He's back!!!!! What do you think about it?

[SoulReaver]

Carson went out in extraordinary fashion in Sunday. It was the perfect exit for him.

blown to bits, perfect for him ? that's nice

[TDgamer]

blown to bits, perfect for him ? that's nice

Haha. Funny, you know what I mean.

[SoulReaver]

[erb]

Someone sorta said that this not being the real Carson leaves the events of Sunday intact. Another way of putting it is, Sunday is still a powerful episode and it is not cheapened since the original Carson died. With this Carson it is Carson in the flesh and mind and body and whatnot. I feel the clone bit worked. How they would make the original return from the dead would of been cheapened, imo.

For me, I don't particularly care about leaving the events of Sunday intact. And as I value clone Carson (just like I valued the replicator copies of the team and consider their sacrifices tragic), the death would still be meaningful to me.

[bluealien]

They should have let him remain dead. Sunday was one of the best and most poignant eps of Atlantis and now its a bit of a joke. Why is everyone treating him like he is the real Carson. A clone with Carsons memories is not the same and there would have been more differences than they showed in the ep... you cannot re-create someone in a lab and have them act the exact same as the original person...

Carson is dead and this copy of him can never be the same and I didn't like how everyone was treating him like the real thing..he is not and the entire Carson storyline line just didnt' interest me at all. He just felt out of place in the ep and just a means to force misplaced emotion on the characters.

[Guest]

I'm most likely in the minority, but I am against the return of Beckett. Sure with SciFI, you can bring back a character, but I feel that it cheapens the character and death. Your unhappy with a character being dead, don't worry TPTB will bring back the character back with some lame scifi cliche.. It also takes away the quality of Sunday.

I disagree with that, if anything I believe this Carson being a clone has not in anyway taken from the quality of 'Sunday' and the integrity of that episode has been left intact...

Someone sorta said that this not being the real Carson leaves the events of Sunday intact. Another way of putting it is, Sunday is still a powerful episode and it is not cheapened since the original Carson died. With this Carson it is Carson in the flesh and mind and body and whatnot. I feel the clone bit worked. How they would make the original return from the dead would of been cheapened, imo.

Bwahahaha! I believe that someone was me!

Original post:

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I watched 'Sunday' again earlier and a good reason for Carson to have been a clone in TK II hit me... One of the concerns I had with Carson coming back is how it would change how I view that episode and I'm sure others have mentioned it aswell... I'm actually glad that the TK Carson is a clone dispite some fan reactions there is nothing that really makes him anyless the Carson Beckett we knew and the impact of the Original Carson's death in 'Sunday' is left intact...

Can you imagine what that would have been like, watching that final scene of 'Sunday' and knowing that it was not really Carson everyone was morning over??

...IMO after thinking on it, Carson returning as a clone has served the shows integrity rather than taken from it.

____________________________________________________

The only problem I could have with the Carson we have now is nothing to do with him being a clone... to me he didn't seem like the Carson we knew but that is completely understandable as alot had changed from his perspective since he last saw the others *with the original Carson's memories he will be experiencing the loss of Weir aswell as having to deal with finding out he is a clone and his friends and Family on Earth thinking he is dead*

I expect this will change when we see Carson again in S5, so really I'm happy with how this has turned out and I have nothing bad to say about Carson being a clone or any negative effect his return could have on the character or the S3 ep 'Sunday'... I'm really looking forward to seeing him in S5, getting cured and back to being that Scottish Doc we enjoy seeing on Atlantis

[Serebii]

big deal - it ain't even Carson, just a facsimile with the same face & memories. better than nothing I guess for if they can cure him he'd still be a valuable asset to the team. till then, nighty for him

What is a person if not a sum of all his memories?

[SoulReaver]

What is a person if not a sum of all his memories?

golly, so you're a hard disk ?


if you ponder on this for a moment, you may realize that your statement in fact contradicts itself, and the possibility of this being the real mccoy (the persona)

[jenks]

How does that statement contradict itself?

[Briangate78]

For me, I don't particularly care about leaving the events of Sunday intact. And as I value clone Carson (just like I valued the replicator copies of the team and consider their sacrifices tragic), the death would still be meaningful to me.

Well it's good that you value the clone. He is a real person as well.

Carson is dead and this copy of him can never be the same and I didn't like how everyone was treating him like the real thing..he is not and the entire Carson storyline line just didnt' interest me at all. He just felt out of place in the ep and just a means to force misplaced emotion on the characters.

Yes, you are right. The Copy will be even better than the original Carson because he has a lot to prove and he has been through a more terrible ordeal than the original Carson. For the record, I am glad he is back. He adds to the show and is needed for next season.

[Pharaoh Atem]

Fantastic, what took them so long?

he's back and that's all that matters but this time with a little twist

[ShadowMaat]

I'm against it. I think that sometimes the dead should stay dead and not be resurrected in any form, particularly not a loophole-y real-but-not way.

Someone asked about Thor, but as far as I'm concerned, the Asgard don't count. They're already clones and when they transfer their consciousness (which is, as someone pointed out, the original and not a copy) the old body is destroyed, so beyond maybe a brief transfer period, there is only ever one Thor, one Heimdall, one Hermiod, etc. Now, if you wind up with a situation where there are TWO Thors existing simultaneously for an extended period before one of them is killed, then there might be an issue of which was the "real" one.

In regards to Sunday, yes, I do feel that Carson's return- even in clone form- cheapens the original's death. Sunday was an emotionally powerful episode for a lot of people and some fans were upset about it for a long while afterwards. Now, however, they can watch it and know that it's only temporary and that Carson (or a version of him, anyway) will be back in the next season. Maybe it's still sad, but I think it loses some of that resonance when you know he'll be back.

I'm also of the opinion that a clone isn't the same as the original, particularly not when both exist simultaneously and have different experiences. Add in that in this case Carson 2 may have been tampered with by Michael and you're another step removed from "our" Carson. IMO, of course. A number of people seem perfectly happy to accept Carson 2 as the real deal and that's fine for them; in fact, it'll probably make watching the show a lot easier and more enjoyable, but for me it won't be the same and I don't care if the whole team comes out and says, "Yes, this is our Carson, returned to us!" because as far as I'm concerned, it isn't. The clone is just a cheap copy and it was made only so that TPTB could bring back a much loved character and thus boost their ratings and from where I'm sitting it looks as though they're sacrificing everything to do it- from the "real" Carson's sacrifice in Sunday to Teyla's story arc in Kindred to the integrity of TPTB themselves, something has been lost and at this point I'd say those things are irretrievable.

Let the dead stay dead; don't use cheap gimmicks and worn-out loopholes to bring someone back even when you can use the excuse of it not being the "real" person. If you ask me, these tricks are over-used in scifi in general and on Stargate in particular.

[Jackie]

I expected him to be a clone when JM stated "in the flesh." Then hearing he would only be in 5 eps next year sealed the clone theory for me...if it was real carson there would be more of a reason to bring the actor back full time and get rid of the Keller chick.

Anyways, Paul's acting was superb and set against the rest of the cast he should indeed be a full time regular. He's one of the few actors on the show that can keep my attention even when only stating a few words. Ronon cannot do that!

As far as the cheapening of "sunday" ep goes...well, IMHO Sunday sucked so bad that it could not possibly be cheapened.

The ep was awful and didn't do the character justice...killed by an exploding piece of fatty tissue...please! No one would go fishing...*rolls eyes*

If anything, Carson's return helped undo the injustice Sunday left me feeling. No one deserves to die in a "joke" sort of way. I hated the time looping done in Sunday and the so called "mystery" to changing a piece of body tissue into a deadly exploding force.

I would have liked to see Carson as the original but alas, that will never happen due to the box tptb wrote themselves into by using Carson as a ratings ploy. For some odd reason tptb's theory that "if you kill him they will watch" never panned out and behold the ratings didn't have major returns.

So, I am forced to resign any hope for seeing Stargate return with a confident doctor or leader for that matter.

[ToasterOnFire]

I'll vote whatever option is close enough to "meh".

[bluealien]

I expected him to be a clone when JM stated "in the flesh." Then hearing he would only be in 5 eps next year sealed the clone theory for me...if it was real carson there would be more of a reason to bring the actor back full time and get rid of the Keller chick.

Anyways, Paul's acting was superb and set against the rest of the cast he should indeed be a full time regular. He's one of the few actors on the show that can keep my attention even when only stating a few words. Ronon cannot do that!

As far as the cheapening of "sunday" ep goes...well, IMHO Sunday sucked so bad that it could not possibly be cheapened.

The ep was awful and didn't do the character justice...killed by an exploding piece of fatty tissue...please! No one would go fishing...*rolls eyes*

If anything, Carson's return helped undo the injustice Sunday left me feeling. No one deserves to die in a "joke" sort of way. I hated the time looping done in Sunday and the so called "mystery" to changing a piece of body tissue into a deadly exploding force.

I would have liked to see Carson as the original but alas, that will never happen due to the box tptb wrote themselves into by using Carson as a ratings ploy. For some odd reason tptb's theory that "if you kill him they will watch" never panned out and behold the ratings didn't have major returns.

So, I am forced to resign any hope for seeing Stargate return with a confident doctor or leader for that matter.

Dead is dead.. People die in all sorts of way and you could probably argue that none of them deserved to die in any sort of way.. but dead is dead. And for me Carson is dead and buried and was mourned by his friends. Then a clone of him just appears and they are willing to treat him like he was the real Carson..that to me makes a joke of Carson's death. I didn't really have a problem with Carson dying as it brings realism to the show when someone actually dies. Sunday is one of the best eps for me because it shows real emotion and caring and that lives can be snuffed out at the most unexpected times.

But Kindred 2 and Carson's return as a clone marginalizes death. Why should any of them fear death.. you just just create a clone and it will as good as the real thing. A life is more than a biological creation fitted with a few memories. The clone has never experienced anything of Carson's life so how can he make sense of anything that happened it him.. This is not Carson so why is he being treated like he has returned from the dead. Carson is still dead and buried and this is just a copy who cannot possibly act in exactly the same way as the original Carson as he has never experienced any of the memories that he has been given...

I said goodbye to Carson in Sunday and the character never really interested me enough in the first place to care about his return and the way it was done just turned me off his character completely. Maybe if he hadn't been a clone I may have taken to him a bit more but either way I couldn't see him as the doctor again in Atlantis and think it would have been much better for the writers to have let the character rest in peace..