There's no denying that it was a great episode from a lot of points of view, and I loved that wraith, especially when he drooled on the magistrate!
But there was one big problem with it that left a very sour taste in my mouth (not the wraith's last chef, that is). This was the ending. Essentially, our heroes had condemned an entire civilisation, an entire population, to be culled, and walked away without even a backwards glance or a hint of doubt about what they'd just done.
Yes, many of the prisoners were political (and therefore unjustly imprisoned) but many were clearly not (Torrell, the local gang boss, is clearly a nasty piece of work).
Yes, the regime/current government of the Olesians was collaborating with the wraith, but were the Olesian people to blame? Did they deserve to be slaughtered because of the actions of their leaders? Remember that it is not established whether they're a democracy, so we have no idea whether the people even have a vote in the matter. I would suggest not, given that the magistrate was able to enact new laws overnight and that comments from Eldon (the slightly retarded prisoner helping Rodney) suggested that such laws were regular occurrences whenever the island's population got a little thin. This suggests a materially wealthy, yet still oppressed population where anyone who steps out of line, such as the magistrates assistant (who told Weir about the new laws) is instantly punished with what amounts to a death sentence - transportation to the island.
My basic point is this: at the end the writers obviously want us to cheer when we see the magistrate filling his pants in fear - we're supposed to applaud that our guys have undone a great injustice wrought on the prisoners by their evil oppressors on the mainland who, as a whole, profit by their suffering.
I actually felt a little sick that the writers had just showed our heroes condemn an entire population of people whose actual situation they know nothing about. Don't forget that the only reason they took the prisoners with them was to save themselves, because without the prisoner's co-operation, Shepperd et al would never have escaped.
So what's the message? So long as we get our people back, we don't care what happens to anyone else. They is just foreigners, anyway, yeah?
Please feel free to disagree. I'd prefer to be proven wrong, because the ending still annoys me even now.
But there was one big problem with it that left a very sour taste in my mouth (not the wraith's last chef, that is). This was the ending. Essentially, our heroes had condemned an entire civilisation, an entire population, to be culled, and walked away without even a backwards glance or a hint of doubt about what they'd just done.
Yes, many of the prisoners were political (and therefore unjustly imprisoned) but many were clearly not (Torrell, the local gang boss, is clearly a nasty piece of work).
Yes, the regime/current government of the Olesians was collaborating with the wraith, but were the Olesian people to blame? Did they deserve to be slaughtered because of the actions of their leaders? Remember that it is not established whether they're a democracy, so we have no idea whether the people even have a vote in the matter. I would suggest not, given that the magistrate was able to enact new laws overnight and that comments from Eldon (the slightly retarded prisoner helping Rodney) suggested that such laws were regular occurrences whenever the island's population got a little thin. This suggests a materially wealthy, yet still oppressed population where anyone who steps out of line, such as the magistrates assistant (who told Weir about the new laws) is instantly punished with what amounts to a death sentence - transportation to the island.
My basic point is this: at the end the writers obviously want us to cheer when we see the magistrate filling his pants in fear - we're supposed to applaud that our guys have undone a great injustice wrought on the prisoners by their evil oppressors on the mainland who, as a whole, profit by their suffering.
I actually felt a little sick that the writers had just showed our heroes condemn an entire population of people whose actual situation they know nothing about. Don't forget that the only reason they took the prisoners with them was to save themselves, because without the prisoner's co-operation, Shepperd et al would never have escaped.
So what's the message? So long as we get our people back, we don't care what happens to anyone else. They is just foreigners, anyway, yeah?
Please feel free to disagree. I'd prefer to be proven wrong, because the ending still annoys me even now.
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