Hello everyone, the Historian here, with a slightly more subdued team this week (no Spoo, no kids). We’ve reached the penultimate episode in our journey into this strange “land of fiction,” so let’s get to the episode! This episode first aired 5 October, 1968.
H = Historian
K = Ketina
R = Ronelyn
P = Photobug
A = Altair
E = Ezio
E: They say you’re supposed to really get into a book. I don’t think that’s what they mean.
R: This is the weirdest episode of Reading Rainbow I have ever seen.
H: Take a look. They’re in a book.
E: Historian wins. Project over.
P: Hard to think it’s “Reading Rainbow” when it’s all black and white.
H: So did you all catch the little continuity error in there.
K: There were a lot of costume changes with Zoe wearing Jamie’s jacket.
H: She took it off when she fought the Karkus.
K: So that’s not the continuity issue then.
R: Zoe ran really hot and really cold in this episode.
E: That was awesome. I think she’s starting to compete with Victoria for my favorite companion.
K: No, not as good as Barbara.
E: Oh yeah.
H: And I always liked Vicki, but that’s just me.
K: But beating up the Karkus and then walking through the door sensor…
E: Really? Just had your moment of awesome and then… why? Totally blew it.
R: Because plot.
E: She did get a really witty one liner though. That was great. When the Doctor said he didn’t follow the cartoon characters and she said “Well you better follow that one, because he’s half way up the cliff.”
K: So what was the continuity error?
H: Oh yeah! How did Jamie know Gulliver’s name.
P & K: He read it!
H: Where?
P: On the little ticker tape thing.
H: He started to read the ticket tape thing when they were in the cave with the medusa.
R: Yeah. That was the weirdest “Clash of the Titans” remake I’ve ever seen.
H: Let me say again, I’m really impressed with the animation. Especially given the lack of resources that they had.
R: Yeah, it was impressive.
<discussion about stop motion quality… it’s really hard to follow these live, sorry.>
P: I found the snake sounds to be too annoying. They used a mirror to see medusa, but in the actual book it’s a polished shield.
H: Yeah, the Doctor mentioned that.
P: It was after that they got the “test result failure”
H: Yeah, because the Doctor was supposed to use the sword to defeat the medusa.
K: So the Doctor did the unexpected, likely because the “bad guys” didn’t know he had a mirror in his pocket.
H: So he did not become fiction.
P: This is the earliest use of a muscle shirt that I’ve seen… on Karkus.
R: Yeah, that is the weirdest Schwarzenegger film I’ve ever seen.
H: The whole deal with the Karkus, which is one of the way’s Peter Lane go the idea for the story is the Batman had a resurgence because of the TV show and he wanted to satirize it.
R: He wanted to satirize a satire.
H: Well, we can talk about Batman ’66 another time. I wouldn’t classify it as a satire.
K: I’d classify it as a kid’s show.
R: So, are we going to see the Doctor doing the Doc-Tusi?
H: No.
K: So I know we already touched on it, but I loved, as silly as it was, Zoe beating up the Karkus. That was terrible fight choreography, but it was still awesome.
P: Well, at least they were doing real throws.
K: He was doing real somersaults.
H: Like I said, she’s Zoe Peel. Or Emma Heriot. Or something. She’s even got the cat suit. And what a cat suit!
R: Yeah. This was the weirdest Batman ’66 episode ever!
P: I don’t know, they’re all pretty weird. I liked the snap the finger bit <when Zoe snapped her finger to control the Karkus>. It seemed like it might have even been invented by the actor, because nothing else was supported in the dialog.
K: To note, that I’m sure Ezio also noticed… that 1 million words in 25 years… <laugh>
<discussion of record of writing… and Ezio and I agree that the sheer number has been exceed by Andrew Hussie. But the determination is made that the length of 25 years every week is what is impressive… not the necessarily the specific number of words.>
P: I thought the lure of a library with all of the works of fiction would be a pretty powerful one to me.
K: Except that the library was made out of pictures.
<agreement>
K: Are we ready for final thoughts? Things tend to go a bit quicker when Spoo & gang aren’t here.
E: <thinks> This was a really good episode. Not quite as mind screwy as the last one. Probably because we know a little bit more about what is going on. Although I am significantly worried for Jamie and Zoe.
P: I liked the episode. Liked the staging. There was a lot of activity and not much downtime in this episode, which was actually pretty good. I’m wondering if the Master would have a better title like “the Editor” in this world.
H: Would have given a little too much away, wouldn’t it?
P: Okay. That seems fair. We fall into the classic “good guy” trap where you must save your friends by doing what I insist. And remarkably we only had a single story plot involving the Master by title being controlled by something else – which in this case was a noisy ball of light. I was also fascinated to see that Gulliver was not aware that he met the robots, or he perceived them different.
H: That happened in an earlier episode with the tin soldiers too.
P: That’s it.
H: Ronelyn?
R: That was the weirdest Daft Punk video I have ever seen.
H: You’re really up with weirdest this week.
R: Hey. If the theme works it works. I got more… “That was the weirdest Jonathan Swift novel I have ever seen.”
<laughter>
H: You got more?
R: You can’t seriously be enjoying this?
E: I am
R: “This was the weirdest episode of The Prisoner I have ever seen.”
A: No it isn’t.
<applause>
R: See Photobug – that is how you do it.
P: Do what?
R: Touche madam, touché.
K: My turn? I agree with Photobug that this episode clipped right along. I think it flowed well because it was made up of several small encounters…
H: First they fought the Owlbears.
K: Kinda. Anyway, I think that helped a lot. Nothing felt extraneous. I guess they didn’t NEED the Karkus – he didn’t particularly add anything – but he helped them get from point A to point B and added a nice fun scene to the middle of the episode.
H: Action sequence.
K: Yes. Also once we saw the “writer” I realized what was up with the thing on his head. I remembered who he was last week, but I didn’t remember the thing on his head. So the hat and horns looking thing from last week was just a mind control device on his head. That I’d forgotten about. And there was this thing on his face that was bothering me the whole time.
H: Yeah. A little wart.
K: Wish they’d done something about that… but oh well. Overall his character was interesting, anyway. I enjoyed this one.
H: The only bad thing I can say about this episode is the only bad thing I can say about every episode in this story – it was too darn short. These episodes are some of the shortest in Doctor Who history. Which might be why you think they clip along at a good pace.
P: Because they have to.
R: Tune in next week for… basically this episode.
That’s all we have for this week. Join us next time for the big conclusion to this story–and, hopefully, the beginning of a very interesting discussion! Until then, I remain
THE HISTORIAN
NEXT WEEK: THE MIND ROBBER EPISODE 5
