The Wheel in Space episode 1 discussion:
Sp & K: The wheel in the sky keeps on turning…
Sp: And that’s all we know, because that’s all that was ever played in that commercial.
K: I know most of it… okay.
Cz: So when the egg crate opened it sounded like a dying man screaming. Very softly. “ahhhh!” It was just a very airy scream. Was I the only one that heard that?
H: I didn’t interpret it as that.
Cz: I thought someone was dying.
Sp: I didn’t notice it that specifically. But, I will say the sound in this one was really good. The effects for the spheres blorfing into the hull of the [dramatically] “wheel in space” was really surprising. And Robbie the Robot was really well realized, sound wise, for the most of an episode that he lived! Jamie, you bastard.
K: Well, it was trying to…
R: Do things to them? Indeterminate things.
K: Well. It was at least keeping them prisoner. And it was melting down the door.
R: Because they’d blockaded themselves inside.
K: And the crew was missing.
Sp: But Robbie was so cute!
R: It’s because in the initial launch they gave him conflicting directions. He had to kill the crew because he could not kill them. [reference to “2010: The Year We Make Contact”]
[laughter]
Sp: My god, that was 4 years ago!
[laughter]
R: Where’s my god damn ballutes
H: Where’s my PanAm flight to the moon?
Sp: Where’s John Lithgow.
H & K: Playing the white rabbit in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.
H: Although maybe not for long. But I digress.
R: Back on topic, their animation skills have improved tremendously. The robot’s walk cycle was really credible. And it took me a second to realize that the Doctor’s welding arm was CG.
Sp: I am embarrassed to note that at one point, late in the episode, I caught myself looking deep into the metal of Robbie’s back trying to catch the reflection of a camera man. I was that convinced.
K: Now that would have been good CG.
H: So, I love this recon. Before it was released they released a trailer done by the animator who they brought into work on this and I was so impressed that the moment it got “leaked” to You Tube I watched it immediately. Because, at the time, we had two years before we were going to get to this story.
So I can talk about the Recon. Basically this animator, who’s the same one who did the Web of Fear trailer reconstruction that we watched, go recruited by Loose Cannon to do this. And she’s just amazing. She’s incredible. She did this in her spare time.
R: Compare this to the animation from the Yeti, where the Yeti move like those little wind up froggies on Easter. “mee mee mee mee mee”
H: There were years between the two recons, and like I said, the L.C. guys are not primarily animators.
Sp: The animation makes up for the recon over using the sliding door thing at little too much. I felt like I was trying to play a memory game. “Weee… Jamie is behind door number 1… wahhh…. The Doctor is behind door number 2”
H: To be fair, that was more the episode and what they had to do for the soundtrack than the recon itself.
Sp: This is one of those ones that I really wish that they would find…
H: Maaaaybe. I don’t know what to believe with the rumors anymore.
K: That’s why they are rumors.
Sp: …Because I would really like to see Robbie in action and I want to know what the heck they did for the floating spheres. And we’ve seen enough from other found episodes and past Troughton episodes that I completely believe that the Doctor and Jamie could make exploring a dead space station look interesting.
K: Yeah. I gotta say after seeing the completed non-recon Enemy of the World seeing scenes that the recon folks attempt to fill with stuff and actually seeing what’s going on is huge difference. It definitely improves the pace. I was thinking, while watching this, that there were REALLY long scenes where not much happened but doors opening and egg cartons slowwwwwly opening. But maybe that is just the recon? Maybe the real version there’s other stuff to see?
H: I’m going to say, same writer as Enemy of the World and remember the long soundtrack filled reveal of Salamander’s elevator.
K: Okay. Fair.
H: From what I’ve read about the recon, they used some kind of camera scripts, and that’s basically what it looked like. Especially the eggs.
K: Well, then I go back to my criticism them that this episode dragged a bit. Just a bit.
Sp: Alright, I’m going to defend the dragging.
K: Aw! You’re supposed to be on my side, Spoo.
H: Heh. Heh. Heh.
Sp: [vampire voice] Not today, little pookie. I am on no one’s side! I am on side of wheel.
H: How do you breathe, it’s in space.
K: Apparently he’s a vampire and doesn’t need to breathe. What?
Sp: [vampire voice] Oh crap, I forgot. [gasp!] Anyway, I like the “dragging pace” of this because right after leaving Victoria I don’t think it would work, tone wise, for another story to immediately jump into…
R: Rip roaring Adventure!
Sp: And new people, and new setting. I think, in a meta sort of sense, it actually really worked that, in the middle of Jamie and the Doctor lamenting Victoria leaving that the TARDIS suddenly decides to go all wonky on them.
Cz: It misses her!
Sp: Almost. Kind of. It’s a great choice story wise to switch from new historical period, new people, new setting, right away and make the first problem be “oh crap, TARDIS broke. And where are we.”
H: And they’re all alone. Which a lot of critics praise for this episode.
K: No, I’m fine with all that. I’m just saying the animations went really long. I would have liked sorter animations and more time with Jamie and Doctor talking, or seeing more cool space ship exploring. That’s all.
H: I don’t think the real episode is going to improve that for you then. Because this is a very good representation of what it was, from what I’m led to believe.
K: Bummer. Anyway, I don’t mind the space ship, or Robbie, or any of that. It reminds me of the Space Museum episode 1 exploring, and The Sensorites episode 1.
H: You’re right. It is very reminiscent of that. I hadn’t even thought of that.
K: Also, I felt this one had several interesting call backs to Hartnell. The fluid link!
H: The fluid link. The fault locater. And who wrote this episode. David Whitaker, the first story editor of Doctor Who, and the guy who wrote “Inside the Spaceship” which introduced the fault locater.
Sp: And while we’re talking TARDIS gadgetry I think that this not only demonstrated how long Jamie has been traveling with the Doctor – this comfortable with the TARDIS’s operation and blinkly lights and what have you – it also is all part of kind of bringing Doctor Who back down to as simple a setting as possible. Here’s the Doctor, here’s his companion, here’s the TARDIS and it’s broken. And scene.
H: Yeah. In the first season there were three stories where something was wrong with the TARDIS so they couldn’t get away, if I’m remembering correctly.
K: Ah, it’s a David Whitaker script.
H: Yeah, it’s David Whitaker. To be fair he did write Power of the Daleks, Evil of the Daleks and Enemy of the World. So he can do other things.
[discussion goes sideways for a bit… Jamie, ceiling fans, memes… I’ll just leave it there.]
R: I actually thought it was one of the more interesting walking around the place with no people in it episodes.
Sp: Which really is a category of Doctor Who episodes.
R: Where the hell is everybody is more interesting on a space ship with five rooms. Because seriously, where are they? There’s no escape pods. No bodies.
Sp: And they bothered to leave the gravity and the air on, even though the only inhabitant seems to be a robot.
R: It’s the Marie Celeste without the short bus Dalek.
H: That is a hell of a call back, my friend.
R: “One, three, five. Seven.” I did keep expecting Jamie to come out say [Scottish accent] “what’s this wee organic pod wi’ all the acid burns around it?”
[Now trying to decide which Doctor Who characters matched which characters from Alien]
K: Anyway.
R: It was that kind of creepy. “Yeah, this really isn’t right.” and the TARDIS is going “bee doo bee doo. Danger danger” Yeah, we should go back into the TARDIS.
H: But they couldn’t. It’s just a box now.
[brief discussion of what mercury clouds would actually do. We honestly have no idea.]
Sp: And, thinking about it for a second, just when the Doctor and Jamie sort of figured out their environment, and destroyed a perfectly good robot in the process, the scene shifts and they introduced the wheel and the wheel crew getting ready to blast the rocket and all that.
R: And I think they used two science terms correctly!
Sp: No! Which two?
R: Polar precession and X-Ray laser. Those are both actually things that do what they seem to think they do. Unlikely galaxies, universes, dimensions, and a whole bunch of other terms that people seem to have used before just because they had more than two syllables.
Sp: But, there was that episode at the very beginning of the previous story. Where they spent a good like 10 minutes of doing science with beakers and stuff. That was science.
R: And playing in toxic foam?
Sp: Scientific method. Measurements.
R: And playing in the toxic foam.
Sp: Deduction.
R: Toxic foam!
Sp: R-rocket sounds?
R: Yes.
H: Didn’t you have a point back there somewhere?
Sp: Yeah. Just that they changed threats and setting and they introduced new characters and such at the right time in the story. Which is why I didn’t think the beginning exploration bit dragged.
K: Again, I didn’t think the exploration dragged. I thought the door opening and container opening segments dragged.
Sp: See, I thought that created a nice building tension.
H: I kill you later.
K: I think we’re ready for final thoughts?
Sc: It was awesome.
H: Thank you Schmallturm.
[note, he’s nearly always here. He just doesn’t usually participate in the discussions.]
Cz: I think if someone took some of the soundtrack from here and made a dub step remix it would be kind of awesome.
Sp: The sound design was really good with this one.
H: Which reminds me, since Photobug wasn’t here this week, there was no music this episode. He normally observes the music.
Sp: Neener neener Photobug. That’s what you get for having to work.
H: That’s all you got?
Cz: That’s all my wisdom.
Sp: I cede the floor to Ronelyn, temporarily.
R: [Scottish accent] “Doctor, the scanner’s not showing anything.” [Doctor voice] “Well, that’s because it’s being jammed Jamie, by your LOUD-ASS neckerchief.
Sp: I will admit, for just an instant, because of the photo that they chose when Jamie went off screen and then came back, that I thought, just for an instant, that in Jamie’s grief, he wore some of Victoria’s clothing.
R: See, I’ve seen pictures of my family from the 60’s. So I knew that was a man’s neckerchief. But I knew that was a mistake. A man who already wears a skirt should not attract anymore attention than he already does.
K: I loved his fuzzy vest thing.
R: I don’t have a problem with the plaid and the tartan. I don’t have a problem with the furry vest. But when you stick a paisley neckerchief on top of all of that, you have gone way too far. Radio telescopes could pick up that outfit.
H: Do you have anything else?
R: I am tempted to smart ass about when Jamie asked “what do you think Victoria is doing right now?” and my immediate thought was “being long freakin’ dead” Wow, James. You haven’t really picked up on this time travel thing. You understand what a helicoptor is, what a hovercraft is, what a rocket ship is. But you haven’t mastered the where verses when thing in time travel yet.
Sp: I chalk it up to grief.
R: As as I said, if I was being less of a smart ass, that’s how I would read it too. But my smart ass brain when for that kind of response. Also I swear those astronauts were using wire mesh pillows. But I will have to wait until I see more interior shots of the ship to be sure.
K: I don’t think there’s going to be very many more interior shots of the rocket ship. Not with beamy ray things coming down on it.
R: X-Ray lasers.
Sp: They did seem to have wire mesh chairs, so it maps.
R: You’re in zero-G. What do you care if the chairs are comfy.
H: Spoo? Final thoughts?
Sp: I am fairly fascinated by the TARDIS’s warning system. Showing appealing beach scenes and comforting visuals to suggest that wherever they are now they should be somewhere else.
R: “I’m in my happy place. I’m in my happy place.” Yeah, it’s the Joo Janta sunglasses approach to crisis management. [Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference, guys]
Sp: It was quick and very alien sort of touch to have the TARDIS communicate in metaphor like that.
Cz: Is this the first time the TARDIS thought?
H: There’s a lot of debate. You might say that “Inside the Spaceship” is the first time, which again by David Whitaker. Or you might not. The show really seems to go back and forth until the new series on how much the TARDIS is an actual entity and how much it is a machine.
K: I’m glad that, in the end, they went with the Whitaker suggestion.
H: But, in “Inside the Spaceship” he definitely left it open. He said that the machine might think, since it’s such a large combination of circuits, or something like that. He left it open. He never suggested it wasn’t a machine. Anyway.
Sp: All the interesting bits were pre-wheel, since the wheel was only introduced in the very end as this week’s cliff hanger threat. So all of the conversation and the interaction between all the new people on the wheel just kind of washed right over me. I’m sure it will be very meaningful in the next couple of episodes. But it didn’t really stick right now. And I think this episode works largely because it immediately follows a significant companion leaving. I don’t know if the premise or the story would be as interesting without the subtext of the Doctor and Jamie having all this other stuff going on in the background.
K: As I said previously, I liked the callbacks (is that what we call them now?) to previous stories. Exploring the ship was, relatively interesting. Not a lot happened here, but it is part one of six, and we’re used to that by now. And, honestly, I have no idea how they’re going to get out of this cliff hanger, unless something happens on the wheel to stop the wheel from shooting at them. Looking forward to next week, and curious about the goings on at the wheel.
H: This is not one of my favorite stories…
K: I thought they were all you favorite stories.
H: but this is one of my favorite recons, so far. I really enjoyed this. I love the idea of the Doctor hitting his head and being helpless…
Cz: That was weird.
H: And Jamie having to mostly deal sort of without him for half the episode. I can only imagine how unsettling that would have been for kids watching this. What happened to the Doctor? Having dealt with someone who had a concussion relatively recently, I can understand it being disturbing. I am also looking forward to next week, and I hope you are too.
