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Post by Pete Morris on Oct 28, 2013 15:11:04 GMT
In the scene which introduces Denes having his chat with Salamander, there's some cuts which seem to me to be slightly off. There's a focus on the radio telephone (looks like a transistor radio to me but what do I know - in 5 years they'll probably be all the rage) when in the doing we miss a reaction from Troughton. And in another, too. I wonder why. It shows the phone ringing, and Salamander ignoring it. Then a few minutes later after Jamie claims its a bomb, Salamander comments that he almost used it several times.
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Post by Marty Schultz on Oct 28, 2013 21:27:53 GMT
How does the Doctor get into the archive room in Enemy?
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Post by Paul McDermott on Oct 28, 2013 22:16:31 GMT
In the scene which introduces Denes having his chat with Salamander, there's some cuts which seem to me to be slightly off. There's a focus on the radio telephone (looks like a transistor radio to me but what do I know - in 5 years they'll probably be all the rage) when in the doing we miss a reaction from Troughton. And in another, too. I wonder why. It shows the phone ringing, and Salamander ignoring it. Then a few minutes later after Jamie claims its a bomb, Salamander comments that he almost used it several times. I'm sure you're right Pete, I just wish it was done without losing the focus on Troughton's performance. I mean, the radio telephone is a nice prop and all, but still...
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Post by Paul McDermott on Oct 29, 2013 8:38:18 GMT
Another thing about Enemy, Ep 2: Just as the scene introducing Denes, Fedorin and Salamander begins, George Pravda's voice seems a little distorted to me. Given the wizardry used by the R Team that they consider commonplace but which mere mortals like me boggle over, I'm guessing it was a non-fixable problem even for them. Maybe the source has unrecoverable damage, which the audio CD reproduces? I can't think of another explanation. I mean, if Paul V had time to cook up a new still for the reconstruction of the missing ep of Web, this must have been truly insurmountable.
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Post by Peter Ledwith on Oct 29, 2013 10:26:44 GMT
Which new still was that?
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Post by Paul McDermott on Nov 9, 2013 7:04:19 GMT
Who knows why or how, but it's taken me this long to get done with Enemy ep 3. Yeah, the one we've had for years and years! It's definitely much more enjoyable with the other two parts before it in mind, and knowing that there's loads more to come. The story of gangsters in high office, the machinations of Salamander and the variations in tone amongst his underlings, offer material that hasn't dated a day. Salamander's digs in the Central European Zone look like a cheap and run down hotel but perhaps given the look outside Benik's office, this is the style of the time... Similarly, the gas stove in the Big S's kitchen seems to be a gas type but without actual flames. Presumably a mix of olde world design hiding more modern operating principles! It curious that we keep hearing talk of earthquakes but we only see footage of volcanoes. Surely there must have been footage of both in the archives but the latter probably was deemed more spectacular. Looks like there was a production hand lurking in the background as Jamie and Donald have their little chat. Griff pronounces "meenyu" pretty curiously, yeah! Anyone from Woolloomooloo want to chime in on the authenticity of the phonetics? The caravan door that can't even be closed with the prompting of Bill Kerr's backside nudging it was amusing! Blame that simpering jerk, Benik! Also, Giles Kent looks dressed a bit like the Dalai Lama in that official staff photo. Maybe he was originally working in the Tibetan Zone? Not sure why, but the deadly poison Salamander gave to Federin sure looked like a velvet jewelry box full of fish food. I guess that was meant to make it hard to recognize if he somehow got asked about it on the way to spiking Denes's dinner as opposed to a bottle with a skull and crossbones on it! Victoria must have Katy Manning eyes not to see the hopeless assassin palm the salt shaker off the trolley! The glare reflecting off the table top when he is dead on the floor, either a directorial nod to him being basically a nice guy - or a misplaced bit of overhead lighting! The line about Alaskan wine is quite interesting. PNAS published a paper earlier this year, looking at the impact of global warming on growing the grape across the globe. By 2050, the Y2Y region (Yellowstone to Yukon) is expected to increase its suitability for vineyards by a factor of 19. Additionally, given the focus on earthquakes in Enemy, a particularly nasty one hit the Alaskan Coast on 27/3/64. It measured 9.2, bigger than the 2011 one that messed up Japan, and the second largest in recorded history. The epicentre was around the Prince William Sound area (famous later for the Exxon Valdez spill) but apparently nobody thought to tell/evacuate the native residents of Chenega there. Obviously the village was destroyed, and about a third of the population went with it. Maybe this event was in David Whitaker's mind as he put Enemy together? What happened with the end of ep trolley altercation? Looks like a mess, but did originally shot material get somehow lost/damaged and this was all they could do?
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Post by Steven Christopherson on Nov 9, 2013 9:05:54 GMT
Griff has the kind of Aussie accent that is somewhat dated these days. It's like the accent my Uncles had that served in the Second World War. I was watching a great old Aussie movie the other night on ABC called Wake In Fright, circa 1970. Everyone in it sounds like Griff.
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Post by Paul McDermott on Nov 9, 2013 9:46:37 GMT
Thanks for that Steven, I'll give it a look when I get a chance. The story about the negatives being found in a Pittsburgh shipping container in 2004 is interesting! Wonder what kind of bicycle-chain fu Jon Preddle would unleash on that?!
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Post by Paul McDermott on Nov 20, 2013 2:27:48 GMT
Nine eps of Season 5 back and you've only just finished with Enemy ep 4? What kind of fan are you, McDermott?! Happily, the Doctor wasn't flinging coins about the floor of Kent's caravan when he admonished him for his impatience! One wonders why scramble isn't the default for clandestine groups seeking to depose Salamander when they communicate remotely. It didn't seem to be when Astrid called her boss from a canvas chair in the backyard of Salamander's CEZ pad. Quite unfortunate about the ending of ep 3, in light of what happened to Denes. Was the camera operator bewitched by Debbie's trolley rolling antics?! Milton Johns is really rather entertaining! The way he speaks the name of Salamander's food taste is just creepy. Secret groups plotting against others but neither being as well appraised as they like to think. Authorities eager to play the terrorism card to run roughshod over liberties and lives. Hired muscle able to realize they are being used to ill ends, and are both as culpable as the ones giving the orders and disposable as those whose lives they end for such dubious purposes. Yes, there's plenty here that hasn't dated a day. The Doctor's refusal to kill for Kent's convenience is at once very compelling and sadly considered politically suspect these days. Verity saw the character as an anti-authority figure, and that stance of Pat's sure is now. The aeroplane noise to make it sound like the strike team is outside was very amusing but probably caused some consternation among viewers who live under a flight path! Was the lady with the pram Barry showing he knew about Eisenstein? I guess a herd of buffalo superimposed over the action a la Wood might have been too jarring... The bits where Kent's office is surrounded and they all look outside remind me of that Python skit: gentlemen, I've bad news - this room is surrounded by film! Perhaps it's as well that the unseen connection between the ventilation shaft and outside the building wasn't realized by Terry Gilliam! The door handle seems to have suffered a lack of innovation in the far flung year of 2017 - this same type appears a lot, above and below ground. Interestingly, when the door of Kent's office is smashed open with gunfire, there's no obvious sign of damage. If the gun doesn't affect matter on a non-visible level, perhaps it's just a really tough door! More lighting challenges with the papers on the desk in Kent's office. It's interesting that Benik seemed to know about Fedorin's file - had he helped do the job on him or did he figure Salamander was behind his demise and posthumous smear campaign? Wouldn't a cleaner or somebody notice the big door to "nowhere" in the Kanowa records room, and the switch next to it that opens it up? It's also odd that Salamander would need to ring through to get the locking mechanism for the doors turned on before he could use them - he never struck me as that willing to trust others, nor to leave such a risk - such as their failing to work at the critical moment - a dangling possibility. Whilst situated inside the maglev tube, he looks a bit like he's using an accessory that came with the Six Million Dollar Man doll. Makes sense that the earthquake machine is situated on the geologically fairly stable plate that contains Australia. The duped folk down under Down Under certainly have some groovy threads. They must have been the thing for nerdy hep cats before the more severe, formal style we see on the surface came in. Given Salamander's rather dull disguise, I reckon this was his doing! The dial on the decontamination machine goes right back up again after Pat steps out of it, like a sort of weighing machine. Oops! The wine ration on the trolley reminds me of the penny pinching I recall hearing about from cast in times past, leading me to wonder if it was an in-joke... For some reason, Mary Peach's hairdo makes me think of Yootha Joyce. Now I can't help but thinking of Brian Murphy playing Bill Kerr's role. Giles And Astrid, anyone?
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Post by Nicholas Fitzpatrick on Nov 20, 2013 2:39:21 GMT
Nine eps of Season 5 back and you've only just finished with Enemy ep 4? What kind of fan are you, McDermott?! Happily, the Doctor wasn't flinging coins about the floor of Kent's caravan when he admonished him for his impatience! Ah, exactly the same as me. Who knows how long, if ever, before we get a whole serial back again. No rush here ... Though I've been saving a handful of 3rd, 4th, and 6th Doctor serials to watch ... because it's not like they are ever going to make any more. (oops ...)
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Post by Paul McDermott on Nov 20, 2013 2:45:27 GMT
In my watching of the BBC DVDs, I'm up to Tom and hit the gap where Zygons is. Just can't bring myself to skip it, as it's a fave. Once I've got that, and picked up Enemy on DVD, I reckon I'll watch the rest of his run in order - and then go back to get Tenth Planet, Ice Warriors, Spearhead a la Blu, etc. By then, Underwater Menace and Moonbase will hopefully be here - along with Web of Fear. Of course, if there's another major find, it gets slotted in directly after Web!
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Post by Michael D. Kimpton on Nov 20, 2013 10:01:09 GMT
I also noticed a rather cool, subtle thing in Episode 4 concerning Benik and Salamander. When Benik gives Salamander Fedorin's file back, the way Benik smiles at Salamander when he tells him "What can I say", to me, it looks more like Benik sees Salamander as some sort of father figure instead of just a boss. It makes sense to me, because of how adamant he is to keep Bruce and the others from entering the Records Room in Episode 6.
In fact, I'd say it's almost hinted at in Episode 2 where we briefly see Benik sitting in Salamander's chair, almost as if he thinks one day Salamander will give him that chair...
Just shows how many 'little touches' were hidden away in missing episodes that we knew nothing about, and not just the visuals to the audio!
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Post by Paul McDermott on Nov 20, 2013 12:13:02 GMT
Thanks for that, Michael! I totally agree about how marvelously the new-found visuals add subtlety to the story. I noticed it but couldn't quite put into words what I thought about what I saw regarding that dynamic in ep 4. In some ways, it's like Benik wants to be/thinks he's Salamander's BFF. He's just as ruthless and cruel, and surely sees him as both an inspiration and a kindred spirit who knows his worth. Salamander of course just sees someone easy to dazzle, use and dispose of if he becomes unreliable. Benik's attitude toward him just makes it that much easier. That chair probably has remote controlled razor sharp electrified and poison-tipped spikes, to be deployed by its master at the first hint of trouble! Some of Benik's flouncy emotive states make me wonder if maybe he did have a handkerchief to wave Salamander off on his trip to the CEZ after all! I understand that Enemy's DVD release is a vanilla job, but Milton Johns - were he amenable - would be nice to chat with about how he chose to play his character!
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Post by Paul McDermott on Nov 21, 2013 6:42:22 GMT
And so I reach Enemy ep 5, broadcast on my -5th birthday! Must have been a great week off for Debbie and Frazer, they're back to work on stretchers! And when their first scene rolls around, they're apparently re-enacting a bit from Evil Of The Daleks ep 2, with Victoria standing in for Molly! The action sequence where Astrid disarms Bruce's guard was a bit less than ideal but this is made up for by the old ketchup on the bonce trick a bit later! Presumably the boxes Salamander used to ferry food down to his "survivors" are reused, else milk in glass bottles - in a war, no less - seems a bit doubtful unless it's some kind of innovation in material science that makes it lighter, stronger and keep better than other means. Seems a pretty small haul for so many people, being there five years. Is the newspaper scrap with the article by Peter Peyton a total mockup or a reuse of something contemporaneous to the production? I'll give it another look, see if I can figure it out. My sense is that it's the old trick of a big fake headline above an unrelated real story, but no harm in checking! The expression on Troughton's face when he's reacting to Swan's discovery is gold, another nice level of enjoyment over the audio alone. Watching Christopher Burgess's work in Enemy reminds me of Basil Hoskins in an ep of The Prisoner, Hammer Into Anvil, where he played another idolizing underling of a dangerous big shot. Given the Benik thing above ground, it's interesting that Salamander has such success in inspiring devotion amongst his almost exclusively male staff. Were it more like a Bond picture, as I think was the intent, the would-be dictator from the Yucatan should have a few pretty girls about the place - and would have added to the differences between him and Troughton's more usual role. Like the Master, I'm sure he's not shy about mesmerizing boys and girls alike, to get whatever he wants! It would also have been nice to see a little more of the general public's adoration of the Shopkeeper Of The World - instead of a single newsreel from the World Zones General Assembly back in ep 1. Salamander could have breezed into an airport upon getting to one of the Zones, flanked by guards and yet mobbed by fans and journos, like a pop star. Instead, the TARDIS crew is batted from one faction to another, so we never really see the life of ordinary folk - nor hear what they make of all this. Compared to a Hartnell historical, say, it just lacks a little in this respect. The Doctor's doubts as to who is worth supporting really makes me think this would have made sense to do. That Swan is perfectly willing to believe that Salamander will play fair after rumbling to his five year ruse without telling anyone about it is surely a sign of some kind of mental breakdown, or that the air, water and food are drugged to optimize compliance. It's wonderful to have Salamander's tale of the post-atomic Earth echo the words of the Daleks when Hartnell and co meet them for the first time, doubly so to have these words so improbably come out of the mouth of the man we'd been used to seeing as the lead! Ditto that moment after the fake interrogation where Jamie and Victoria aren't sure their old friend is before them, bringing back Steven's uncertainty in The Massacre. Whereas Hartnell at times could seem to be willing to go either way, Troughton wasn't quite so ambiguous, doppelgangers aside!
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Post by Paul McDermott on Nov 26, 2013 4:34:46 GMT
And so I've finally caught up to the end of Enemy, and the first of the two stories Phil returned for us, to watch in October. What a cracker of an ep! Watching the trailer afterwards, I really can see how the anticipation must have been incapacitating for some folks. Perhaps a bout of monochrome flu hit the World Zones the day it was released, that saw everyone to go home and watch it upon release? The poor saps Salamander and Bruce had stuffed down the shaft brought to mind the doomsday cultists manipulated to bad ends by dangerous people, something that sadly hasn't gone away, even in this far flung year almost up to the time depicted in the story. Even in character, Frazer's "redhead" remark brought to mind his penchant for liking the ladies! The man's incorrigible! Nothing worn under that kilt, all in working order! The ep seemed nicely paced to me, with each moment the central villain is palpably absent from the screen. Where's Salamander?! Happily, we can finally now say - back in the Archives, and in our living rooms, where he belongs! The dummy radiation remover being proven to be a prop by Astrid no doubt seemed a jolly good wheeze to the production team at the time! Colin Douglas must have been a striking figure to behold on the battlefield during the War. Glad he was on our side! Barry's decision to return to the TARDIS at night was very nice, giving variation to the morning shoot in ep 1 and building the atmosphere very nicely. But the confrontation between the Doctor and Salamander - Troughton's performances and expressions - just magic to behold! Still can't believe it's back, that I got to see this - and it was so good. Thank you everybody who made it, kept it, found it, restored it, released it!! How will I ever follow up, after that? Oh yeah - Web Of Fear! Hooray!!
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