SG-U – Subversion (1x18) - (Discuss – Grade | SPOILERS)
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Well exactly why do you go to expense of sending non scientist, or their support which the military provides, to another planet anyway? Nobody is starting colonies, unless that is what the Alpha site is. I mean contracting out janitorial positions in a Black Op makes little sense.
I have mixed feelings about the episode. I like it overall but I have strong misgivings about the way the interrogation of Telford was handled.
The issue of having sex while in someone else's body is one thing but abusing and attempting to kill someone else's body as part of an interrogation? How would that not be pre-meditated murder, particularly since Young's dislike of Rush and Telford is so well documented? Wray will be totally within her rights to get Young indicted when they get back to Earth and if this is the way that they are going with the military then no way do I want Wray to be sidelined. Young's actions are apalling, amateurish, and unnecessary and having a military sanction in no way protects him or his superiors.
Rush's importance to the mission was realised when he was absent - saving his life is more important than obtaining information surely? Rush can be rescued at any time and will have information about his captors and where he was being held that may be of use. Further, now that the Lucien Alliance's involvement has been uncovered there will be other ways of obtaining information and evidence that don't place anybody's life at risk.
And the one thing the Lucien Alliance has learned over the years is that torture is effective... errrr... only in US tv shows and movies actually. In the real world information and confessions obtained using torture are notoriously unreliable. Why do US writers struggle so much to understand such a concept? 24 got so bad it was hilariously funny but the torture there was prompted by the sense of urgency. The only urgent matter in this episode is saving Rush. I get worried when a principled character like Young is sent down this road by the writers (they did the same thing in season 2 of Lost but at least there it was police interrogation techniques that yielded information eventually). What's worse is that Young has a personal dislike of both people involved in the interrogation. Do Americans really find torture so palatable even where there is no urgency and other methods are available? This interrogation was a series low in the logic stakes for me.
The issue of having sex while in someone else's body is one thing but abusing and attempting to kill someone else's body as part of an interrogation? How would that not be pre-meditated murder, particularly since Young's dislike of Rush and Telford is so well documented? Wray will be totally within her rights to get Young indicted when they get back to Earth and if this is the way that they are going with the military then no way do I want Wray to be sidelined. Young's actions are apalling, amateurish, and unnecessary and having a military sanction in no way protects him or his superiors.
Rush's importance to the mission was realised when he was absent - saving his life is more important than obtaining information surely? Rush can be rescued at any time and will have information about his captors and where he was being held that may be of use. Further, now that the Lucien Alliance's involvement has been uncovered there will be other ways of obtaining information and evidence that don't place anybody's life at risk.
And the one thing the Lucien Alliance has learned over the years is that torture is effective... errrr... only in US tv shows and movies actually. In the real world information and confessions obtained using torture are notoriously unreliable. Why do US writers struggle so much to understand such a concept? 24 got so bad it was hilariously funny but the torture there was prompted by the sense of urgency. The only urgent matter in this episode is saving Rush. I get worried when a principled character like Young is sent down this road by the writers (they did the same thing in season 2 of Lost but at least there it was police interrogation techniques that yielded information eventually). What's worse is that Young has a personal dislike of both people involved in the interrogation. Do Americans really find torture so palatable even where there is no urgency and other methods are available? This interrogation was a series low in the logic stakes for me.
O'Neill succeeded Hammond as the head of Homeworld Security. It was not made clear, but Hammond appeared to have moved upwards to another job as of SG-1's "The Fourth Horseman". Some speculated that he had been made Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force - a position once held in real life by Stargate guest stars Generals Michael E. Ryan and John P. Jumper.
Homeworld Security covers the Stargate programme and US military involvement in all other outward focused efforts - Atlantis, Icarus, the Battle Cruiser programme etc.
This has led to the slightly confusing situation where O'Neill is in overall charge of the overall defence of Earth from extraterrestrial threats but is still outranked by Landry.
It should be pointed out that in real life, operations at the NORAD facility (which is above Stargate Command) are being moved to Peterson Air Force base in Colorado Springs, with NORAD remaining purely as a backup facility.
The only non-scientist civilian assigned to Icarus was Wray, and she was there to be the base's IOA watchdog. To get in everyone's way, prevent what had to get done from getting done and report back to her superiors on Earth. You know, typical IOA behavious
I doubt that Hammond became Chief of Staff. After all, in The Road Not Taken Carter said Hammond retired. And since he wasn't wearing a uniform in The Fourth Horseman, it seems likely he was already retired in that episode.
It is however possible he became the Secretary of the Air Force, a position held by a civilian.
Landry outranks O'Neill? I know when Hammond helf the Homeworld Security position he obviously outranked O'Neill. Hammond was two full ranks higher than O'Neill.
However, when O'Neill took over Homeworld Security, he got promoted to Major General, the same rank as Landry. Although, the impression I got was that Landry still had to answer to O'Neill. Indeed, in Beachhead when Landry wanted Carter on the mission, he phoned O'Neill and argued the matter, as opposed to simply ordering her involvement, which you would think he'd do if he outranked O'Neill.
The only time we had any indication that it was Landry calling the shots was in The Shroud when O'Neill calls Landry "sir." However, it was a casual conversation, and I always assumed this to be O'Neill being O'Neill.
Not that it matters now. O'Neill is now a Lieutenant General and unless Landry has been promoted as well, O'Neill clearly outranks him.
Technically, her job was to be the HR manager for Icarus personnel. She also had some kind of authority over the military, since she was questioning TJ about her resignation in the pilot, seemingly in an official capacity. I got the impression she was really the boss in terms of running the day-to-day operations of the base. Both Young and Rush nominally answered to her, but each had control of their own teams beneath them.
Since going to Destiny, she's been kicked downstairs and stripped of her authority over the military personnel. It's understandable why--they were thrust into a life-and-death situation and the military's job is to ensure the safety of the civilians--but at some point they will have to share the power structure. Young and Wray (with the help of Rush) have wrestled for control of people on Destiny from day one.
I don't see what Wray offers in terms of different leadership, though. It's not like they have control of the ship and can turn it around, or that the military are refusing to go down to planets and gather supplies. I think that's the real weakness in the struggle between Wray and Young: other than who is in charge, I don't see any effective difference in how things would be done. It just appears to be minor things like letting Rush run his science team however he wants, but I have no doubt Wray would rein him in just like Young did the second he does something stupid/reckless.
BSG had an understandable leadership conflict: Adama was a pragmatist and thought it was ridiculous to go chasing visions and legends; Roslin, on the other hand, truly believed she was fulfilling prophecy, and was willing to die to prove it. While they had the same basic goals, they had very different methods for achieving them. I just don't see that here.
Moreover, it wasn't until they found Kobol that that came to a head. Before then, it was pretty much exactly as you see the struggle between Young and Wray going down logically. Roslin and Adama ran into the same problems, and had pretty much the same solutions to them.
I agree with your statement, in general torture is effective in extracting information the torturer wants to hear as opposed to extracting useful information (not to say it doesn't work sometimes)... torture is better used to coerce your opponent into believing or saying what you want.
I don't know. In the pilot, when Young was injured and Scott had to take command, he pretty much ignored her even when she threw a hissy-fit over it. You would think that if Wray had any kind of authority over Young, that Scott would be compelled to consult with her right away.
I would definitely expect the civilians to defer to Wray, but not the military. In fact, as the series has gone on, it's obvious Scott only cares what Young wants him to do--it doesn't matter who is actually in charge, his loyalty is to the Colonel. At least that bit of his character has been consistent!
All the military personnel seem to have blind loyalty to Young, but Scott actually seems to be a bit more flexible than most. After all, after the mutiny he was enforcing Young's command to try to cooperate with civilians. And indeed, new age scientist guy said Scott was the only one in the military who seemed to be flexible about it. And he did eventually fill Wray in on what was going on in Subversion. So I tend to think that if Wray had any serious authority at Icarus, Scott would have consulted with her or at least treated her with more respect than he did in the pilot.
As it stands, she's basically standard IOA. Get in the way, and nag everyone else to prevent anything useful from getting done.
Crikey, another enjoyable episode of SGU :Wtf:
Either my standards have plummeted or the show's improved in the second half-season.
I don't think they should bother with the SG1 cameos anymore. They just serve to remind me of "my" (sorely missed) Stargate, and SGU is so different from SG1 that they really don't fit in. It's like if Neelix dropped in on The Sarah Connor Chronicles or something.
Either my standards have plummeted or the show's improved in the second half-season.
I don't think they should bother with the SG1 cameos anymore. They just serve to remind me of "my" (sorely missed) Stargate, and SGU is so different from SG1 that they really don't fit in. It's like if Neelix dropped in on The Sarah Connor Chronicles or something.
I think what I find so disturbing is that it seems that 'heroes' resort to torture in many major US 'fantasy' dramas. We had it in 24, Lost, in V, Flashforward (although at least there were consequences), in Dollhouse, Heroes, BSG, and I'm sure that there are others. I think they avoided it in Firefly (although Jane would have obliged), and X-Files to name a few. I rarely see any US characters actively supporting the avoidance of torture because er... it's illegal and immoral! I wonder why writers are so obsessed with it - possibly because it's more 'dramatic' than questioning or because it takes longer. I was relieved when Michelle Rodriguez' character in Lost managed to obtain the relevant information just by asking questions and checking out the answers but appalled that so many of the characters were shown to support the earlier torture.
I think you have to draw a line between the instances where everyone (in-show) thinks the torture is okay, and the ones where virtually everyone disapproves.
I wouldn't call anything done to Telford in this episode torture, other than Young's last resort of venting his air--which I'm convinced is a bluff and won't end up doing Telford any harm.
Rush, on the other hand, was tortured pretty badly by the Lucian Alliance. But they're bad guys, so you just expect that.
BSG addressed torture in a clever way, I thought. There were at least two instances where Cylons were tortured (Leoben and Gina), and yet there was a cognitive dissonance involved: it was said that you can't "really" harm a machine, psychologically, because it's a machine. But then torture wouldn't work if that was the case. They were merely justifying their own brutality. I remember lots of lengthy discussions on the subject from various angles. It was pretty cool, and one of the aspects of the show I really liked--it got people to talk and think about what they'd do, and how far they'd go.
I would love to see SGU inspire those kinds of the discussions. If the LA become anything more than one-note villains, maybe we'll get that.
I agree totally; BSG handled torture and terrorism in a very thought-provoking way. I also agree that Young was only nominally using torture but it was so obviously a bluff that I don't think it would have worked anyway. Rush is very important to the mission and Telford knows this plus if Telford thinks that the Alliance will kill him as soon as he gets back to his own body, what has he got to lose anyway?
I realise that they kept the body-swap going for a while in order to keep the tension up but the situation would have resolved itself nicely if they just got Rush back and worked with the information they already have. Telford is unlikely to know anything much of value if the Alliance operates on a need-to-know basis.
It makes me laugh in V how the resistance keeps using their real names on the (compromised) telephone networks in public places and in last week's episode they mention the real name of a sleeper agent on the V ship in the presence of a captive enemy agent, pretty much signing his death warrant if they have any common sense. By rights, given the resources the Visitors have, they should have been caught in a week!
Yeah, don't get me started on how stupid the resistance members on V are.
It's really odd. They seem to have a reasonable budget, the actors are competent, but the writers' room must be in utter disarray because no one has the slightest idea what they're doing or how to fulfill the potential of their premise.Similar threads
