Doctor Lee is a Menace

Discussion in 'Stargate' started by Sindatur, Jul 29, 2012.

  1. Sindatur

    Sindatur The Gray Owl Wizard Admiral

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    What with the Creeping Vine Plant and the Game Chair in early S8. I believe there also is earlier evidence of his incompetence, too.

    Does he continue to plague their efforts throughout the rest of S8 and S9-10
     
  2. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    And I though McKay was the mad scientist in the SG verse. :p
     
  3. AJ86

    AJ86 Captain Captain

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    ur all just jelly

    [​IMG]
     
  4. DWF

    DWF Admiral Admiral

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    I really didn't like Dr. Lee in Paradise Lost, but soon he became a sort of lovable goofball and he was one of the few reaccuring characters to appear on all three shows.
     
  5. stj

    stj Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    An action-comedy series needs pure comic figures. Dr. Lee served the purpose admirably.
     
  6. 46379.1

    46379.1 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    He's a comic relief, yes.
     
  7. archeryguy1701

    archeryguy1701 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I could not stand Dr Lee, and it got worse as the series went on. He never did anything right, and his character got pretty tiring by the end.
     
  8. Sindatur

    Sindatur The Gray Owl Wizard Admiral

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    I didn't mean to imply that I dislike the character, it is actually refreshing after watching SG1 Team, to have someone screw things up, and not fix them themselves (Sam has made some pretty serious mistakes, but, generally comes to the rescue fixing it in the end).

    It's just surprising he's allowed so many opportunities to screw up.
     
  9. TiberiusMaximus

    TiberiusMaximus Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    He doesn't always screw up, though. He's just not hyper-competent to the point of having a super-human intellect like McKay or Carter. I always liked him. Felger, on the other hand, I couldn't stand.

    I think part of the reason I like Dr. Lee so much is that he vaguely reminds me of the best science teacher I ever had.

    Doctor Lee and Doctor Cavanaugh made things interesting. Let's be honest...McKay and Carter came to the brink of Mary Sue-land a few times. They weren't that way all the time, but it sometimes got tiresome watching the "suspense" of "not knowing" if they would figure it out in time. You always knew they'd pull off a miracle in the end and we'd have another "Yay, Carter's a genius!" ending.

    I thought Bill Lee was an interesting addition because he was more like a regular person and didn't have all the answers. And Cavanaugh being an absolute jerk was interesting too, just because it was a change from most of the show's scientist characters.
     
  10. Kirby

    Kirby Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I like Dr. Lee, although I think they used him a little too much at times. The one scene that always comes to mind is when he was trying to explain the Twilight Bark to the other scientists.
     
  11. AJ86

    AJ86 Captain Captain

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    One of the few times he did something right!
     
  12. Danny99

    Danny99 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    My feelings exactly.

    If anyone was this incompetent at a high level military facility, he would've been tossed. In the final seasons, he was trotted out for wacky hijinks that mostly made me cringe.
     
  13. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    To be fair in TV land we see when things go wrong, so it might be case of for every failure we see he has ten success that we don't see.
     
  14. chrinFinity

    chrinFinity Captain Captain

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    Not everyone is a Carter or a McKay. When none of the geniuses are handy, Dr. Lee usually did a really good job pulling out the science support whenever he was needed.

    Wasn't he responsible for the team that made it possible for the communication stones to work (more-or-less) completely reliably for the Tau'ri throughout SGU?

    Also you have to recall when Daniel and Vala were trapped in the connection with the Ori galaxy and Cam wanted to destroy the communication device, Dr. Lee was strongly against it for what I felt were very good reasons. He even had the courage to shield the device with his own body when Cam went to shoot it. That scene really endeared him to me.

    Now, there was also the time when he thought Merlin's device was a shrink ray which had "honey I shrunk" SG-1... Clearly this was played as ridiculous comic relief, but from Dr. Lee's perspective, come on. He's got virtually no information to work with, he came up with his best possible theory (on assumption they were still alive), a theory which was frankly no less ridiculous than half of the shit that goes on at the SGC.

    Be realistic here. If it weren't for our omniscient audience perspective at knowing they weren't really shrunk, and if it weren't for the goofy musical score and the other characters all looking sideways at him, Dr. Lee's actions were neither ridiculous, or uncalled for. Consider this... going on the assumption that his friends had not simply been killed by the machine, here's a guy who is willing to put on a stupid rigged-up headband magnifier thing, not caring how silly it makes him look, and then spend hours and hours meticulously searching every inch of the lab's floor in the hopes of saving their lives.

    Dr. Lee's efforts are incredibly touching, and even though his attempts were ultimately misguided, here's a guy that's going to do anything at all that occurs to him in order to help the people he cares about. Who do you want on your side in a difficult situation, someone who throws up their hands and says "I've got nothing," or someone who is willing to do *anything* that possibly occurs to them if it has the slim chance of saving you?
     
  15. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    Didn't McKay once destroy a solar system? Well ok 5/6ths off one. Could tht feat lone class him as a menace?
     
  16. archeryguy1701

    archeryguy1701 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    While we don't want every character to be a Carter or McKay, there has to be a reasonable middle ground between them and Lee. While there are some good aspects to Dr. Lee and he did do some things right, the frequency with which he seemed to screw up or make things worse got really old. With the exception of his occassional good idea, he was mostly there to make the main characters look good and to provide some mildly incompetent comic relief.
     
  17. Xerxus

    Xerxus Commander Red Shirt

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    I'd say Volker, Brodie, Zelenka, and Park are probably the reasonable middleground.
     
  18. Danny99

    Danny99 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Agree and agree. When I saw Lee, it wasn't "Oh good, a scientist that can help", it was "Oh god, how is he going to screw this up?"