Conversion (208)

[PsychoPenguin]

McKay reminds me of me. Except WAY smarter and, well, male. I hope I don't have quite the ego he does, but I definitely idetify more with him than with any other character.

But while he reminds me of me, he's also definitely NOT me. 'Cause being attracted to a male version of myself would be very creepy. I identify with his sarcasm, but I'm attracted to the soft, vulnerable inner Rodney that he tries to keep hidden. He's a good, decent guy, he just keeps it well hidden.

Dunno if I can do justice to explaining it, particularly to someone who admits being mostly annoyed by him. *shrug*

I hate heroes. They're cliche and their trite nobility gets on my nerves. And the Studmuffins are usually too full of themselves to notice anyone else.

Of course, McKay is no studmuffin HE's too full of himself to notice anyone, either, but where it's irritating in a hero, it's amusing in a guy like Rodney.

Hmmm...well, I can see why you like him. I just can't say the same...

I guess I don't really identify with *any* of the characters myself. Possibly Teyla, but while I've always been sort of physically oriented, (weightlifting and martial arts), I'm nowhere near the kind of shape she's in. And I'm certainly not as beautiful. (My husband disagrees, but hey, he's biased. )

My husband, OTOH, has a great deal in common with Shep. He's an Air Force officer and good at what he does, but he also has a tendency to mouth off when he feels he has to, even to superiors, and yeah...I guess you can say he's sort of cocky. Add to that the fact that because of him I spend a lot of time around military types, some of whom are very similar to him--even the women--and I suppose you have the reason why Shep is my favorite character. Because I may not identify with him, but I feel like I know people who are like him in real life, and thus, it's easy for me to see *them* in his approach to things and his reactions.

Also, not sure what you've got against studmuffins. Once you peel back the cocky outside, they're usually kind of sweet and marshmallowy on the inside.

[SnoggingPicard]

I can actually identify a fair bit of Shep in my own personality...Shep is very much façade - what you see is what he wants you to see. He's a bit of an enigma in a way, which is very much what I see myself as. I only reveal what I want people to know, don't give too much away.

I see him very much as the sort of person who has been burnt a lot, and not really ready to give a lot of himself away...and he hides that a lot behind a veil of cockiness and self-assuredness. I'm not always certain that when he says he's right, that he really believes it. I like the way he just goes with what he feels is the correct thing to do at the time, even if it turns out to be wrong. I'd rather have a man up front who did what he thought was right, rather than betray himself...I find it more honourable to be honest.

All MHO of course...

I'm giving you some green for this one! I think that there's a lot about Sheppard that we don't know, and he uses humor and sarcasm when he gets uncomfortable or when someone gets too close to touching a nerve. He isn't a smart-a$$, just a guy who uses smart-alecky comments in tense situations. I get the feeling that he's very private, and we really don't know that much about him. Aside from stick-fighting with Teyla, we don't see him when he isn't in "command" or "decision" mode, so we don't have a chance to get a good look at the real Sheppard.

[Linzi]

I have to admit, I've always loved the heros. Not the prefect heros, the flawed ones. The smart ones. The REAL ones. Like Shep. Rodney is far more certain he's perfect and such than Shep is about himself.

I'm nothing like Shep, but I relate to him the most. Because he's the Anti hero in many ways. Because he's the guy that never leaves someone behind. Because he's passionate about people. And that he's of the pretty? Well..that happens to be my thing. I love the pretty. But there has to be intelligence and personality with it. Which Shep has.

If I was a guy, I'd want to BE shep when I grow up. But..I'll settle for WANTING Shep instead. LOL

You took the words right out of my mouth Merlin, as usual.......

[Easter Lily]

Oooh, oooh... are we talking about my favourite Stargate person...?

I am certainly in one accord with all the Sheppard adulation... There is no doubt in my mind that he is a type of antihero... that he wears masks and that emotionally he is largely inaccessible. He is, I believe, a very interesting contrast to Rodney, I think, who is completely transparent and whose life is an open book. The man has verbal diarrhoea. But we love him for it. Sheppard, on the other hand, is still an enigma. We don't know anything about the man inside of the uniform. We don't know yet what ultimately drives him to act the way he does. He reminds me of the lone gunman of the western that rides into town who does these heroic deeds at a very high price to himself and yet one doesn't get an inkling of who the man behind the gun is.
If there is one thing that disappointed me about Conversion, it is how little of the angsty Sheppard we saw. (Of course, it confirmed what we knew and that is JF is a wonderful actor) I suppose the trade-off is that we get more Weir development which is terrific... it's about time the women get their time in the sun on Atlantis... but I still think that there is much more to character development than transforming characters into bugs. I'm not sure if it's deliberate... but my long-held belief is that the mystery that is Sheppard is somehow tied to the mystery that is Atlantis... Something that JF himself has hinted at in the past.
I am really looking forward to the time when we really get a glimpse of the man behind the mask whether he be genetically mutated, bug-bitten, or Wraith-beseiged.

[SnoggingPicard]

Easter Lily -- the fact that even though he was pretty much a dead man and knew it and we still didn't get to see the "real" Sheppard is interesting. He hides a lot of what he's feeling under these masks and veils. I think because the character also happens to have very strong feelings for certain things and says so (ex: Teyla's innocence in "Suspicion", Rodney's experiment in "Trinity"), it is easy to assume that we "know" who he is. At the same time, though, we never really are given the reasons why he feels the way he does. We know that he trusts Teyla, for instance, when no one else does, but we're never provided with a solid, concrete reason for that trust. We haven't seen the inner workings of Sheppard yet -- he keeps them too well hidden.

[snaillady]

I liked this episode, also, but had a major continuity break (maybe I only noticed it because I watched the two-parter back to back last night)...

How did Carson get from his offworld vest/dark outfit into the light grey top/lab coat in the time it took the jumper to get to the landing bay and he puts Sheppard on the gurney for the trip to the infirmary? Does he have a flacky meet him at the jumper, "Your coat, sir." like Batman's Alfred?

Hmmm...maybe I should cross-post this to the Labcoat thread? Am I getting a little obsessive now?

[SnoggingPicard]

I liked this episode, also, but had a major continuity break (maybe I only noticed it because I watched the two-parter back to back last night)...

How did Carson get from his offworld vest/dark outfit into the light grey top/lab coat in the time it took the jumper to get to the landing bay and he puts Sheppard on the gurney for the trip to the infirmary? Does he have a flacky meet him at the jumper, "Your coat, sir." like Batman's Alfred?

Hmmm...maybe I should cross-post this to the Labcoat thread? Am I getting a little obsessive now?

Good catch. Hey, when it comes to a certain Scottish doctor, it's okay to get a little obsessive!

[Droops]

I think it wasn't so much an apology for the kiss, more the fact that he startled her and he wanted to know where they stood. I don't think he regretted the action of kissing her as much as the circumstances in which it occurred, and he wanted to make sure that he and Teyla were going to be okay, because their relationship matters a lot to him.

[knocknashee]

Good catch. Hey, when it comes to a certain Scottish doctor, it's okay to get a little obsessive!

Hmmmm...quite. Carson is definitely 3rd on my list...he's adorable, if a little whiney...

[prion]

I liked this episode, also, but had a major continuity break (maybe I only noticed it because I watched the two-parter back to back last night)...

How did Carson get from his offworld vest/dark outfit into the light grey top/lab coat in the time it took the jumper to get to the landing bay and he puts Sheppard on the gurney for the trip to the infirmary? Does he have a flacky meet him at the jumper, "Your coat, sir." like Batman's Alfred?

Hmmm...maybe I should cross-post this to the Labcoat thread? Am I getting a little obsessive now?

Join the club. I pointed it out earlier, but can't recall if it was here, but definitely over at SGAHC. I'm looking at it, going, wait a second, if they're just arriving back from the planet, Carson takes time to change? Of course, maybe he fell in a mud puddle on the way back but still....

And then there's Shep dropping ala Spidey from the ceiling, back to camera (well, it was a stuntman) but when he lands, he's facing the camera (so we can see Joe Flanigan). Ah, those fun continuity errors....

[prion]

I have to admit, I've always loved the heros. Not the prefect heros, the flawed ones. The smart ones. The REAL ones. Like Shep. Rodney is far more certain he's perfect and such than Shep is about himself.

I'm nothing like Shep, but I relate to him the most. Because he's the Anti hero in many ways. Because he's the guy that never leaves someone behind. Because he's passionate about people. And that he's of the pretty? Well..that happens to be my thing. I love the pretty. But there has to be intelligence and personality with it. Which Shep has.

If I was a guy, I'd want to BE shep when I grow up. But..I'll settle for WANTING Shep instead. LOL

Ditto. Perfect heroes are dull, boring. If Superman didn't have his kryptonite, we'd all have been bored to bits. Ditto with Spiderman and his problems (well, at least in the movies; I've never read the comics). Flawed, smart heroes are the most fun. Dumb heroes work only in movies (aka, like the two rather dimwitted but lovable guys in Tremors ).

Basically, there are no perfect people on Atlantis (I think Kavanaugh is the only person who really thinks he is; even Rodney is aware of his flaws - 'imminent death' being one of them). That's what makes them fun.

[Giantevilhead]

This is just another example of how some of that advanced Asgard technology could have made everything a lot easier. They could have beamed the eggs up with the Daedalus and if the Daedalus wasn't availible because of the diagnostics then they could have borrowed a personal cloaking device or a personal shield from Hermiod or in a worst case scenario, they could have cloned Sheppard and put his mind in the clone.

[Merlin7]

Oooh, oooh... are we talking about my favourite Stargate person...?

I am certainly in one accord with all the Sheppard adulation... There is no doubt in my mind that he is a type of antihero... that he wears masks and that emotionally he is largely inaccessible. He is, I believe, a very interesting contrast to Rodney, I think, who is completely transparent and whose life is an open book. The man has verbal diarrhoea. But we love him for it. Sheppard, on the other hand, is still an enigma. We don't know anything about the man inside of the uniform. We don't know yet what ultimately drives him to act the way he does. He reminds me of the lone gunman of the western that rides into town who does these heroic deeds at a very high price to himself and yet one doesn't get an inkling of who the man behind the gun is.
If there is one thing that disappointed me about Conversion, it is how little of the angsty Sheppard we saw. (Of course, it confirmed what we knew and that is JF is a wonderful actor) I suppose the trade-off is that we get more Weir development which is terrific... it's about time the women get their time in the sun on Atlantis... but I still think that there is much more to character development than transforming characters into bugs. I'm not sure if it's deliberate... but my long-held belief is that the mystery that is Sheppard is somehow tied to the mystery that is Atlantis... Something that JF himself has hinted at in the past.
I am really looking forward to the time when we really get a glimpse of the man behind the mask whether he be genetically mutated, bug-bitten, or Wraith-beseiged.

The above is exactly why I love Shep. I do want to know more about him. Conversion clinched stuff we did know. He worries about others before himself. He has a tight TIGHT control over himself. He gives very little away emotionally, and so on. Oh..and he has a dark side. LOL

But I also believe, as you do, that the more we learn about Atlantis, the more we'll learn about Shep. I do think Sheppard is tied into Atlantis.

JF was phenomenal in CONVERSION, but he can do so much more. Now his character/Shep, just needs the writing. Hopefully Epiphany gives us some insight.

[mgbland]

JF did a fantastic job with Conversion. After seeing him in this role, I know he could take on the toughest roles and do a superb job. Mainly the role of the villain. (They usually go to the best actor.)

Yesterday, whe watching Conversion over for the Nth time, I realized that during the sequence

Spoiler:

where Shep broke out of his quarters, I don't think he intended to escape. I think his real agenda was to get someone to kill him. The interchange between him and Teyla, where she said don't make me do this. He approached her, and she shot at this feet. He even made like we was about to do one of his 20 foot leaps, but she still shot to miss. When he realized she wasn't going to kill him, he ran up the stairs.

But the clincher for me was when he

Spoiler:

woke up in medical with that really startled expression in his eyes. As if to say, "I'm still here."

It's the mysterious men that keep our interests. I'd love to see Shep and Weir get into a similar situation alone to what happened to Carter and O'Neill when they found the antartica gate. Great for some character development. But if Shep says, "It's my side arm, I swear." I'll scream.

[Merlin7]

JF did a fantastic job with Conversion. After seeing him in this role, I know he could take on the toughest roles and do a superb job. Mainly the role of the villain. (They usually go to the best actor.)

Yesterday, whe watching Conversion over for the Nth time, I realized that during the sequence

Spoiler:

where Shep broke out of his quarters, I don't think he intended to escape. I think his real agenda was to get someone to kill him. The interchange between him and Teyla, where she said don't make me do this. He approached her, and she shot at this feet. He even made like we was about to do one of his 20 foot leaps, but she still shot to miss. When he realized she wasn't going to kill him, he ran up the stairs.

But the clincher for me was when he

Spoiler:

woke up in medical with that really startled expression in his eyes. As if to say, "I'm still here."

It's the mysterious men that keep our interests. I'd love to see Shep and Weir get into a similar situation alone to what happened to Carter and O'Neill when they found the antartica gate. Great for some character development. But if Shep says, "It's my side arm, I swear." I'll scream.

Suicide by cop. That's been talked about in various places and I agree. That's what he was trying to do. I believe he felt it was too late at this point. He totally seemed stunned to wake up in the infirmary.