As we are going down this path again I thought I might re send the
message Steven Moffat send to answer our questions. It was from July
2
Natacha, who never deletes any of her PG messages
Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 18:24:52 GMT
From: vince@deehan.demon.co.uk (Vince Deehan)
Reply-to: vince@deehan.demon.co.uk
To: pressgang@yoyo.org
Subject: [pressgang] Re: 23:45
Reply-to: Press Gang Mailing List <pressgang@yoyo.org>
I recieved this e-mail from Steven Moffat on Tuesday and he has asked
me to send it to the mailing list as well. Erik, watch out. Steven
has seen your post about "A Quarter To Midnight" and he has a few
words to say to you !
STEVEN MOFFAT writes:
> I popped in on the PG newsgroup today and noticed someone nitpicking
> "A Quarter To Midnight". Since it's one of my favourite scripts I
> decided not to take it lying down so would mind posting this?
Erik writes
> "I've seen A Quarter To Midnight today
> I spotted a load of logical mistakes in there."
Steven Moffat writes:
> Actually, I don't think you have - though please keep in mind that
> the show is only 25 minutes long and it's not possible to make
> everything absolutely explicit without a) being really dull b) being
> a lot longer than 25 minutes. But I think everything is there if
> you look for it/think about it.
Erik writes:
> "First of all, she is able to dial, right? So why can't she give any
> signal? By pressing the numbers she should be able to make 12
> different sounds. As long as she's able to dial that works. If they
> still used the pulse dialing system back than, she could at least
> have created that pulse dialing noise. She didn't even try, so maybe
> she didn't think of it. Very unlikely though as anybody would try to
> press any buttons, but okay, she always had problems with more
> complicated phones."
Steven writes:
> Oh, come on. It's long established in the series that Lynda is not
> technically able and in particular is barely able to operate her
> mobile (see The Big Hello). Now *you* might know that the newsteam
> would be able to hear the tones or pulses even though they can't
> hear her voice - and you might even be right - but would Lynda have
> enough faith in that to bet her life on it? With the limited
> battery power she sticks to what she knows will work.
Erik writes:
> "Secondly out of the peaple in the newsroom somebody could have come
> up with "give her a list of possible answers with numbers, and she
> can answer by letting the phone ring the number of times the answer
> has on the list. example: yes=1 ring, no=2 rings, don't know =3
> rings." A good choice of questions and answers would have been not
> too much of a problem. Although I must admit I have no idea if
> dialtone and rings of the phone are synchronised in the UK. In
> Germany they are."
Steven writes:
> In an early draft I had a scene like this but there were three big
> problems with it. 1) The chances of them hitting on the right
> questions quickly (and given the length of our scenes it would have
> to be quickly) seemed teeth-clenchingly unbelievable. 2) It
> would've been the boring piece of televsion in television history 3)
> Unless they hit very lucky, it would've taken a lot of battery
> power. At the top of the show Lynda is already at the end of her
> working day - her phone, therefore, doesn't have a lot battery of
> power left. And contrary to what someone else remarked she
> *doesn't* have it on all the time - Julie is unable to raise her at
> one point precisely because Lynda is conserving her batteries."
Erik writes:
> "And last but most important: (spoiler spoiler spoiler!!!)
> She saves herself because she had entered her lucky number into the
> time lock. When she did this the door was still locked. Later it was
> still locked until the time lock opened it. This means: If I wanted
> the locked door to open, I'd for example just have to go down there
> a moment before 10pm and enter 2200. The door would open a minute
> later. Not much security, don't you think?"
Steven writes:
> Only if you had a key. Watch the show again. Lynda is only able to
> do what she does because the guy turns a key in the keypad lock.
> This allows him to override the lock and - because he is distracted
> and leaves for a moment - Lynda to inadvertantly alter time lock.
> Remember, he's only Lynda's contact because he has access to the
> vault - so it's no big surprise that he has access to the vault, is
> it? Now you might want to be critical of the security proceedures
> here but within the confines of the show I don't think I'm pushing
> things too far here.
>
> Somebody else was confused that the door didn't open at the first
> available 23:45 which would've been the same night. You're assuming
> that Lynda gets trapped *before* 23:45 that night, which she
> doesn't. She has to wait until it comes round again the next night.
> Remember how late the newsteam work and how much later Lynda is.
> By the time Spike arrives at the restaurant it's probably around
> midnight - which, of course, means it's a special booking/private
> party but given their hours it would have to be, wouldn't it?
>
> The real question for this and every other episode is why does it
> take so long for around twenty of them to produce one weekly paper?
> But, hey, it's television.
>
> Steven Moffat
That was fun wasn't it ! Many thanks to Steven for giving us the
definitive explanations.
----------------------
Regards
Vince Deehan
Wembley
London
www.deehan.demon.co.uk
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