Hey so I finally managed to pick up a copy of Season 5 last week. It's pretty sweet. I've been watching really quite a lot of episodes in all 5 seasons over the last while now.
Anyway, I'd just managed to rewatch Ghost in the Machine earlier today. It had been a while so I thought I'd see what the passage of time would give me any new perspective.
I'd built the significance of this episode up a lot in my mind and it really felt important while watching it. Even before any important things happened. I knew Michelle Morgan did a really great job but I'd almost forgotten just how good it was. Sometimes she even seemed to get Torri's accent down almost perfectly. I still liked the episode overall. Even the little parts of Elizabeth's awkward interaction with the team felt like they added to the sort of atmosphere that made me feel like I was really watching a tragedy unfold. The music helped a lot in certain points. I'd even forgot about some of Woolsey's cool parts. There were a lot of really good little touches throughout. It was still a very powerful episode. I feel like it succeeds at creating another critical moment in John's development like the Season 4 openers did.
But man, you guys are right about one thing. The ending really felt like bull. I suppose I already knew that, but I'd been a while so I hadn't really thought about it specifically. It sorta hit me all over again. The final shot of her floating into space was just.... it didn't feel right. Still I realized afterward that once again, it wasn't so much the end of the episode that bothered me, it was that the ending of the episode WAS the end, of everything. I'd say that character deserved better but then maybe I should be grateful they even showed that whole thing on-screen. Instead of blogging about it 2 years after the fact.
I realize that many of you hated the episode because of what it did to Elizabeth's character and that's understandable. But that didn't bother me so much because I felt that part at least was explainable. After all the things she went through, she's not quite the same person she was before. After all, many (including me, sort of) kind of expected her to reappear as a villain under replicator mind control after BAMSR. Elizabeth being different was sort of what I expected to see.
But this wasn't quite the same but the basic principle was still true. In this case though she wasn't a friend or an enemy so the question of whether "true Elizabeth," so to speak, was still in her was more uncertain. Which in it's own way is actually more interesting.
The one thing that I didn't really get was exactly why Elizabeth would have been so apparently suicidal. I get that she wanted to protect Atlantis. And I can see that John's "You may still think you're Elizabeth, but you're not" would have prompted her into action. I can even see that maybe this was the type of mistake she might conceivably make: it was an overreaction, but one that involved sacrificing herself to save Atlantis.
But in this specific case, why would she be so eager to go offline indefinitely? If she knows she might be a threat why couldn't she just have just "not done what she was afraid of doing" instead of launching herself into space. I guess it could relate back to her being self aware of my earlier point about her not being the same Elizabeth but still: Not exactly a passable reason yet in my mind. and the fact that she didn't want to be rescued is really the only reason that I'd buy about them not going to get her afterward. I do understand the danger the replicators posed and that was the reason for all the tension in the episode but it kind of felt like they sort of lost their way writing at the end. Perhaps due to the last minute rewrites. I think I understand better than ever why Torri didn't want to return to do it.
I never thought that was made clear. In fact neither her's nor the other replicators' exact intentions were made enough. I suppose I could ask on Mallozzi's blog or something. I imagine it was mostly their way of getting the character out of the way but I wonder if they'll be able to provide an answer in universe that works any small way at all.
The final question I think for me would be: when Elizabeth had her final scene with the gang in Woolsey's office, it was there she suggested the plan. And she essentially had her final moment of retrospection with her friends. "When you first reactivated the nanites in me, I said this was a bad idea. So much has gone wrong since then. But I think I finally know how to make this right." The bitter irony of that is that she didn't really make them right in the end. It wasn't better for her, it wasn't better for the replicators and it wasn't better for Atlantis, or at least for John. But I think it was her way of proving to them and especially John it was really her.
What I want to know is that if TPTB wanted us to believe that she actually was putting things right or that it was an intentional bitter irony. Because so much of this episode seems like a brilliantly executed piece of tragic irony and so much of seems like a clumsy attempt to close the story that accidentally ended up working much better than it really had any right to. Probably a little bit of both really. Almost feels kind of like perfect metaphor for the whole show sometimes really. You could always somehow find all the best things right next to the worst parts. Particularly in Season 5.
Anyway, I'd just managed to rewatch Ghost in the Machine earlier today. It had been a while so I thought I'd see what the passage of time would give me any new perspective.
I'd built the significance of this episode up a lot in my mind and it really felt important while watching it. Even before any important things happened. I knew Michelle Morgan did a really great job but I'd almost forgotten just how good it was. Sometimes she even seemed to get Torri's accent down almost perfectly. I still liked the episode overall. Even the little parts of Elizabeth's awkward interaction with the team felt like they added to the sort of atmosphere that made me feel like I was really watching a tragedy unfold. The music helped a lot in certain points. I'd even forgot about some of Woolsey's cool parts. There were a lot of really good little touches throughout. It was still a very powerful episode. I feel like it succeeds at creating another critical moment in John's development like the Season 4 openers did.
But man, you guys are right about one thing. The ending really felt like bull. I suppose I already knew that, but I'd been a while so I hadn't really thought about it specifically. It sorta hit me all over again. The final shot of her floating into space was just.... it didn't feel right. Still I realized afterward that once again, it wasn't so much the end of the episode that bothered me, it was that the ending of the episode WAS the end, of everything. I'd say that character deserved better but then maybe I should be grateful they even showed that whole thing on-screen. Instead of blogging about it 2 years after the fact.
I realize that many of you hated the episode because of what it did to Elizabeth's character and that's understandable. But that didn't bother me so much because I felt that part at least was explainable. After all the things she went through, she's not quite the same person she was before. After all, many (including me, sort of) kind of expected her to reappear as a villain under replicator mind control after BAMSR. Elizabeth being different was sort of what I expected to see.
But this wasn't quite the same but the basic principle was still true. In this case though she wasn't a friend or an enemy so the question of whether "true Elizabeth," so to speak, was still in her was more uncertain. Which in it's own way is actually more interesting.
The one thing that I didn't really get was exactly why Elizabeth would have been so apparently suicidal. I get that she wanted to protect Atlantis. And I can see that John's "You may still think you're Elizabeth, but you're not" would have prompted her into action. I can even see that maybe this was the type of mistake she might conceivably make: it was an overreaction, but one that involved sacrificing herself to save Atlantis.
But in this specific case, why would she be so eager to go offline indefinitely? If she knows she might be a threat why couldn't she just have just "not done what she was afraid of doing" instead of launching herself into space. I guess it could relate back to her being self aware of my earlier point about her not being the same Elizabeth but still: Not exactly a passable reason yet in my mind. and the fact that she didn't want to be rescued is really the only reason that I'd buy about them not going to get her afterward. I do understand the danger the replicators posed and that was the reason for all the tension in the episode but it kind of felt like they sort of lost their way writing at the end. Perhaps due to the last minute rewrites. I think I understand better than ever why Torri didn't want to return to do it.
I never thought that was made clear. In fact neither her's nor the other replicators' exact intentions were made enough. I suppose I could ask on Mallozzi's blog or something. I imagine it was mostly their way of getting the character out of the way but I wonder if they'll be able to provide an answer in universe that works any small way at all.
The final question I think for me would be: when Elizabeth had her final scene with the gang in Woolsey's office, it was there she suggested the plan. And she essentially had her final moment of retrospection with her friends. "When you first reactivated the nanites in me, I said this was a bad idea. So much has gone wrong since then. But I think I finally know how to make this right." The bitter irony of that is that she didn't really make them right in the end. It wasn't better for her, it wasn't better for the replicators and it wasn't better for Atlantis, or at least for John. But I think it was her way of proving to them and especially John it was really her.
What I want to know is that if TPTB wanted us to believe that she actually was putting things right or that it was an intentional bitter irony. Because so much of this episode seems like a brilliantly executed piece of tragic irony and so much of seems like a clumsy attempt to close the story that accidentally ended up working much better than it really had any right to. Probably a little bit of both really. Almost feels kind of like perfect metaphor for the whole show sometimes really. You could always somehow find all the best things right next to the worst parts. Particularly in Season 5.
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