the helicopter taking off from the foam. Just the stills were awesome.
K: Helicopters cannot do loop-de-loops. That’s impossible! [laugh]
R: Actually, technically it has been done.
P: But I don’t believe with that technology. I don’t think acrobatic helicopters existed before the mid-80s.
K: Well, this episode is supposed to take place in the “near future” which could mean the 80’s.
Sp: Which means he was flying Airwolf!
R: [sings Airwolf theme… badly]
H: By the way, did everyone appreciate the reference to an earlier story, when the Doctor explains that he’d scene Astrid flying the helicopter, how hard could it be.
E: [laughs] How hard can it be? Famous last words.
H: I loved that one.
P: What happened to the foam being dangerous?
K: The screaming. Duh.
H: I don’t know.
R: Sonic shrew driver. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Sp: Wonder how many British children were afraid of the laundry after this episode.
MS: Me. I hate doing the laundry, so I’m afraid of it.
H: Fair enough.
R: I was a little disappointed that after his amazing dedication to his wife, the second in command was like “now we have to run away.”
K: At that point he thought she was dead.
H: And, again, it goes back to something I talked about last week. How this is a weird “base under siege” story, where the guy who would normally be “the one who’s right” and fighting against the crazy commander is just as incompetent in a different way. It’s really a transitional kind of story. Not that we’ve seen our last standard base under siege story.
K: So, where did all the moving picture parts come from? Some seemed behind the scenes… Blue Peter?
H: I’m not sure. I haven’t seen a lot about it, but I’m sure I can find out.
K: They were really awesome!
H: There was a lot more footage than I remembered seeing, but it could be my memory. It’s been a few years, and I honestly don’t remember where all of it comes from. Some of it is undoubtedly censor clips.
K: But there wasn’t death scenes.
H: There was horror. They clipped scenes of horror out. They had very strict guidelines for what could be shown before a certain hour in Australia and New Zealand.
K: But some of the scenes did appear to be behind the scenes too.
H: Or maybe with different stock or a camera pointing to the TV. I don’t know. I’d have to research it.
[Short discussion of models verses actual helicopter footage]
K: So, I love the irony that a scream defeated a monster. Is this the only time they did that?
R: My immediate thought was “this is going to be a long episode”
P: Yeah, if we were going to hear her scream continuously.
K: Yeah. Glad they didn’t do that. I didn’t think Victoria as a super screamer prior to this story, although she did a heck of a lot in this story.
A: Not so much early on, but it picked up as stories went on.
K: I shouldn’t have given up counting screams. I only did that for the first season or two of the Project. It was too hard to continue to track screams when I started typing up the discussions.
H: So, final thoughts?
E: The note I have written here says “what do you mean I have the perfect excuse to scream at the top of my lungs.”
R: Nice.
E: So Victoria had the secret weapon all along.
R: The power was in you the whole time.
E: So I also kind of liked the little clips we had of the seaweed monster. We didn’t get very much of it, but it was really cool. I’m going to miss Victoria. She was awesome. I think she’s one of my favorite companions now.
H: Yeah, I like her too.
K: I liked her before she started screaming all the time.
A: Yeah.
E: They were foreshadowing it the whole time!
H: Moving on.
A: I’m not going to miss Victoria that much. She was kind of awesome, but then she got kind of scream-y and useless.
H: Moving on.
P: I liked Victoria but I also agree with Altair that Victoria lost purpose in the ongoing stories. Initially she showed us that the advances of today are much different than Victoria society, that she wouldn’t dare wear a short skirt or hold an opinion without validation from men.
K: No. I agree the skirt part. I completely disagree with the validation part.
H: She disagreed a lot with Jamie from the start. But your point is taken. I think what Photobug is saying is that Victoria was used to contrast modernity with Victorian ideals. But I also think that trick never works in Doctor Who. Companions always assimilate. Look what happened to Jamie.
A: He’s totally willing to get in a helicopter now.
K: He’s like a completely different character now.
R: “The whirling devil beast has got me!” “It’s just a coffee maker, Jamie.”
P: Also, part of me at one point wanted to see Jamie and Victoria become a thing. And I’m both relieved and disappointed that it didn’t happen.
Sp: I was actually both surprised and sort of touched at Jamie and Victoria’s goodbyes, at how, not quite brother sister-ish it was, but certainly long time traveling companions.
H: I’ve always thought Jamie was in love with Victoria. From the start he started rescuing her as a damsel in distress. And people who saw this story have said that the farewell scene between the two of them just left people gutted.
Sp: It did feel just right for them.
P: Victoria’s been through a lot, but I think she’s not the first to fall into the “we’re always in trouble” thinking.
R: “Doctor, I have PTSD! I sleep 2 hours a night!”
[discussion of various companions, in future stories, leaving]
P: I think I’m kind of waiting for a train to show up, because then we would have had most of the existing transportation modes taken. But all the cool new helicopters and hovercraft and jets have been covered. I was kind of impressed by our TARDIS taking off like a helicopter.
MS: Let us all remember that at the beginning of the story they just played in the foam and the Doctor pushed the foam in Jamie’s eyes. For all we know he may still be under the mind control of the seaweed.
R: “We must go now Jamie. Leave the screaming one behind. You and I will have other adventures.”
MS: It was awesome.
H: Are you going to miss Victoria?
MS: Not that much. She screams too much for me.
Sp: Yeah, so Victoria’s leaving was foreshadowed pretty well, about two episodes in…
H: Give or take, yeah.
Sp: And this was pretty well done. If it wasn’t taken up towards the end with Victoria leaving, then this episode would have made the whole story feel a bit padded, because other than her leaving it was the foam fight, and making sure all the crew were okay, and the nice little bit of business with life on the platforms getting back to normal, and their workplace returning to the usual level of passive aggressive that it was before…
P: But freshly scrubbed with bubbles.
Sp: Yes. But as it was the story was built well to give Victoria the time to be able to leave and say goodbyes and for us to linger on that for about the right amount of time for it. And I think the Doctor and Jamie reacted pretty believably.
P: I can see where that would appear to be forced if they did it wrong, but they did not do it wrong.
Sp: And actually yeah, I think this is probably one of the better companion departures we’ve seen.
K: I’d put it up there with Susan’s and Ian and Barbara’s.
H: It’s really the first time since The Chase that we’ve lingered on a companion’s departures. Others have just been so quick.
Sp: The Doctor’s improvised sound board amplifier D.J. Deck thing that he hooked up to amplify the amplification… did I miss that from an earlier episode, or did he just pull that out in that scene?
H: He pulled it out in that scene, as far as I could tell, from the telesnaps.
P: Yep. It’s sonic. It’s the magic wand for the episode.
H: To be fair, all the sonic screwdriver has done at this point is unscrew some screws.
Sp: My last bit for this, the solution to the problem, the actual fight with the goofy sonic laser thing, was just so fun.
Everyone: Yeah.
Sp: It was so Doctor Who. It was so science fiction. It was so over the top, adventurous fun. It really made the episode all come together, apart from anything to do with Victoria.
H: Thank god we had some footage for it.
Sp: Yes!
Cz: I like the moving pictures!
H: Ronelyn, it is your turn.
R: “Next week’s episode: I scream, you scream, we all scream for no screams!”
Sp: It’s not funny, man. Too soon!
R: That’s it.
K: For the most part I liked this story as a whole. There were certainly some slow bit, but there you go. And very, very frustrating at time that we have to continue to deal with the recons. The helicopter scene was a very good example of recon silliness. I like that they tried, but oh my god… that was terrible CG.
H: Remember, in their spare time for no money.
K: I think we already talked about everything else I would have wanted to talk about. So I guess that’s it for me.
H: Well, certainly the last few episodes have reminded me why I really liked this story the first time. The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria are one of my favorite teams, and I’m sad to see Victoria go. And I agree with everyone that the ending scenes are incredibly effective. And I certainly hope to actually see them some day. But, for now, onward to the next adventure.
