SPOILERS SGA McKay & Mrs. Miller

[justalurkr]

CAVEAT LECTOR: Posted under the influence of a really nice port wine.

Should my feminist sensibilities be offended that a woman dumped fame in physics for husband and recitals? They aren't. No one owes the universe anything. If a physics genius on the scale of a McKay chooses to run away and join the circus of domesticity, that's what women's lib was about to me. It's the universal declaration of sex = lot in life that feminism was supposed to fix. I didn't make the kinder/kuche/kirche choice, and still respect all the women who did.

No, I don't really speak German. Is it obvious?

I'm with Ronon; there's something wrong with people who are nice all the time. It's just not natural.

That said, I was a little disappointed at Rodney becoming the three-way butt of all jokes. Carter, sister and Rod were just really more than needed to be dumped on Meredith Rodney McKay in one episode. Having watched a David Hewlett Profile concerning "Torturing Rodney" over on youtube.com last night (I can dig up the link if anyone really cares, but searching "david hewlett" on youtube.com ought to turn it up) put me in a slightly more amenable frame of mind for such shenanigans.

In the end, the episode turned out to be a slightly less offensive version of SG-1's Geminin: In Which We Dispose of a Hard Won Deus ex Machina. "Less offensive" because we weren't slapped in the face with Rodney's incompetence, the way we were with Sam Carter's inexplicable & childlike faith in her replicated self. I mean, really! The odds they'd be screwing over an inhabited universe were astronomically small? I'd have gone the other way on that, but my understanding of quantum mechanics is limited to slash fiction and a PBS special on The Elegant Universe. I'd have appreciated a scene that brought up and disposed of the inter-dimensional MALP, making it impossible to know for sure that the parallel universe being pooped on with exotic particles really was uninhabited.

I'm guessing this existed for the triple duty of throwing the fans a McKay's Sister bone, "developing" (read: make fun of) the Rodney McKay character and disposing of the ZPM so hard won in in Moebius. There'd better be one hell of a payoff for that in terms of marauding Wraith is all I'm sayin'.

Also...wherefore entropic cascade failure? When the writers decided to pretend "Rod" was on a one-way ticket, I felt the need for an explanation of why that wasn't a death sentence based on no fewer than two SG-1 episodes treating with alternate selves.

Or does reality work differently in Pegasus?

Comments

[nialla]

The odds they'd be screwing over an inhabited universe were astronomically small?

What I found interesting was that Carter was the one telling Jeanie this, via the vidlink to the Daedalus, yet Rodney gets the blame.

Maybe now that Jeanie knows what's really going on our there, she'll be actively working on something to help, so we might get to see her again. You could definitely see the Hewlett siblings' connection, and I think it worked well for the McKay siblings.

Even seeing Sam didn't bother me all that much, though I would have preferred to not have dealt with her. Though I was greatly amused when Sam told Rodney his sister was being a pain in the ass. It runs in the family, no? ;) Jeanie's got more social skills, but I can see her getting hyperfocused on a problem and her similarity to Rodney would be even more striking.

If the ZPM is gone, that means no shield and the like. They're down to using just the naquadah generators, so would that mean that some of the city's systems (such as sanitation) are down as well, or can they be powered by an alternate source?

Also...wherefore entropic cascade failure? When the writers decided to pretend "Rod" was on a one-way ticket, I felt the need for an explanation of why that wasn't a death sentence based on no fewer than two SG-1 episodes treating with alternate selves.

Apparently they "fixed" that with "Ripple Effect" in season 9 of SG-1. Dr. Lee says, "And I'm thinking that the proximity of these realities in relation to each other may account for the absence of the, uh, entropic cascade failure."

So if the realities are next-door neighbors, no failure. Um, right. Looks to me like it would be more likely to be a problem the more similar (i.e. closer) they are.

I know they only did this "fix" because they wanted to show a room full of Sam Carter, but they really should have explained it in this episode of this series. A lot of people gave up on SG-1 a while back and didn't see it, and even those who did (like me), didn't remember it. Perhaps Rodney expressing concern about it, but Rod (or Zelenka) saying it shouldn't be an issue because of the proximity.

While I kept having the urge to say "What a guy!" whenever Rod was onscreen or being talked about (it's a Red Dwarf thing), it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I was getting a mite disturbed over how everyone was treating Rodney, but the scene at the end salvaged it.

Whether they were really disturbed by Rod or not doesn't matter, they told Rodney they were and it made him feel better. John has Rodney's farewell vid on his computer? And him showing it to Jeanie has spawned a great number of bunnies.

Now... bring on the John-as-a-sandwich-filling fic! ;)

Did you see...?

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

Now... bring on the John-as-a-sandwich-filling fic! ;)

Chelle posted one before the show aired. V. Hot it was, too.

I'd completely forgotten Ripple Effect, and even remembering the bare bones of the episode, I don't rememer Dr. Lee's "explanation." I'm with you: the closer the reality, the more a problem it should be.

Another thing that bugs me while sober: the number of times Rodney walked in to a party minus him in the mess, full stop; but, additionally, Rod telling us about the differences in "their" lives that led to they way everyone is now.

(a) Rodney isn't there. What the hell is Rod going to know about his double's life?

(b) Mensa!Sheppard is "hard to talk to." What the hell is rod going to know about John's double's life?

(c) WHY MUST BRIDGE CONTINUE TO VEX US SO WITH OFF-CAMERA CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?!?

[puff puff]