“Angry with the Sky” original cut finale!
Channing: Hey folks! Sometimes when we’re forced to reorder events, individual gags and whole scenes are sometimes lost to the cutting room floor. My original scripts had Tigerlily working on converting Annex One to a mobile fortress rather earlier, at the end of “Angry with the Sky.” I’m happy with the final ordering of events as it stands, but if you’d like to see a portion of my first draft of how “Angry with the Sky” originally closed, you may take a peek at it here. As always, to see more of this cut content and original production scripting, consider backing our Patreon at the appropriate level. Enjoy!
Shaenon: I have to admit, my only goal with “Angry with the Sky” was to make sure Tip got all the little pieces of his comeback outfit, and that they at least kind of coordinated.
So I’m doing a reread and I’ve developed a theory about Chris, Marcie, and particularly Doctor Lee and how she applies sane methods to mad science vis-à-vis reality blindness:
So, as we all know, radiation is basically magic. However, most sane scientists are not aware of this. This is because they are so reality blind that they can create an irradiated horror and not even see it. The D of I duo are not mads, they are merely reality aware enough that they can observe and document what actually happens when they run something through the iradiator.
Things are more complicated with Doctor Lee, who at times displays mad-like behavior. However, it is possible that much of her work is simply a case of observing mad science in action, and copying it. Under this theory, Doctor Lee is sane, she is simply the least reality blind person in existence. Even Mendoza has limited reality blindness, causing him to be unable to truly observe the inner workings of mad science devices. Virginia can see exactly what is happening inside a mad science device and can copy it and implement it in non-mad applications.
The reason she is not mad then, is that she cannot invent mad objects from scratch. She could replicate the quantum PDA from Narbonic, or even implement the technology behind it into, say, a quantum smartphone. What she couldn’t do is sit down at a bar with a paperclip and build a new and impossible device from scratch; at least assuming this theory holds any water.
So, what do you think?
But by that logic, you could reason that no one is truly Mad. Dave didn’t really build the quantum PDA from nothing. Artie was just too reality blind to see how he did it.
Is not then Madness merely the lifting of the veil of reality blindness entirely, so that one can see all the things that “normal” people perceive as impossible? And since these exceptional people can see these things that “normal” people cannot, and since they almost always gain this ability well into their lives, and use it to create horrific devices that “normal” people cannot comprehend, they are labeled as having a mental disorder, and called Mad.
Virginia has always had this ability, so she has never suffered the jarring transition of suddenly being able to perceive things that were previously not possible. For her, they have always been possible. This is why she believes herself to be sane. She doesn’t build her own “Mad” inventions because she does not have the drive to build that which used to be “impossible”, because for her, everything has always been possible. The only frame of reference she has for what inventions are Mad is because they were made by someone who is known as a Mad scientist, and other people can’t figure out how they work. She has the rare ability to dumb down such inventions to the point where others can comprehend them.
In a way, that makes her more Mad than most.
I’m afraid don’t quite buy either of these theories. Ginny complains that things shouldn’t be possible all the time. Her frame of reference for mad science is her “silliness benchmark”, which if anything is stricter than most non-reality-blind people.
Her skill is to look at mad science and say “Okay, that doesn’t make sense. But what would make sense is if…”, and then build her own, sensible brain-dispensing machine.
And that phrase right there – “sensible brain vending machine” – is what tipped Sergio off to the fact that she’s Mad as a hatter. She either honestly doesn’t realize it, or she refuses to admit it.
I‘ve never thought Ginny was a mad scientist, but I do think she’s an evil scientist.
Let’s face it. Someone who’s sweet on Nick Zerhakker has got to have something wrong with her.
Self-admitted, way back when, The thing is, she’s got limited abilities with the technology, but she doesn’t have any of the other classic features of the syndrome — no hallucinations, no raving (annoyed sputtering doesn’t cut it), no grandiose delusions.
The reason almost all Mad scientists have the mental… disturbances… is that their brain is constantly trying to reconcile what they “knew” before their transition into Madness, and what they can perceive now, after the transition. The disparity between the two drives them insane – hence the nickname for Walton’s Disorder: “Mad”. They build crazy devices because they’re constantly finding new things that they never knew were possible, so they just have to try them out and see what happens.
But it has been my belief for many years now that Virginia was born like that. For her there is no “before and after” because she never experienced a transition. There is no “I never knew that was possible, so let’s try it” because for her anything has always been possible. So she is a Mad scientist, but she is not insane. That is why it is so easy for her to understand Mad inventions, because she grew up understanding them. That’s why for her, the phrase “sensible brain vending machine” seems perfectly normal, whereas for Sergio, it was a dead giveaway that she was Mad.
You don’t just “approach” Alaska, you have to sneak up on it.
Nah, just claim tourist status and wave some cash and they’ll open all of the doors for you.
You can’t sneak up on it. They can see you coming.
“my only goal with “Angry with the Sky” was to make sure Tip got all the little pieces of his comeback outfit”. And, I’m guessing, just a wee bit of “avoid having to draw the terrifying clockwork superstructure into which Hitty is wired.”
OK, I can’t be the only person wondering what’s in that “Notepad” window in the lower right on Jeff’s screen, with the Fraggles. Anything you’d care to explain to us, Jeff?
It’s a transcript of the original show bible for the “Fraggle Rock” TV show, used by the cast and crew. It is known as the “Encyclopedia Fragglia.”