Will Riley
My podcast about Danger Bay, the Canadian TV Classic has been a smashing success. Heaps of online praise have come my way citing my powerful media insight and unflappable charisma. I’ve been invited to talk about the TV show on national radio, but I just didn’t have the time I’ve received a larger online footprint. I may have entered bonafide influencer DME, I’m finally receiving requests from companies selling mood lights and sex toys to attach their ads to my posts for money. I haven’t taken them up on yet. I’m not that hard up. But there is a sort of security blanket feeling and knowing that the offer for a bit of free money is always standing. This doesn’t really mean I’m at the top of the social ladder though. My friends are the ones making real money when they take me for coffee in the chat. They’re the ones covering the cost not me. They know it’ll make a larger dent in my daily budget than theirs. You found a great little niche one of my friends said fiddling with the emblem on his Canada Goose jacket. Danger Bay really is an evergreen show. You know what I think it is it subconsciously harkens back to the other media from our childhood. You watch the show and immediately calls to mind about the Jacques Cousteau comic books we all read as a kid. I paused for a moment, there were comics about Jacques Cousteau. He looked at me funny then there was an awkward gap in the conversation. Well, yeah, of course, you know, the old Cousteau comics, the crew of the Calypso and their underwater adventures. Remember, I love sharks, the coral jungle, last secret of Easter Island, the comic book series that every single child in elementary school read the one that Cousteau his relatives are still writing work with me here. But no, I drew a total blank made me feel real stupid. Later on. I checked online and found that yes, those comics had been around for a while there was even an animated adaptation on TV right around the time I’d have been the right age to watch it totally missed. The right then in that cafe, I was trapped with a feeling I’d probably replicated and other people constantly talking about European comics no less.
Will Riley
I never realized that living in Canada made you exponentially more exposed to bomb DESE. Net European comics translated into English and sold in glossy hardcover color volumes for like 60 bucks for 60 pages. In my experience. They were books that Saturday in practically every school and public library the world over until I spoke about them to some Americans. I’d recently watched the French film of LA and with subtitles, and there’s a side character named Asterix, but the subs decided to change his name to the All American nickname of Snoopy. I brought it up in conversation. That’s just localization run amok, I said, I mean, it seems beyond even the usual low estimation of the English speaking public that movie companies have to act as if people won’t know who Asterix is. Then the guy gave me a blank look. Probably the same one I was given right now in this cafe about Jacques Cousteau. I don’t know who Asterix is, what movie is he from? You’ve never heard of Asterix. He’s such a big character. He’s like on the level of spirit. Now. He’s like, even on parody with Tintin. You shook his head. Will you’re just making random noises at me now? I think you’re overestimating how much Canadian media has penetrated American culture. Other than danger Bay Of course. None of these names I just said are Canadian. They’re French and Belgian Asterix has a theme park that probably out tickets Euro Disney on a good day. Tintin has a Spielberg movie, remember that? Well, I guess it makes sense that you would remember that one, but still, and it just sort of went on from there. I bring this conversation up with other Americans and most times they simply mimic. There would be exceptions, of course, but there would always be some kind of agenda. Yeah, I read a bunch of Lucky Luke as a kid, but I was the only person in my whole neighborhood who even knew what it was. Mine was a solitary existence. Everybody thought I was a freak. But the more this happened, the more I thought about why European comics were becoming such a distinction between two countries in the Americans, I guess, for one is that you can’t really make a distinction between American and Canadian comics. Stylistically, a lot of them are basically American. And if they’re successful, they’ll snap onto an American publisher real fast if they weren’t part of the US culture industry already. There will be plenty of Canadian comics you’ve read that you don’t ever realize we’re that. So the difference in this segment of our cultures if there is to be any needs to come from somewhere other than Canada itself? I suppose one could say that the vaunted Canadian bilingualism plays a factor in me having easy Access to Asterix under God’s not in BC short, French outside of a classroom has slipped. Maybe the idea that as a Canadian you have to be taught to be more worldly and aware of other cultures. Now, I can definitely say that as a Canadian child, Tintin and Asterix were formatted for me at least more than an American. But worldliness, am I really going to learn that from reading Tintin in the Congo reading pages of the main character just going no genocide here. I don’t know what the big deal is I went hunting, I killed a crocodile with dynamite I think I shot a gorilla, so I could use his skin as a disguise so that I could shoot another different gorilla. I had a lovely time. I don’t think what I’m learning from a book like that can be described as worldliness. Half the premise of Asterix is that the characters are all national stereotypes of one stripe or another. It’s how those guys come up with plots in the first place. If reading the Old hallmarks of bond SCA teaches kids about other cultures, it basically comes from all the prejudices they’re in being so old, they cease to make any sense. If a kid actually reads Tintin in the land of the Soviets, they rarely do. It’s the only one in black and white, all the real concerns of its history, a center right Belgian newspaper, basically trying to make deliberate propaganda for children. It’s not going to click in 2024. They don’t even know what Soviet IS, a kid’s not going to know why all the stuff being said about China or the Congo in Tintin is crazy, because officially, at least, France and Belgium have such different relationships to them. Now, these kinds of books can make a reader more worldly, only insofar as they remain totally misunderstood. As Bill Corbett once said of the movie samurai car, Remember kids, it’s not racist if it’s totally incoherent. Anyways, these are all things I was thinking about wishing I could articulate them about the Jacques Cousteau comics in this cafe in front of the friends staring at me like a total rude go on. I thought you were treating yourself like a learned media critic now. As I got my well deserved comeuppance. I never got to say any of this though. I don’t know if that’s a shame or a small mercy. Before I could even open my mouth. A loud voice from the other side of the cafe came over the rest of the chatter. What do you mean you’ve never read dealing dog? It was basically my entire childhood. The whole room’s eyes were drawn to the man in the corner, smoking impossibly thin cigarettes and drinking an obscene amount of Aperol from a huge pint glass. The cafe didn’t even sell after all I don’t know where he got it
anywhere in Danger Danger Danger Danger. Danger hasn’t come along yet
so I’m just gonna sit down
danger
Will Riley
See, blue view is a delightful gentleman. c mu Liu is a delightful gentleman. Hi, everybody. Welcome to to infinite danger. I’m just doing some vocal warmup before we start. My mother enjoys the films of Ryan Reynolds. My mother loves Ryan Reynolds movies. I have given Seth Rogen my power of attorney. I have given Seth Rogen, my power of attorney. Hi everybody. New episode of infinite danger, infinite danger keeps coming on and coming on strong. Today we’re looking at an episode called Katie and the whale six episode aired, but production code 01 dash zero 13. So we’re back to season one again. You’ll remember last time there was a weird sort of production time warp going on. But now we’re back to Season One episodes again. We’re still skipping 10 episodes ahead of where we initially were before we leaped out to 230. But the main thing that’s important is still here. Don’t only Rhodes’s hair dye is back. He’s back to looking quite divorced in a few ways beyond just the hair dye that we’ll get into later. Last episode of The pod the intro to the various Cast and characters went on a bit long. There’s a lot to talk about. I mean when you start talking about the Tarzan live action shows you have to sort of be thorough and complete this intro might have the risk of going on a little long as well but I think you’ll forgive me once you start hearing what I’m talking about. I’ll still try and be a little brisk about it because this episode is sort of retroactively star studded just in the way that the Chris haddock episode the fish mystery episode was retroactively star studded we’ve seen the danger of a brand of televisions and criticism go all over the place. Of course we’ve gone action cop show Western mystery, a Pilgrims Progress esque moral fable about the iniquities of the burger shack. And today’s episode Katy and the whale is going to keep going on with that with something a little different. It’s going to be more of a genre drama. This episode is written by a lady named Nancy Miller, who is basically a career genre drama writer. And it’ll be evident with some of the conventions that show up in this episode. Nancy Miller is actually a very successful TV writer, but it’s just not in a field of TV that usually enters my radar. Like I mean, she’s not just an episode writer, she is the creator and showrunner have two different whole TV shows. So presumably she’s sitting pretty in 2020. For a good few years after danger Bay, Nancy Miller will go on to create a TV show called any day now, which was a lifetime drama series.
Will Riley
Any day now is about the childhood friendship between white and black protagonist in Birmingham, Alabama, which swaps between their childhood at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and their modern day adulthood. I’ll admit I’ve never seen any full episodes of any day now myself. But never having watched a TV show has never stopped me from talking authoritative ly about it before. So why start now? facially the show does seem fairly ahead of its time, especially for a lifetime show, considering the very heavy topics that are involved here. Especially considering it seems to be rejecting the premise that often happens in very liberal based shows on the civil rights movement, you know that basically, everything’s fine now, however, as you might expect from a pre prestige era, a lifetime show in the late 90s Especially in episodic one, a scan of all the episodes Synopsys it really shows it may have fallen into the syndrome of every episode being classified as a very special episode of any day now. Every episode becomes social injustice of the week, basically. And since it has an episodic structure, that basically means every societal ill that each episode is about has to be treated as individual isolated, discrete and and synthesized.
Will Riley
The other show that Nancy Miller is the creator of is something that hasn’t been entirely on my radar, but I certainly heard of it because it was Vancouver filmed. It was a show called The saving grace.
Will Riley
Now, to be honest, the main thing I had heard about it was how abrupt its cancellation was the story of saving graces cancellation made it an easy fit into various TV listicles TV shows ended before their time most infuriating TV executive bungles, but there wasn’t very much that I knew directly about the show. So imagine my surprise when I actually read what it’s about. And the premise is, it’s a cop who communicates with an angel I can certainly see it being presented in a way more fitting and prestigious way. But that is not a 2007 network TV premise. A cop talking with angels is pure 1992 core. The core MC catches a keel coming to you Wednesdays at eight on TNT. Now I’m sitting here but you know, anyways, having two shows with some American following probably places Nancy Miller as the most successful right After we’ve seen in danger bay so far, I suppose some of you will probably debate that Chris haddock has produced more prestigious and more successful shows. But look, the Canadian American distinction is pretty real here excluding danger Bay. Of course, when you measure a show’s success, a great mainstream hit in Canada is instantly trumped by an American cult favorite, even if that American cult favorite is filmed here like saving grace was this is an iron law across all TV disciplines. I cannot begin to tell you how many Canadian comedians that have been on national television for a decade plus show up on TV shows like Last Comic Standing and are presented as new rookie who never before seen talent. Take someone like say Shaun Majumder, a man who was on the CBC program this hour has 22 minutes, which is effectively the epitome of mainstream Canadian sketch comedy, and he did it for about 15 years. But if you’re American, you’ll probably never have heard of him at all. However, if I say remember how in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle Kumar has to talk with his jerk brother for one scene. He’s got about like, three lines. Yeah, that’s him that’s Shaun Majumder. And that is basically how I synopsize the transferability of success between the spears of Canadian and American film, decades into the future when Shaun Majumder dies, which is a long time away. Of course, there’s a high likelihood that being Kumar’s brother and having three lines will be the first thing that the news sites run with even the Canadian ones. All of this is really just to say that Nancy Miller has made a great success of herself via her American Connections, but how I mean mainstream success and Agus positions in the TV industry. That’s not really what an infinite danger intro seems to be about at this stage. So here’s the mother of all bones to throw to the audience. Nancy Miller wrote an episode of a show called Cosby mysteries. Yep, that’s right Cosby mysteries, a show in which Bill Cosby plays a detective, great crime fighting super sleuth Bill Cosby. Ironically, the premise makes more sense now than it would have back then. Because I mean, who better to catch a horrible criminal than Well, another horrible criminal. The fact that this show has been totally probably very rightfully forgotten, does mean that all the YouTube comments that I can find about this show are still long before the allegations were well publicized. The top rated comment for the theme song, which was dated like nine years ago, just says this show had limitless potential and quote, I can’t be bothered to watch the show myself. So let’s just treat that as the review among the less regarded shows that Nancy Miller has written for yes less regarded than Cosby mysteries. I really do have to mention this show called threat matrix, not particularly a notable show on its own. It’s basically a national security procedural getting for like the number two seed under NCIS. But the home video release of this show is really what makes it shine. It is the sweatiest most desperate thing I’ve seen in a while for no reason other than the fact that the word matrix is in the title used in a totally different context. Mind you, the DVD cover selling this show is the most asylum films Video Brain quedo version of the matrix that I’ve ever seen. They’ve got the matrix font, the pictures of the principal actors are superimposed on a background of, you know, neon green computer code. They were really trying to confuse somebody’s grandma as they went through the Walmart electronics department. Give it a search. It is quite sad. I should give some due to the director of Gilbert Shelton, who is what I guess you would call in the wrestling industry a solid hand. He did episodes of Magnum PI Quantum Leap, Xena, he directed three episodes of the Wii Mini Series. I don’t really have much to say about him here. But that’s not meant to be taken as a native. He has rather successfully evaded most of the embarrassments that I would be able to riff on, as far as the other directors of danger Bay’s rough, early period are concerned. He worked on the 1991 live action series of The Flash, and there’s, I guess, some rippable content there, but I mean, the reception of Flash live action media in the modern day sort of blows any sort of riffing opportunity for that out of the water, you can understand he directed an episode of COP rock, and that’s a show that plenty of other people have made fun of before but honestly I just told you about a TV show where Bill Cosby played to police super sleuth, who do you think is dealing with the larger embarrassment here, Miller or Shelton nowadays, Gilbert Shelton is just directing short films, he probably doesn’t want to be bothered. Really, I want to take some time talking about the cast of actors in this particular episode of danger Bay. Just to start with the titular Katy of Katy and the whale is played by Dara Whitelaw she’ll only be in one other show for the rest of her acting career. She is in one episode of 21 Jump Street, which is another Vancouver Film show. It’s a shame you know all these people who get this brief touch at the world’s greatest media sensation danger Bay, but they get forgotten because they came in during the rough early years here. However, the person I have to talk to you the most about here is none other than Don Davis, Mr. Major garland brigs himself, coming to us directly from the Palazzo in his dreams. In my vision.
I was on the veranda of basta stayed, Palazzo some fantastic proportion. There seemed to emanate from it an allied from within this gleaming radiant marble. I had known this place, I had in fact been born and raised there. This was my first return. reunion with the deepest wellsprings of my being.
Will Riley
Now, of course, most people recognize Don Davis from his role in this episode of danger Bay, but the show he’s second most known from is this little show called Twin Peaks. However, with this episode of danger Bay, we are seeing Don Davis, way before major breaks like five years before peaks was even in idea. This episode of danger Bay is Don Davis his second ever role. Davis was born in Missouri, which is of course where he gets his very famous voice. However, most of his base of operations as an actor is pretty Pacific Northwest centric. He was in Vancouver for a very long time. David Lynch, of course, like most people is a massive danger Bay fan, which is why he specifically chose Don Davis to be in Twin Peaks. He was so impressed by his performance, Don, he said the mind is like a big deep ocean. And your job is to do what you can to reach as deep as you can, and catch the biggest fish there is. And Don, it would be so beautiful. To have someone on this television program who has already worked with the biggest fish there is in the world. A whale Don, I want you to be our whale in this television program. Davis was so flattered by the remark he’d rejected his initial impulse to correct Lynch that whales are actually mammals. Deepest is consequently, probably the only person in four different TV shows that have had five plus hours YouTube videos made about them. The first is Twin Peaks, of course, then danger Bay. Actually, that one’s about nine hours long. And then the minor leagues and animated series about birds that play baseball. The last of those four shows though, is Stargate SG one. Now, the most famous American TV connection to the Vancouver scene is the X Files of course, and as far as giving the city a reputation as a spot to film your show. That’s pretty undeniable. Don Davis was actually in that too. I think he was Scalia’s dad. However, if you live here in Vancouver, you eventually learn that materially economically Stargate SG one would employ anybody. They would just drive up and down the street throwing money out the windows, you get a coupon for a credited role in Stargate SG one in gift bags at children’s birthday parties. You there you’re the janitor around here, take this medallion and put it on your forehead, then stand around in the background for an hour while we failed. Here’s the equivalent of a year’s wages and in his role as George Hammond Don Davis was sitting on top of that money machine, indirectly putting millions of dollars into the pockets of People way more deserving than what like the Sci Fi Channel. Now saying that it’s stimulated the Vancouver economy might be a little bit of a stretch. I mean with all the tax credits that go on in Vancouver, when you work on a TV show, effectively the government is paying a good chunk of your salary. It’s the only way that Keynesianism is allowed in this province. But I mean, the actual action of getting at least some of the money out of the Sci Fi channel’s pockets and putting it into the hands of basically, any other kind of guy is probably a good thing. And in part, Don Davis deserves a good deal of the credit for them. Even without Twin Peaks or without Stargate, you will have probably seen Don Davis somewhere. The flip side of his Stargate success is that Davis came about to it by being the kind of actor who does not ever turn down a single role in his life, which is the exact kind of person that the Vancouver Film works tries to produce. He may have been in a gust TV institutions like Stargate and danger bay but his hyper prolific career has led him to work on things like atomic train dream is a wish your heart makes the net fun at cellos beyond Loch Ness. Ufa bowls Far Cry movie, a Vancouver favorite Vipers calendar girl cop killer that Bambi Bemba next a Prisoner of Zenda Inc rescue force kids in the wood and that’s kids with the Z a TV movies simply titled avalanche Vipers he was in a movie called suspicious Ripper where he played the role of golf shirt man vipers, the angel of Pennsylvania Avenue The New Adventures of beings Baxter Don Davis had 10 credits alone in the year of 2008. And there are some actors that can do that. But most people don’t get 10 credits in the year that they die. Also, most actors don’t get six credits in the years after they die. Twin Peaks the return only accounts for two of those six credits. I’ll leave it to you to guess what the other four are. Now Don Davis, obviously is the big name in this episode, but I’m gonna keep going with just one more person. We’ve got a fella by the name of Terrence Kelly, particularly I want to bring him up because irony of ironies Terence Kelly gets an opening credit this episode and Don Davis does not I guess that’s fair because this is Don Davis his second roll ever but knowing how things shake out in the future makes this very funny in retrospect, he’s another admirably prolific TV Actor I’ll be at he’s not to the level of Don Davis, and sadly, he never got as close to stardom as he did with danger Bay. His older credits include the Leslie Nielsen Mr. Magoo movie and an uncredited role as ill fated mailman in a movie simply titled trucks. I do sort of wish he had a credit for that role, just so I could watch the movie and go, Oh, that’s who’s playing the ill fated mailman this time. As for more recent stuff, Kelly was in an episode of Loudermilk. And he was credited solely as a very old barber, which can’t be good for the ego. Terrence Kelly was in an episode of the good doctor. You guys heard of this Dr. Han guy. Word on the street is there’s this doctor named Dr. Hahn. And he’s really cool. All the kids are crazy about him. Terrence Kelly was also in five different Christmas TV movies in a row. And he did them all in roughly under two years. The main thing that we see as we go over Terrance Kelly’s career, though, is, well, this is where we start getting lots of shows that we’ve mentioned come up again, we’re starting to overlap. Kelly was in eight different episodes of Da Vinci’s inquest and other show we’ve talked about he played the fire chief, obviously TV show about a coroner. Obviously the fire chief is going to be a fairly common recurring figure. Terrence Kelly also has credits in two movies that we’ve already brought up before McCabe and Mrs. Miller, of course, and Zack Snyder’s watchmen movie, he played one of the generals debating with Nixon, I said some episodes back that McCabe and Mrs. Miller was the movie everybody and their dog got a role in if they lived in Vancouver. Well, it’s coming to light that Zack Snyder’s watchmen is fast approaching being the late 2000s equivalent of that, which makes sense since both of those movies have had roughly the same level of artistic acclaim. But since I’m here talking about it right now, and I have the opportunity, I should just say, I’m very tired of the FANBOY ism, the bad faith arguments, the totally meaningless debates and nitpicks and just the overall online toxicity surrounding McCabe and Mrs. Miller, not a day goes by that there isn’t somebody read Hearing the debate over the sound mix people just having screeching matches over whether or not it properly adapts the original novel. And just overall all these Altman bros with Robin Williams Popeye avatars just getting mad online at everybody
Will Riley
so for the cold open of Katie and the whale, we’ve got an establishing shot of folks pouring into the underground observation deck for the Vancouver Aquarium orca tank. A little girl is watching the killer whale intently with her hands on the glass wrapped by its majesty. The whale is making noise at her as if to suggest as communicating with her. But honestly it just sounds like somebody in the sound booth is hammering the same SFX on their whale song soundboard. Just over and over. She looks back at the crowd of unfamiliar people for a second. Obviously lost not knowing where she is. And then savior of saviors Nicole walks in.
Are you lost? My name is Nicole, don’t worry.
Will Riley
She follows but notably the girl doesn’t say anything. I’ve already talked about how there aren’t any orca tanks at the Vancouver Aquarium anymore. The Canadian federal government got involved at some point and put a ban on any new orcas being put into captivity. I already mentioned that a few episodes ago. So you know all that stuff the Blackfish documentary the orcas shows in international waters Hyak to snitching on somebody project yet at work, I’ll try and skip as much of that as I can. However, in the Orca tank story, I neglected to mention one particular chapter involving Viga in Orca, who stayed here for about a year in the 80s but had to be transferred after using her whistling skills to conduct a major phone phreaking operation fraudulently transferring about $20,000 into her bank account. I’d like to thank killer whale wiki.fandom.com For being such a useful repository for this orca information not to mention a good deal of informative and intriguing advertisements. Orcas get transferred from aquarium to aquarium it’s such speed sometimes that you really do need a database for this stuff. Kudos for having a distinct thumbnail for every single orca you have an article on. I’m pretty sure you could stick a picture of any orca you want it on there and no one would be able to eyeball the difference. So you really went the extra mile there after the customary theme song where we see a lot of footage of Donnelly roads, jumping and leaping and do an action stuff you know, just general smooth movement across random terrain features
a streamlined movement system called Smart smooth movement across random terrain.
Will Riley
There’s an overhead shot of the Vancouver Aquarium times just so showing an orca make a leap up from the surface. While what’s in that big tank has certainly changed its shape is basically the same as today. It’s just a big bean shaped pool with a pen in the corner that they coax whatever whale they need into if they aren’t part of the show. There’s a beluga tank alongside it. And while belugas are still around at the aquarium, the tank definitely doesn’t exist anymore. Using the average passerby in this shop for scale. The beluga tanks can’t possibly be larger than the average pool at the Rec Center and this constitutes an animal’s entire world. The life that these belugas are having is obviously not very poor augers. We’ve got some nice B roll of tourists hanging around outside the aquarium. Kids and parents are sitting around sticking their hands and this fountain, which has this giant 3d depiction of a whale according to Coast Salish, wood carving art, we love our First Nations aren’t here. It’s like making a quick investment upfront to make land acknowledgments treated as basically a given in perpetuity. As you of course, continue to extract everything you can out of somebody else’s land. If you thought land acknowledgments were empty gestures already, you have yet to encounter the advanced Vancouver tech. Incredible. Let’s go through the underwater view or nose.
Will Riley
Nicole takes Katie to the front desk, and her parents show up to call for her
companion pass from there. Okay. What’s your name anyway?
Katie, where have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you.
Will Riley
So the actress of this girl doesn’t even have to speak.
I’m Nicole Roberts. Hello.
I’m just going to coffee. This my wife Robin. Hi. I trust you’ve already met Katie.
Will Riley
Terrance Kelly is speaking here. But all of his lines are at yard. In fact, everybody These lines in this scene are, I can’t tell if it’s a performance thing, or if it’s just the realities of being filmed at a busy aquarium still in operation effectively. Everybody in this scene is Dr. Sanchez from Garth moraine these dark place, ADR is often used to put important exposition into a scene that was forgotten to be said during the actual filming. And appropriately enough, it’s getting used in a scene that is almost pure exposition here.
oh seven, tell me her name.
It’s not that she wouldn’t call. It’s just we were in an accident two years ago, and she hasn’t spoken since I understand.
Will Riley
Just as bluntly as possible. We were in an accident and Katie hasn’t spoken since they just say this while their daughter is standing right there next to them, like no attempt to be polite or sort of circum low cute around it. Like I don’t expect the average person in 1984 to know what re traumatizing somebody is, but you’d expect them to intuit that whatever they’re doing right now isn’t the right way to do it. Just synopsize in massive tragedies and events for people in the back, Nicole just takes all of this exposition in stride. In fact, she’s smiling all throughout these parents, yada yada in someone’s childhood trauma to her.
I understand. We met while she was watching the OSA Have you seen the killer whale show yet? Follow me okay.
Will Riley
Now we come to the scene that I’ve been waiting for. Grant Roberts talking with Don Davis. Don Davis is playing an orca trainer at the aquarium and
be sure Hyack has given us extra dose of iron. He’s not as young as it used to be, you know,
Will Riley
they’re both discussing Hyak to the fact that they’re discussing iron deficiencies is well ironic considering what’s going to happen soon. I suppose that’s a motivator for why he snitched on that aquarium employee in the first place. No, don’t do that. You’ll lose all your iron, I won’t let you share my fate. We get some expository dialogue that Don Davis is about to leave for his second honeymoon. And he’s just getting affairs in order. Because this is basically as young as Don Davis will ever be in his acting career. It does bear noting just how different his sort of demeanor is compared to how he acts in most of the shows that he’s in after this. While by the time you get around to
taking your vacation. You won’t be either. Yeah,
but if I put it off again, my wife says she’s going on a second honeymoon without me,
Will Riley
as well as how he looks. Don Davis is just as bald as he’s always been throughout his acting career. But here he is very much not leaning into the sort of military persona he’s known for. He’s actually like a crunchy Professor type. And this, George,
I finally got him up on his vacation two weeks in Hawaii. Somehow
I just can’t picture Dr. Dunbar and a Hawaiian shirt.
Will Riley
And yeah, he’s rocking a cool red beard here. He’s being friendly with the orcas talking about, he’s generally way more animated than any of the military brass he’s played. He’s basically playing a crunchy ex hippie. He’s the academic type, the one who’s going to talk to you about Milton for 15 minutes before trying to sell you shrooms or weed. Now, obviously, Boethius is a very important influence on Chaucer’s general oeuvre, but I would say that most of his work ends up being a commentary on both Yes, more than an actual replication of his theological worldview. But anyway, this one is more Sativa dominant is kind of a heady high, it’ll put you on the couch, you know, he’s just cutting loose. He’s just walking around in jeans and a contemporary Vancouver Aquarium T which in this era has an orca leaping over a rainbow in a very Lisa Frank way. He is just generally being an all around cool dude here. Don Davis is by no means what you would call a traditionally handsome guy. But let’s be honest, this younger incarnation of him would do better than me in Vancouver’s dating scene, white dolphin trainer gumboots not withstanding.
Oh yeah, she knows this. When she sees one.
Will Riley
That’s new breeding techniques. Nicole brings Katie and her family to the Orca show, which means that we get a lot of nice shots of the orcas doing their thing jumping around splashing people in the crowds, etc. Who
is working on your right is nine years old and is eight. The larger well you see swimming around over here on your left is about 18 years old.
Will Riley
The thing is the announcer at this orca show seems to be saying all his lines in a sarcastic tone. He’s got this naval hat that I’m sure has never actually been part of the aquarium outfit there. He is clearly trying to put on some kind of a voice all the extra
stuff because you are viewing our part of the killer whales natural behavior
Will Riley
and he’s got this stiff position one hand on the mic the other stiffly behind his back. It’s like he’s trying to do some kind of bit, but it’s not exactly clear what it is since he’s not really saying any real jokes. For every correct exercise, they
received a few hearings. This
Will Riley
actor really does have the face of Jim Carrey here, but none of the emotive abilities past doing weird stuff with his eyebrows. If you’ve ever watched any of the in living color sketches where Jim Carrey was given lines, but all the actual jokes, we’re being told by the winds, that sort of the energy this guy is giving here, the mask it is not. But I mean, I don’t really know what I’m talking about. If the actor who played this guy was able to get a role in The Jacksons an American Dream, the TV miniseries and got to play the biggest role of Tito’s friend, then He really must know what he’s on about. Nicole and company all get splashed by the orcas.
That’s why I’m sorry, folks, but don’t mind the water. The cork util Indians considered a sign of good luck to be splashed by a killer whale. The insertion
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of stock Moo sounds from the crowd is really great. We get this relatively long montage that is just various random shots just to demonstrate how much fun everyone is having at the aquarium today, as they do every day. You know how every third sitcom in the 80s and 90s involve the characters going to Epcot as the most sort of non subtle advertising and prestige. Well, the Vancouver Aquarium is effectively the best and closest equivalent that the BC media sphere can provide. They’re not going to marine land, that’s for sure the cast of student bodies isn’t doing bits in front of marine land scenic, undeveloped field radioactive isn’t filming in the world famous office where marine land cooks all its books. Ultimately, the point of this whole montage is just to show Katie and Nicole just emoting at various things just to demonstrate how great a service the Vancouver Aquarium provides to the country, other than law enforcement and military protection, of course, but honestly, I’m more interested in the guy in the back of this scene, who’s got this big red trucker hat he’s recording the show with a genuinely vintage camcorder that really I can’t place the makeup of is designed is so extended that rather than a camcorder it looks like he’s pointing a hairdryer at his own face the whole time, we get a very strange educational line here that I don’t think is accurate even for the time. Certainly the spectacular movement
of the whale is the high gel. Biologists are uncertain why the whales jump so high, possibly either courtship or play.
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The fact that the Vancouver Aquarium still apparently hasn’t figured out why killer whales jump precisely shows that this isn’t an educational show. This segment about them not knowing about whales actually is solidifying the law if they can’t figure out something so fundamental as to why killer whales jump other than being told to by a guy with a bucket of delicious delicious herring. What is the point of such a organizational bot? Obviously, the establishment of order through force, aquatic research is secondary the rule of law will prevail either by bullet or blowhole. For the record, prevailing modern theories on orca jumping have nothing to do with mating or play. It’s about hunting, hitting the surface of the water with an orcas massive body creates like a mini shock wave, not to mention a sort of artificial underwater wave, which will shock and disorient whatever prey they have their sights on. The more common horizontal leaps, not the vertical ones, those contributed to hunting as well. Since despite being aquatic mammals with powerful fins, movement through the air still has way less resistance than water. And they’re smart enough to intuit that if they’re trying to go fast. It’s kind of odd that This show doesn’t bring in the whole predatory thing. Seeing as everybody in this show is just calling them killer whales, not orcas, as is right and good in the modern day, that doesn’t go anymore. You’re going to keep talking about them as killers, but you’re not going to get one of the main killing facts about them. Right. It’s very un-pc You know, I’ve started saying killer whale a lot instead of orca because of this show and quoting it so often. It’s a really bad thing for me sometimes. So when I say killer whale, I’m quoting them not myself. They’re the ones being on PVC here not me. Sorry. That’s That’s my old PR training coming through. They’re the ones being un-pc, not me was one of the marketing taglines. I pitched to Papa John’s Canadian branch. They didn’t go for it. That
concludes our show for today. If you have any questions about the Wales, a trainer will be located at the foot of the North stairs. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your visit at our aquarium.
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Orca shows done. Nicole in the family go to sea grant and Don Davis. Everybody’s trying very hard to be pleasant. But there’s obviously an over arching blitheness about it. Hi. Hi.
I met some new friends.
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That’s nice. Wow, that’s nice. Yeah, so they tell me Excuse me. We learned that the family name is the coffee’s
This is Katie. And her parents Mr. Mrs. Coffee. I
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gotta say I know that people will do this. But for my money. You shouldn’t give your kids alliterative names, KB coffee, don’t give the kids at school material to mock her with she’s walking through school and she’s going oh man getting named. This was the second worst thing to ever happen to me. I recently found out that the exorcist guy William Peter Blatty was originally known as a kid as Billy blatty, anyone called his son, Billy bladdy, as well, and I realized, oh, yeah, that’s why he’s all fucked up. It’s not the Catholicism stuff. It’s the fact that he’s called Billy bladdy. Katie and Nicole get to have a closer look at the orcas, particularly one orca named Bo saya.
What did you think of biasa and finna? Katie?
Katie doesn’t talk dad but she loved it right?
I would you like maybe also up close, Katie.
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They’re obviously enraptured by the majesty of the things. And of course, as this goes on, we would be remiss if we didn’t have the most straightforward trauma exposition, or did the girls remind you?
Katie and Karen? Karen, our eldest daughter she was a year older than Katie Karen was killed two years ago in an automobile accident. Katie hasn’t spoken since.
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Nicole is apparently already a surrogate sister to Katie. Her sister died in the exact same accident. Again, everybody is smiling as they say all of these lines. It might not be intentional. They’ve got Donley roads in a shot where the sun is so obviously in his eyes that he’s squinting and scrunching his face the entire time. But it really does just look like he’s grinning through the whole thing. Like he’s going oh, dead sister. Huh? That’s interesting. Tell me more.
They were about as close as sisters can be best friends, I guess you’d say a
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psychosomatic mute. You say intriguing.
I’m sorry.
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I can see a way that you could demonstrate the family grinning and bearing through a tragedy. You could do that kind of well, but because this show is so condensed, and all of this tragedy has to be said in the most candid and straightforward and blunt way as possible. It becomes a little too much. I have an extended relative who lives in a small town up north, and she had two cats that would roam outdoors. One day one of them disappeared, probably attacked by a wild animal and the surviving cat became considerably more withdrawn after whatever incident occurred. My aunt has more tact talking about the trauma that her cat experienced. Then this mom and dad do about their own daughter.
We were in an accident two years ago, and Karen was killed two years ago in an automobile accident. Ever since the accident. It hasn’t been an easy couple of years. Katie hasn’t spoken since she hasn’t spoken
since I understand. Katie doesn’t talk dad.
Dr. Renard. He’s been Katie’s doctor. It’s been so long since she’s shown an interest in anything.
I’m sorry.
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After the ad break, Grant is driving with the cold down the street in his big open top Jeep remember that one he’s also got a massive and rather ill fitting brown leather jacket and because of the light hitting him just so the hair dye is very prominent here. This just shows that in the first season, they still really didn’t know how to make grant Roberts look, bring back the smooth academic look from last episode post haste please. Donnelly roads may be Mr. Divorce in real life, but you shouldn’t dress his character like that in the undisclosed period of time between act breaks. Katie has apparently become very emotionally attached to the Orca named Diosa
Well, haven’t you taken her around to any other parts of the aquarium? There’s some pretty interesting things you know, she
keeps on coming back to Bo so I think they’re really friends dad, Dad And he also seems to recognize her. Oh,
that’s very possible. He also is a very special animal. Maybe she senses how Katie feels
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grant remarks, something that might come off as weird for a animal expert to say,
you know, we don’t know that much about whales. They may have a way of communicating that we don’t know anything about.
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We don’t really know anything about Wales. This is where a little bit of a lore debate comes about between the various different camps of the danger of a fandom. It is a little odd to write a scientist character to just go. It’s a mystery, we have no idea and not even really posit some sort of hypothesis. In the meantime, one half of the community says this is just an expression of academic modesty. Once you learn so much about a topic, how much you don’t know and how much unexplored territory there really is in your field becomes a lot more in your face. So you say things like nobody actually knows more than you expect. However, the other half of the fandom sees this as foreshadowing for the penderbrook incident in season eight, where an orca influences a nuclear submarine pilot through the power of telepathy. Well, the first theory makes sense in isolation. I’m more sympathetic to the second, you can’t really treat episodes of danger Bay as just isolated events. Without the 20 seasons preceding taken into account. The first six just wouldn’t really make any sense at all. The main orcas that Katie has glommed on to are finna and B OSA Bo says effectively going to be the star orca of this episode. But there is an interesting story between her and finna, Finn and Bo. So were bought at the exact same time because the aquarium felt that they needed more female orcas to be brought into the tank. However, it took them a surprisingly long time to realize that finna was actually a male, like, it wasn’t until a guest at the aquarium went, I saw that orcas dick and somebody went, Oh, that’s not right, that they actually realized that they got a male and a female orca not to female orcas. You know, we
don’t know that much about Wales. Grant
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and Nicole keep on talking about Katie’s condition, particularly because their family has also experienced some personal tragedy with the death of their mother physically. She’s
able to talk, you know, but she went through a severe trauma and she’s got some kind of psychological
block. Okay, she lost her sister.
They call it elective mutism.
How come none of us stopped talking when we lost mom.
Everybody has their own way of expressing grief sweetheart.
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I think this line is supposed to demonstrate that Nicole is still a young girl who doesn’t quite get how the world works. However, she’s been the Lisa Simpson in this show. So often, it comes off more as her having an expectation of well, why aren’t all these events and all of these rules universally applicable?
How come none of us stopped talking only last month,
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it comes off less like somebody’s talking about somebody’s emotional state. And more like somebody’s trying to tie up a plot hole peeking behind this exchange is a far more toxic brain worm that can really get stuck in your head. The idea of maybe I didn’t sufficiently suffer enough. Maybe the fact that I’m feeling better means I’m a bad person. I don’t think I’ll ever stop wishing she was with us, which will then spark a new cycle of self loathing, probably Jewish for
good memories here. How come none of us stopped talking when we lost Mum,
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I didn’t end up rendered mute when my mom died. I must be a bad person. I must not be feeling the true depths of despair that I deserve. The fact that they just totally ignore and blow past this idea that’s present in the text really is a demonstration that the Roberts are supernaturally immune to any concept of self loathing or grief. I mean, just look to modern episodes ago, Jonah is slicing through hundreds of dogs and saying he feels bad about it too. epilator key is just swimming in checks and having a great time like nothing ever happened. He is totally immune to any sort of sentiment or average human frailty. And that’s why danger Bay is such a good show. I wish I knew
what I wanted to be.
That’s where I went wrong. Hi, Katie. Mrs. Coffee. Hi, are you ready to get started? Have fun sweetheart,
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is Grant and Nicole show up at the Vancouver Aquarium parking lot. It turns out that Katie’s Mom is already there. Apparently the coffee family has been leaving Katy at the aquarium every day since she met me OSA like, Grant and Nicole have been caring for her this entire time. Oh, here’s some money.
I want you to get yourself and the cola snack.
I don’t worry about that. We have sandwiches for them. Unless you’d rather eat with BOC How do you feel about raw hair in case
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we’re gonna go your letter, I can only assume that the coffee is have worked out some sort of deal with Grant and the aquarium if they’re coming in every day, the average aquarium day pass today goes for about 30 bucks USD, that’s United States dollars, and about $40 ca D, which stands for Canadian American dollars. That brings it to about 45. AUD, which stands for Australian United States Dollars.
Dr. Renard he’s been Katie’s doctor suggested we get her a dog or a kitten, or something she could love
her for help. So she settled for a whale.
Thank goodness, she can show up on our doorstep with the with the neighbors.
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It is possible I suppose that in the early danger Bay universe, at least, entrance is free to the aquarium because otherwise it’d be like making somebody pay to watch a military parade as Katie’s Mom and grant keep talking. I gotta say this leather jacket looks really bad on him. He’s also got this weird double pleat on his khakis underneath too. So like everything is puffed out really awfully. As he’s talking to Katie’s Mom, it really looks like somebody off screen is slowly inflating. In between takes, we get another educational scene where we see a seagull picking food out of one of the orcas teeth, we see the seagull looking straight into the orcas big gaping mouth, and the bird and the gentle giant trust each other enough to put themselves in vulnerable positions so that the seagull can pick food out of the orcas to fade in the sink.
So just showed up here eight months ago, can’t be also spent. She’s looking for food. When do you also get some caught between the two, she just let Sadie pick it out. Next to Richard on the other wheels, said his bills his best friend.
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This is actually a fairly common symbiotic relationship. But it is always an instinct within fiction to give this Seagull its own name and have a distinct relationship existing solely between this one Orca. And this one seagull. It’s not just something that happens commonly between all members of both of these related species, it has to become a case of individual virtue between both of these animals. His best friend, this one Orca, and this one Seagull have to be made exceptional in some way. But obviously it isn’t exceptional, because they just had B roll of it. And it was fairly common. Nobody is going out of their way to give a seagull training for this one scene besides symbiotic relationships can be used for evil, but you never read Herman Melville’s poems. You never read the pilot fish, you can just reread this scene as the Seagull and the Orca having a mutual predation on the rest of the ecosystem. In order for this charming moment of cooperation to happen in the first place. The Orca needs to kill fish and the seagull needs to be a scavenger. Now I’m getting ahead of myself to be sure, but I’m not just bringing this contemplation out of the blue of course, you’ll remember in that season eight incident I mentioned where the Orca was mind controlling a nuclear sub pilot. It was revealed later that the Orca was being manipulated by a genetically modified seagull. So it is pretty clean foreshadowing here in this scene,
phonies feels his best friend. You know,
we don’t know that much about whales. Don Davis
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is now away for his second honeymoon. And he’s been replaced by this trainer with a noticeable German accent who is now telling grant that Bo said doesn’t seem as energetic as she used to be. I don’t know what
it is, but she’s just not being herself. In what way? Well, her lips have fallen off. She’s not jumping as high as she usually does. It’s like she just isn’t interested in performing. Don
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Davis has already been replaced and you already feel really bad about it. This German orchid trainer is basically the Dr. Catherine Pulaski of this episode, you’re fine. But I mean, where’s the other one little bit of confusing sentence structure here? Because grant refers to Finn A and B OSA in the same sentence.
You’re right. That’s strange for Vyasa Finn is the one that’s unpredictable, usually right.
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Actually eating. There’s some ambiguity as to whether grant is talking about Finn O or B OSA here in regards to the she here because Finn was determined to be a male in 1981. But this is 1984 and they’re still saying she in regards to finna possibly. I mean normally in this context I just immediately assumed they were talking about Bo OSA but I am enamored with the idea that they would still keep pretending that Finn was a female orca because they were so embarrassed that they didn’t figure it out for so long during this scene as grant and this German lady keep talking about ba OSA, we start to see a difference in pronunciation going on here. What’s going on down
here? Mark and I are just talking about biasa Donnelly
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Rhodes keeps on insisting on saying biasa even as everybody around him keep saying the proper way to say it, which is be OSA.
She wasn’t at Vyasa school. Looking in the trainer’s window.
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It’s a very William Shatner sabotage for sabotage thing going on here. I’m really curious what order the scenes in this episode were filmed in because grant start saying biasa more and more as the episode goes on. He actually says be OSA properly a good few times at the start, but he just starts sliding as things keep going. She may
have a cold or mild infection of some sort. I’ll take a blood sample later, just to be sure. Okay,
I’ll meet you here after the last
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show. Good. Nicole is still taking Katie around the aquarium basically being a equal age babysitter to her.
That’s the treasurer’s office over there. Maybe later on we can go inside. You can get a really good look at Yosef I’m in there and
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she takes her to one of the office is adjacent to the Orca tank which I’ve talked about before. These are the offices that are right next to the Orca tank that for a multitude of reasons. Always have their blinds down. Nicole starts showing off various tricks that you can do when you happen to live near in order to tank most of your life was a neat trick. She pulls out a plastic comb and she puts it up against the window and starts flicking it which to my mind can’t be that much different from tapping on the glass like an asshole I guess they like the sound or something. The comb matric starts bringing the orcas towards the window so that Katie can look at Bo sup see
works every time. Thank you recognizes you.
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And Katie starts knocking just Katie just starts knocking on the glass. Which is like treated as normal here and not aquarium sin numero uno.
Wonder why she hasn’t been feeling well? How do you ask a whale where it hurts? If Richard was here, he would know what was wrong.
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If Richard was here, he’d know what was wrong with Diosa. So basically, they’re saying if Don Davis was still in this episode, everything would be great. And honestly 100% coastside I feel you Nicole. I wish Don Davis was still in this episode to grant goes ahead and extracts the blood from Diosa we don’t see it directly. The German orca trainer is so excited to find the results that she can’t really hold back her emotions at all.
Donna is going to analyze this before she leaves tonight. Great.
I’m anxious to see if she finds anything.
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You know, doctor, we might have just discovered the source of infinite free clean energy. That is wonderful. I cannot wait to see the Excel spreadsheets about it. Great.
I’m anxious to see if she finds anything.
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He goes and gives it to Joyce and Donna.
Oh, what did you say to him? I told him I never date men who were more jewelry than
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we are told that both of them are dressed up for a date or a girls night out or something like that. But the thing is they need to give us expository dialogue to tell us this ladies
night out. We got tickets for the valet because
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it doesn’t really look like they’re out for a night on the town. It looks like they’re going to their second shift as cashiers at Hudson’s Bay. Nonetheless, Grant seems to be taken aback. Oh,
hi, Joyce.
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Boy you to look great, because evidently, this is the first time he’s really seen either of these characters as women we get a great line that only danger Bay could provide us with Oh,
am I going to make you late for opening curtain with this blood sample?
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Now this is the most stereotypical straight guy stuff for me to not be able to notice this, but apparently there’s something distinct or pretty about the way that Joyce has done her makeup here. But of course, since it’s TV and she’s always made up, it means that she looks way better, quote unquote without the makeup. Nicole stares at Joyce for a second and asks, Trey someday
will you show me how to put makeup on? Sure
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make up. And that’s only the beginning. We get some nice jazzy music to indicate to us that we just heard a joke and then we move on. To me. She’s got so much eyeshadow, it looks like her eyes are sinking into her skull. And this is made worse by the fact that when we see her with the makeup, she’s looking straight head on into the camera. I do have to mention what with the Burton Ernie representation in the Chris haddock episode, the fact that we have this long, awkward pause of Nicole looking at Joyce and her makeup.
Dre someday will you show me how to put makeup on?
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I think this sort of shows how the visual language of television has morphed over the last decades, because we’ve watched all those BBC shows and you know, we’ve seen Sherlock and all of that. We know that anytime two characters are in a room, and one is looking at the other without saying anything. We have been conditioned to point at the screen and go, that character is gay for the other character. I’m going to go on the internet and say that character is gay for the other character. I know that that’s not actually what’s happening in the show, for God’s sakes, it is a child star. But the cinematic language of television has changed so much that this totally innocuous scene now comes off as something like the BBC going, we don’t actually want any of the trouble of saying this character is gay. But we would like you to say that they are on the internet so we could make money. I mean, a whole five empty seconds where nobody is quipping or getting shot at. I mean, that’s just queer coding, folks. And that’s only the beginning. Anybody home? Oh, hi. Thanks. Found it. Alright. The aquarium is coming close to closing time and the coffee family has shown up looking for Katie grant chats with them and talks about what he’s doing right now. He mispronounces be OSA again.
Oh, Nicole just went to get in. She probably wanted to stay in West Vyasa for as long as she could.
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And now finally, a little bit more than two thirds into this half hour episode. We actually have some conflict occurring. We’ve had to a security guard making the rounds as the aquarium closes for the day. Ironically, he looks a lot like Don Davis will in Twin Peaks. He goes over to some doors, locks them all and unknowingly locks Katie into the trainer’s quarters and just slowly walks away. none the wiser. Evidently, whatever they’ve tested with Bo says blood. Nothing seems to be going wrong with that. Everything
seems fine. But you should want a total serum profile. I’ll take this over to the hospital first thing in the morning. Okay. You take the osis blood to a human hospital. Oh, sure.
Whales are people to
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their mammals. Of course, the phrase whales are people to is just pure foreshadowing for future danger base seasons.
You know, we don’t know that much about whales.
Dad. I can’t find Katie.
She wasn’t at the offices cool. No. She’s probably just one of the other exhibits come out and go look for Come on.
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Ask him your hands. The coffee’s are now well and truly scared. They don’t know where the hell Katie is they want to find her and they’re scared that something might have happened to her. And so we get a good place for the ACT break to happen. The lights go out because the aquarium is truly closed. But then they seem to write it as if to deliberately diminish the stakes.
Don’t worry, we have backup satellites in the lab just be a second grant
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just goes yeah, don’t worry. I’ll turn on the backup lights no problem won’t be a second and then this is where they dropped the dramatic act break music they give us the be scared music right after they have established that nothing risky has actually occurred here. Don’t worry. Since the character has realized that they forgot to add stakes before the break. The parents go she’s terrified
of the dark ever since
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the accident purely just to show us the episode up a little bit. Katie’s parents also probably are looking at their watches and going you know what? It’s been five whole hours since I mentioned how owned Katie sister is I gotta bring that up. We were
in an accident two years ago and was killed two years ago in an automobile accident ever since. accident accident accident hasn’t been an easy couple of years. Katie has spoken since it’s been so long since she’s shown an interest in anything. And the rest
of us will split up. And whoever finds her will let the others know what
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follows now is a long scene of everybody in the aquarium and the coffee family, just walking around in the dark as people look for Katie, Katie, Katie. Now, a lot of times I have said there’s a long scene of something. And I mean, relative to the 22 Minute length of a TV episode, 30 seconds without any expository dialogue can come off as a long scene sometimes. Here I do really mean a long scene, like it goes on for more than a solid minute of people just walking around in the dark. Okay.
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Funnily enough, every time somebody calls out Katie’s name, the orcas keep responding to the noise. You know, basically quit your yap, and I’m trying to go to sleep. Something that really tickled me was the fact that they’re walking around, calling for this missing girl, assuming that she’s still in the aquarium, and then they cut to some ominous footage of the Shark Tank. Where could she be?
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Is if to imply that the real risk here is that she fell into the Shark Tank and got eaten and that these are the real stakes. I love the magical thinking at play here. Like a child is missing from a public place. And instead of thinking about anything realistic, you know what an adult would think would be at risk here. Potential abduction or some sort of Amber Alert scenario. The adults are evidently worried about a wild shark attack. I’m sort of fond of this, you know, it’s like, this is what a child imagines their parents are protecting them from made real. And I mean, obviously, sharks don’t become a real threat and danger Bay for years, not until they make a pact with the coven of the unholy gears. And finally, we cut to where Katie actually is the trainer’s room, which is stuck in scared she is just sitting by the windows right next to the orcas takes a few seconds, and finally speaks the words. And I’m sorry, I know that this is a beautiful scene, she’s coming out of her shell. But all I can think of is California, California, California,
California, California.
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The episode has just become the wizards proverbial older brother. And obviously to be fair, orcas were a cultural phenomenon. They were the NES of 1984. Now here’s the thing that’s interesting to me about this episode, I’ve talked over several episodes of this podcast over the fact that there are windows to the Orca tank that are attached to the office here. The fact that these offices are connected to the whale tank is plot relevant.
Maybe looking at the trainer’s window, something must be down there holding your attention to take a look.
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All the orcas seeing Katie start swarming around that one specific window to look at her and I don’t know send transmissions her way. And the fact that grant sees all these orcas floating around one specific window is how he figures out where KD is, I like this little touch. It feels like they’ve written this script around this one specific location. Certainly other aquariums have Windows attached to their tanks. But it’s not something that I think Nancy Miller would have thought about unless she actually walked around the Vancouver Aquarium and figured out how she was going to script this thing out. It’s actually a script that is built around the place she knows it’s going to be filmed. She didn’t just conjure up a bunch of words about aquariums without any specificity. She actually incorporated the architecture of it into her script in a way that might not have fit for a different aquarium.
Katie god, you’re okay.
You gave us quite a scare there young lady. This year did
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speaker. We were very worried. Everybody finds Katie and before their parents can mention the dead sister one more time to her. Katie the first word she said in apparently years, however, she also goes on to say Richard,
what about the OSA KT? Richard, Richard he’s away on. Is that what you think is wrong with Vyasa? She misses Richard
I think you may be right Katie.
You knew what BOC is due to.
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Everything that had to do with BOC as potential sickness was just psychosomatic. The impetus of this entire episode is based on Don Davis not being around anymore and everybody being sad that he isn’t he only gets two scenes in the show, but he is effectively the star of the episode despite not getting credited. No wonder Don Davis got a place on Twin Peaks. That whole show is dedicated to the emotion of being sad somebody isn’t around anymore. Whenever Don Davis isn’t on screen people have to be asking where is Don Davis, we see that Katie knows what BOC is feeling almost empathically because both of them have experienced loss effectively by Katie having a sister that died and being so in grief that she’s unable to speak. She is apparently able to empathize with an orca whale who is missing a boss that has gone on vacation because they both understand loss in some way. Katie doesn’t say anything else. With that elegant little bow wrapped up. Donna and Joyce walk into the room with a look of surprise. Donna gives a billion dollar smile not really understanding what’s going on. Freeze Frame and roll practice.
Will Riley
As we come to a close here, I think it’s probably for the best if I tell you all about the real killer whale Diosa because she was a real whale and the one that you’re seeing in the show is B OSA B OSA was captured in the wild somewhere around Iceland. Because she was captured in the wild we don’t really know exactly when she was born probably around 1977. She was caught in 1980 and was taken to Vancouver pretty soon after that. So here’s the thing. orca whales have the longest gestation period out of any mammal in its class about 18 months. So you know how I told you that the Vancouver Aquarium had no idea that Finn was male until a few weeks of having him in the tank. While the aquarium also had no idea that BOC had already conceived an orca with some unknown wild whale before she even got caught. She spent her first year in captivity while also carrying a calf. It’s unclear how soon the Vancouver Aquarium actually figured out that she was pregnant. And even if they did, they presumably had no idea exactly when it was going to come to term. Because BOC started conceiving this calf when she was supposed to be doing a show. Her calf for a multitude of reasons was not healthy. B OSA was unable to produce enough milk to feed this calf, and it appears that the calf was already injured before or during childbirth. It died before it was even given a name. Within a few months of its birth. The veterinarians classified it as a death of malnutrition as well as dehydration. Now this all happened in 1980. But then the tragedy continued several years later, he also conceived the calf with Hyack, who we’ve seen in this episode as well. However, before the calf was even able to be born Hyak died. He was already getting on in years after the birth however, B osis problems repeated themselves. Bo so was unable to produce enough milk. This time her calf which was named key OSHA was taken to a separate o r and over the time that key OSHA was in this O R he contracted some sort of a break In infection, key OSHA died before being able to be reunited with Bo some years later BOC attempted to give birth yet again. This time the issue of milk production didn’t even come to the forefront. Because the calf died within minutes of childbirth. The pool was emptied of the other orcas. All the patrons were asked to leave so that the OSA could float alongside the body of her child and grieve. More adult orcas were dying in the Vancouver Aquarium then we’re new calves being born. At this stage there was only be Osa and fin and then fin it died. A mass had been developing on his right side, and it seems to have killed them before they were even able to properly diagnose the exact cause of its development. Bielsa was now the last and only orca living in the Vancouver Aquarium tank. orcas are social animals, and having an orca whale live totally alone is untenable in any sort of a long term situation. So finally, Bo so was sent to SeaWorld. While she was there, she attempted effectively to adopt in other orcas calf the calf had been rejected by its mother and be OSA attempting to be a mother to the very end, essentially became the steward and carer of this workout calf. But at this point, it was too late Bielsa had been suffering from Bronco pneumonia for an undisclosed amount of time, her lungs had become severely scarred which made treatment nigh impossible. She died in 2001. The life of BeOS of the Orca whale was punctuated by a great deal of tragedy. I won’t pretend to the innocence of the animal kingdom, but it is one of the most tragic lives of an animal that can be viewed for mass consumption. Again, thank you to killer whale wiki.fandom.net. So why am I telling you this cavalcade of tragedy? I think it’s because in this episode of danger Bay, we have this fictional character of Katie, understanding and empathizing with BOC because both of them understand loss. However, the very real loss that be OSA has really gone through isn’t referred to at all is that
something for
Will Riley
sad emotional state is instead attributed to some minor misunderstanding the idea that she can’t comprehend what a second honeymoon is. So she doesn’t know where Don Davis is gone. And that’s what’s making her sad, be Yosa has an innocence and childlike quality projected onto her so that the connection between her and this child character can be emphasized
abuses.
Will Riley
But the tragedy in Bo says life is very real and very adult and very comprehensible to any human being. The omission is quite striking here. And I think there’s two reasons why it might happen. One is a little more cynical, but a little more concrete, and the other is more general. First off when this episode of danger Bay was aired, it had only been about two or three years since the death of BOC is first calf now the information is scant. So I don’t know precisely what the Vancouver Aquarium knew or didn’t know. But I can assume that a pregnant orca getting captured in the middle of her pregnancy, then being flown halfway across the globe to an entirely new and entirely smaller environment could not have been good either for the health of BOC or for the calf that was living inside of her. There’s a very real chance that that death could have been preventable if the Vancouver Aquarium had more information or more foresight, and having BIOSIS sadness, attributable to something that the Vancouver Aquarium might have done in an episode that is meant to show how great the Vancouver Aquarium is, isn’t really permissible. She has to be made sad because she misses her trainer, the person who’s telling her what to do. The second possible reason for this omission is a little more general and just goes more into how we think about the concept of empathy in mass media. This is a story about A kid finding some sort of emotional kinship with an animal. But as far as this TV show is concerned, that kinship is really predicated on one of those parties being a blank slate, basically being an innocent. That way, when somebody makes an empathetic statement, it doesn’t immediately come off as projection or abuse. You say that this Orca is sad because she misses her trainer? Well, that answer is as good as any other if she’s being this much of a blank slate, the problem biasa has in this episode has to be small and ultimately solvable in the world of danger Bay, we can assume that Don Davis will return soon enough, but in real life, none of those calves are coming back. Bo says problems are massive, and adults and really unsolvable and the instinct in television writing I think is to go well. If empathy isn’t going to solve this problem, then what is the point in me or any of the characters empathizing with them, empathizing with someone or something in that deep of a despair is only going to make you feel bad as well. So just don’t do it. Just don’t write it like that. Empathy and kinship in television are often given under the precondition that whatever or whoever is receiving it, their problems aren’t actually all that bad to begin with. In order for Bo set to receive understanding in this show, her problems had to be made smaller.
Will Riley
So that was Katie and the Whale. Thanks again for listening to this episode of infinite danger, everybody. It’s been fun getting back into creatively applying myself this way. Rather than writing press releases for companies that create air fresheners that accidentally killed dogs. As per always, we’re going to end this episode on a quick synopsis of the most recent danger Bay episode. I’m getting really excited to see where this is going. Nicole Roberts spies a secluded factory on the shore through her bionic Lea enhanced vision. A thick purple mist is rising from its stack. No doubt about it. This is sea urchin territory. A holographic keyboard projects out of Nicole’s arm as she marks the factory as a target for a planned simultaneous drone strike. They all need to be destroyed at once. Who knows what sort of sea urchin curse might be triggered if one of them is left standing after an attack? It has to be simultaneous just like the release of ocean Hellman’s new avant garde noise album on Spotify and Apple Music. A rumbling din of motors and gunfire comes from off screen. The cold turns around to see a fleet of hostile sea doos piloted by an army of poachers infected with transdimensional sea urchin magics long purple needles are already forming along their backs poking through their leather motorcycle jackets. And they’ve already kitted out their helmets with violet spikes to match they opened fire on Nicole having set their sea doos on autopilot for the purposes of dual wielding, Nicole uses her enhanced reaction speed to catch a bullet with her fingers three inches away from her face. I guess this isn’t a reconnaissance mission anymore. The camera zooms back to reveal that Nicole is standing on top of a giant Orca, one which has been modified to have an entire mobile operating base grafted onto its back whale song plays as it darts around in evasive maneuvers, all while keeping the heavy concrete platform carrying the cold perfectly flat. Nicole holds her temples as she sends telepathic commands to the cetacean armored personnel carrier, the Orca raises its tail fin from the water, revealing that it’s been replaced with an unfolding bulletproof shield. The whale swings its tail around at Nicole’s order, deflecting enemy fire glad I got that installed. Nicole quips the Orca raises its front fins revealing a surgically implanted torpedo launcher. The underwater explosives blast out, heading towards the spiky minions in a serpentine motion. The rope poachers desperately try to abandon their sea You dues and escape, but the fleet erupts into a fireball as they are middly the strike is 100% fatal, Nicole breathed a sigh of relief view. Almost got a little dicey there. Thanks for the assist heavy orca unit to the orcas telepathic voice comes in through voiceover. Nicole, thank you. I’m so glad that you genetically modified me to be able to shoot ballistic weaponry. It’s such a great honor to be able to serve the Vancouver Aquarium, Nicole gives the killer whale a salute. Thank you for your service, Orca, too. I’m going to need it again soon. It looks like this plan of attack will need to be moved up a few days ahead of schedule. So there you have it. I know that there’s some sort of fan debate now about the designs of the Orca units. Some people still prefer it when they had the orcas launch all of their missiles right off of their back. But I mean, I prefer having them come out from under the fins. I mean, if they came out of the back, there wouldn’t be any room for them to place that giant concrete platform for the humans to stand on. Well, that’s it for today. Thanks again for listening. And thank you for all your support. You probably know the routine by now. I’ve got the username of Kasmkave on Twitter and blue sky Kasmkave. And if you’re in Vancouver, check out the app questo and try out some of my tours of the city of Vancouver. I’m trying really hard to find other ways to get you guys to give me money but that’s what I’ve got right now. All right, see you next time danger comes from below as always see you later.