1.18: Half-Life

[Tabitha]

----------------------------------------------------
Creating episode thread: Remember only
this episode should be discussed here,
or the spoiler tag used.
----------------------------------------------------


Episode 18: Half-Life

 

[RangerOne SG13 SOR]

K I need to think a bit more before posting but...

WTF was Chuck doing with that Waitress?

Too much too soon what happened to his love for Paige GRRRRRRRRRRR.


Ranger

 

[Tabitha]

Brief Synopsis of this episode:
Angela is haunted by a former Nasa pilot, Gus, who had been subjected to experiments by the shady Cadre, involving his body's superstring (don't ask me, I don't know ), and which allowed him to become immaterial. Unfortunate side-effects seem to be a loss of sanity
The half-life in question describes the pattern of Gus's appearances, from the initial time he was pronounced dead, or lost, two years ago.

Sub-plots include: Sarah's blossoming romance with her boss, and problematic relationship with her estranged husband.
Kurt's ongoing contact with the mother of the young boy his lab-specimen synthetic put in a coma.
Chuck has also apparently gotten over his wife's untimely and tragic death very quickly, and has taken to kissing waitresses (without removing his chewing gum either - ewwwww).

WTF was Chuck doing with that Waitress?

Too much too soon what happened to his love for Paige GRRRRRRRRRRR.

I couldn't agree more - it was too far too fast. It could (and probably will) get ugly.
I liked her, and enjoyed her interactions with Chuck, but.... I mean... it just seemed like bad form on his part.

Hopefully this will get explained, or at least looked at further in the future - perhaps as a source of tension between Neil and Chuck?
And hey, she could always be a synthetic!


This episode was mostly enjoyable, not quite up to Odyssey 5 on top form material, but still interesting, at least so far as we learn a little bit more about the nature of the cadre. Actually, when I say learn, this is only in the loosest sense, as it is simply conjecture on the part of Chuck that the Cadre are involved with these Raven/Bay City. Unless there is a direct follow-up in which they confront Hodge regarding these developments, then I feel that the whole mention of the Cadre is overly complicating matters.

 

[sarah2040]

This episode was brilliant, (the relationship between Kurt/Angela probably influenced my opinion on this........what it is to be a shipper) the scene with Chuck and the waitress, (i think her name was Penny), was a of a shock, if he's only recently lost his wife than he wouldn't be thinking of moving on?!

I feel that the whole mention of the Cadre is overly complicating matters.

There seems to be a lot of loose ends that are flying around as people have previously mentioned and seems to get really complicated if you actually sit down and try to figure what links with what, not that I've done that of course...........

 

[Tabitha]

Head scratchingly complicated. Did you notice that the ENTIRE pre-credits sequence was taken up with the "previously on" bit?

But that's okay, I like complications.

I liked the dialogue in this episode - apart from when people were talking to Gus, it just seemed a bit corny in those scenes.

Before Gus' second-to-last appearance came my favourite line in the episode, from Neil "Ten minutes to Claude Rains".
Odyssey 5 comtinues putting in scifi references wherever it can - I am sure there are many I haven't even noticed!
BTW, Claude Rains = The Invisible Man from the 1930s or 40s movie by the same name.

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by Tabitha
I couldn't agree more - it was too far too fast. It could (and probably will) get ugly.
I liked her, and enjoyed her interactions with Chuck, but.... I mean... it just seemed like bad form on his part.

Hopefully this will get explained, or at least looked at further in the future - perhaps as a source of tension between Neil and Chuck?
And hey, she could always be a synthetic!

I also thought it was way too fast after three episodes in which we had to live with his grief

Those were my thoughts too. A synthetic (and wouldn't Chuck check her out with the camera first?) or a Cadre spy.

The developments with the Cadre were a step too far IMHO.

I thought that the Cadre were simply a section of NASA that wanted robots used instead of Astronauts. This is a view that is actually held by some, and a valid one -- less expensive because no life support needed, less room required on space vehicles, and they don't need to come back again. From the safety aspects alone it is advatageous.

This lead them to the A.I. experiments and ultimately to 'Levianthan' -- whatever that might be?

But now we see them wanting super-Astronauts composed of super-string matter, existing in another dimension. Why? Surely, robots are still preferable.

The introduction of Gus strained the timeline a little. It means that Angela and Kurt were an item two years earlier, when it has been already established that it was during Kurt's latest book tour in the original timeline that they got together.

For all those things, I tended not to like this episode as much.

 

[RangerOne SG13 SOR]

What you have to remember about the link to the Cadre in this episode is that they sold or passed on the research into "super strings" to the corporations at Raven/Bay city. It was then they who asked for a volunteer. The military rather than the Cadre probably wanted the technology.

Anyway the super strings experiment had some flaws im sure of it. When Gus dissapeared it was taken for granted he passed to another dimension. Ok Im happy with that but how did he survive for so long without food and water etc. I dont believe he was in any form of stasis. As the half life cycle began I dont see how he could pass from dimension to reality under his own influences. I dont see how that could work without external input from say a super string belt/watch/strap etc. Surely it was implying the cycle would force Gus from one dimension into another after set periods of time depending on the decay of the super strings effect or however big brainy peopl would put it.

After Angela Stabbed him he then passed back to the other dimension. I was expecting him to suddenly re materialise but that would of been too cheesy but surely teh decay or whatever would still continue and eventually Gus woudl return to this reality permanently?

If he had re appeared then there would of been another body to dispose of, I bet chucks blender never stops churning. or his garden is gettign a lot of attention at the moment. The whole body thing is starting to get silly. How many people are gonna die in these episodes with no comeback. Hell even the FBI have given up on Paige.

Lastly back to Chuck and his new love the waitress. Well I was thinking on that he is either...

a. Thinking I have 5 years left gotta make the most of it.

b. I will kiss her and detect her body heat thru her lips and see if shes a sentient (yes real cheesy that one)

Anyway she doesnt fit in with the story especially when she said synthetic at the end.

She said what we were all thinking.

If they are going to run this show 5 years well every episode cannot be the same find destroy hamper sythentics and sentients so I suppose we are going to see more eps like this one.

Ranger

 

[Ananas]

I was quite interested in what Kurt was saying about the thinker who believes another dimension exists at a frequency too high for us to see. I wanted to look up that great thinker he was talking about, are they a real person? I didn't quite catch the name tho, Yoon or something? Has anyone heard of them?

I bet chucks blender never stops churning.

rofl :laugh:
I have nightmares about that blender of his.


Zoe
XXX

 

[Tabitha]

I think Kurt was referring to Carl Jung. A brief search on google should give you an idea of what his beliefs where - I was under the impression he was more of a philosopher than a physicist.

As for the disappearing body and the reappearing Gus. I think it would make sense that he would reappear permanently after his half-life diminished to nothing - but I thought he had pretty much reached this point when he was fighting with Angela. This doesn't explain the convenient fact that he disappeared after she killed im though


And RangerOne's ideas on the Cadre's meddling with scientific experiments would probably turn out to be one of the major storyline bases. I don't mind so much - the characters are still fresh and the post-watershed (and therefore perhaps quite realistic) dialogue and subject matter would probably keep me interested for some time.