Doctor Lee is a Menace
- Thread starter Sindatur
- Start date
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.
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.
It's just surprising he's allowed so many opportunities to screw up.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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?"
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