Brief Candle (108)

[jelgate]

Well, try watching the scene again where he eats the cake, and take careful note of how he's portrayed immediately after eating it, prior to anything else that Kynthia does. That is definitely not normal Jack, and I don't know what more proof you need beyond that scene.

Something more concrete then your perception of how Jack acts

[SF_and_Coffee]

Because of course you're incapable of perceiving it on your own?

[Skydiver]

Jack was also the only one had intimiate contact. Its pretty clear that is what gave the nanite sickness. I'm not one to believe that the cake caused him to do that without more proof.

why do you need proof????

Even if it was the intimate contact (sparking dozens of 'STD from Hell' jokes) the cake definitely made him....libidinous

Because Jack, as normally portrayed over the years, isn't the type to drop trou and nap alien nookie on a whim.


For cryin out loud folks, this is fun, not someone's thesis presentation....we can agree to disagree and live and let live

Quite frankly, the first several times I saw it I believed that he got the nanites from the cake, until you get to know the show better and realize that pelops likely never set up 'rules' about visitors.

THis episode not only showed some of the inherent dangers of alien worlds, but also that no one is immune, and if a 30 year vet of special forces can fall victim, than anyone can

[SF_and_Coffee]

Sky is spot-on, I think, on all counts. (And I really need to give out more green more often, so I can give it when I really need to.)

[jelgate]

Sky is spot-on, I think, on all counts. (And I really need to give out more green more often, so I can give it when I really need to.)

We all can't be suck ups

[SF_and_Coffee]

*wishes GW had a better smiley for rolling eyes than *

[Skydiver]

so......back to brief candle

there is probably one massive plot hole in just about every alien planet we see.....unsustainable tiny populations. The Argosians - like other planets we see - have too small of a population for there to be a healthy genetic diversity.

Practically, it's because they can only afford so many extras. But, in its most literal sense, a massive plot hole.

[SF_and_Coffee]

I seem to recall a conversation about precisely that on another thread... I wish I could remember what thread it was now. It's a huge honkin' plot hole for those of us who crave logical realism in our sci-fi.

[fems]

What Alekos said also doesn't make a lot of sense.

Spoiler:

ALEKOS
(panicked)
The midwife is gone, I…I do not know the birthing mysteries. And the village is too far. Please? Help us.

Their village was very small, where could she have gone without going out of range? And the village was basically stepping out of the temple...

[SF_and_Coffee]

On the drug thing, I rewatched the scene, and there's also Jack's line: "Damn, she drugged me."

Case closed.

On Alekos, the village, the distance... yeah, I don't get that part either. I mean, okay, so maybe labor happens a lot faster in these people too, given how quickly their lives pass, but still...

[jelgate]

On the drug thing, I rewatched the scene, and there's also Jack's line: "Damn, she drugged me."

Case closed.

On Alekos, the village, the distance... yeah, I don't get that part either. I mean, okay, so maybe labor happens a lot faster in these people too, given how quickly their lives pass, but still...

To me that is just speculation by Jack. He is hardly an expert on drugs

[SF_and_Coffee]

To me that is just speculation by Jack. He is hardly an expert on drugs

And you...?

Oh, nevermind. Some people don't see what's right in front of them. You want to believe that Jack acted completely out of character for whatever reason so you'll have something to complain about, far be it from me to attempt further to disabuse you of the notion.

The rest of us will just be over here, discussing the merits of the episode.

[jelgate]

And you...?

Oh, nevermind. Some people don't see what's right in front of them. You want to believe that Jack acted completely out of character for whatever reason so you'll have something to complain about, far be it from me to attempt further to disabuse you of the notion.

The rest of us will just be over here, discussing the merits of the episode.

This is S1 we are talking about. Yes it was out of character for Jack but a lot of the characters did out of characters things in the first few seasons as the writers tried to find thier feet.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Right, but the writers did make it pretty damn clear that they intended the audience to believe that Jack was drugged. The way he acted right after he ate the cake -- ogling his own reflection, looking around like he was stoned -- what else could they possibly have been trying to convey there? Sure, sometimes the characters acted mildly OOC, but this was way off the scale for an undrugged Jack, and there's no other reason for them to have included it unless they were trying to convey something. And then having him say later that he'd been drugged (and how do you know that he doesn't know anything about drugs, especially given what he says later on to Daniel in the Season 2 episode "Need" about understanding what withdrawal is like?)... why else would the writers have put all that in there if not to convey the idea that Jack was in fact drugged? What else do you need -- a cut to a CGI animation showing alien molecules interacting with his brain chemistry, complete with labels and a nice cheesy voiceover narration like what you'd find in anti-drug health films from a 1970's high school curriculum???

I'm a writer, and there's something known in writing circles as "Chekhov's gun" (that's the Russian playwright Antonin Chekhov, not the Star Trek character). You can Google it, but basically it boils down to a rule in writing, whether for the stage, the screen or even the pages of a book, that says "don't put something into a scene or a story unless you mean it to be used". In other words, if you're going to include an element in something, you should only do so if you mean for it to be taken seriously, for its meaning to have importance. In "Brief Candle", the idea of Jack being drugged by something in the cake is Chekhov's gun.

[garhkal]

Did we ever find out the gou'ald who actually was responsible for this planet?