Collateral Damage (912)

[spaceangel]

My vote is that this episode was slightly better than the stuff they've served up so far this season. I was pleased to see some backstory for Mitchell at last but I still feel like Daniel, who said something to the effect, " I don't know this guy very well but...". Even Daniel has no rapport with M...not surprising since he is still calling him Jackson. FCOL.

[Fargater]

. . . . Yeah, Mitchell is good at quirky, funny remarks in dangerous situations like Jack was. But that's just part of his character. Unlike Jack, Cam seems genuinely interested in things Daniel discovers, and loves knowing everything he can about a situation. I mean, the guy's read every mission report of SG-1's. Also, he's the kind of guy who doesn't like to use force unless absolutely necessary. For example, in "Beachhead", CM was hoping he'd have a "nuke-free career". Jack was always ready to bomb the he** out of the enemy. . . .

Yeah, I agree with this assessment.

[Dani347]

My vote is that this episode was slightly better than the stuff they've served up so far this season. I was pleased to see some backstory for Mitchell at last but I still feel like Daniel, who said something to the effect, " I don't know this guy very well but...". Even Daniel has no rapport with M...not surprising since he is still calling him Jackson. FCOL.

Well, he actually said he hadn't been working with him very long. Which is true. But, I don't think that was meant to indicate a lack of rapport. Now, whether that is conveyed to everyone is another story, but I see the rapport.

And, although I hate hate hate the Jackson (Daniel is such a nice name) I don't think that in itself means a lack of rapport.

[the fifth man]

Yeah, I agree with this assessment.

Good to know.

[Fargater]

I liked this ep. Was great to get some of Cam`s backstory. I liked the parallel between his father`s and his own injuries. Now we know where he gets his determination and glass-half-full attitude.

Bummer that the others didn`t have much to do except stand around exchanging glances, but some eps are like that. There are plenty throughout the series that focused almost entirely on one character. It was Cam`s turn. I did like the looks they gave each other when they must have been wondering what Cam did in his past that could evoke a similar response to a memory of murdering someone.

I thought it was the Emissary at first and also thought Please don`t be so obvious! So was glad when it turned out not to be. I also liked that even though it was fairly simple plot-wise there was that twist at the end. Yes it was like the B5 ep with Brad Dourif but it`s a good plot device and raises interesting moral/ethical issues. I liked that they didn`t resolve it either but just left it for us viewers to chew on.

As for the replay of the murder being overkill, yeah I was uncomfortable seeing it repeated but I`ll allow that was intentional on the part of the writers. They want us to feel what it would be like for Cam to have those images stuck in there. And as uncomfortable as it is for us to watch it, that`s nothing compared to the person who knows he didn`t do it yet sees it as though he did. Which brings me to a nitpick. This is done in a lot of shows where we see something through the eyes of a character, yet the camera goes back and forth from us looking through his/her eyes to showing us the character in the scene doing something. They should keep it looking thru his/her eyes so we see the action as the character sees it. Think of the M*A*S*H ep when the viewer got to be the patient. That`s how all scenes like that should be done.

I`m also in the camp of the folks who didn`t like the kiss and Cam seemingly making moves on the scientist. Just didn`t seem right. Unprofessional at the least and possibly out of character. We don`t really know enough about him to know if he`s that quick with the women, but everything we`ve seen so far implies he wouldn`t be so loose. He could have just walked her home, they could have talked, jealous ex could have thought there was more going on and taken it from there.


EDIT: Forgot to add that I liked that last scene with Cam and Landry.

[Fargater]

I finally read all the posts and I'm surprised that so many people disliked this episode. I loved it!

<<snip>>

One of my favorite moments was in the flashback to when young Mitchell saw his father for the first time after he lost his legs. The father looked at him apprehensively, wondering if his beloved son was going to think he was a freak, and after a short pause, the son's face lit up in a smile and Dad knew everything was going to be all right.

Frell, I wish I`d seen this post sooner. You describe to a "T" everything I liked about this scene.

It was a wonderful scene and I thought that kid was quite the looker. I'm not good at deciding if someone looks like someone else, so I'm not sure if he was a good representation of a younger Browder, but he sure had the good looks to make it believable to me!

Actually that was the only thing I thought was off, but I didn`t let it get to me.

It's weird, but during the final scene when Mitchell's father was telling him how strong he was, I had tears streaming down my face. I don't think that scene was particularly emotional to me, so maybe it was the culmination of all the flashbacks and it just hit me then, for some reason. --and I was reminded of the earlier flashbacks because his father telling him how strong he was reminded me of the hospital flashback and how strong that young boy was to quell his fears and sadness and give his father the smile he needed to continue his recuperation.

I really enjoyed this episode, my favorite so far and one that I don't know when I'll have the heart to delete from my DVR.

It didn`t move me to tears, but I loved that scene too.

[Fargater]

Well, he actually said he hadn't been working with him very long. Which is true. But, I don't think that was meant to indicate a lack of rapport. Now, whether that is conveyed to everyone is another story, but I see the rapport.

I saw that line as indication of growing rapport. Daniel knows enough about his new teammate to predict how he`ll react.

And, although I hate hate hate the Jackson (Daniel is such a nice name) I don't think that in itself means a lack of rapport.

Yeah, I don`t much care for the "Jackson" thing either. Maybe Cam`ll start calling him Daniel soon and that will be meant to show even more rapport. Or maybe they`re using "Jackson" for reasons of their own, like to have it be a "Cam" thing. Which I may never get used to.

[Fargater]

I didn't see Daniel judging a society, I just saw him frustrated by the framing of a colleague and virtually impotent - that little comment (which didn't criticise or judge, only compared) was all he could think of to do or say in his friend's defence. He could have said nothing, but that wouldn't have been very Danielish either!

[crichton]Can I get a HELL YEAH?![/Crichton]

[Fargater]

I like this episode even better the second time I watched it! A+

Thank you, NotAscended. I came across your post while reading this thread and the part of the discussion that wondered if Mitchell was appropriate in his flirtation during a diplomatic mission off world. I watched the episode again, and I think you are right. Mitchell's immediate attraction to Raya was the result of the initial memory transplant.

I've come to the conclusion after watching the episode again and discussing plot points on another bboard that there is a lot going on beneath the surface in this episode and the plot is more complex than is first apparent.

I payed closer attention to the initial memory transplant scene in which Mitchell is the Ambassador. It is subtle, but the Ambassador is a bit more interested in the scientist than he should be. Note the Ambassador/Mitchell lightly running his fingers over the sleeve of Raya's robe and watch how he's looking at her as he's saying many good things are expected of her. The set up is strange, too. It is night, Raya is coming from another part of the house, in a robe, saying she was not expecting anyone, while the Ambassador has somehow let himself in and made himself comfortable with a drink. The entire setup is creepy. It's not overt but it is pretty certain the Ambassador is interested in the scientist in a non-professional way (thank you Ben for that subtle performance as creepy Ambassador).

And, when you think about that, that particular memory may have been selected as the implant partly to interest the Tauri diplomat in Raya with the goal of obtaining favorable reports for the negotiation with the Tauri regarding the technology swap. Daniel and Teal'c wondered why so much of Raya's information had been censored by the government; perhaps her affair with the Ambassador and the true extent of technological advancement of the device were conveniently removed.

Then add how familiar Mitchell felt in her house.

Then add that it is not logistically or logically possible for the killer to have done the deed on his own, erased his own memory and transplanted a duplicate memory since it was noted several times during the episode that the false memory had to be implanted in a precise way in order for the splice to be undetectable. It just makes sense that there had to be an accomplice. Unless there is a portable device, and the technological understanding of the splicing technique was much more advanced than the scientists were admitting.

Perhaps Raya felt double-crossed at the reception when she received the note that she was to be removed as project manager and the military arm of the government was going to usurp the technology for its' own purposes. Maybe the Ambassador and others thought she would be angry and indiscreet enough to spill the plan to Mitchell. So they planned to kill her, implant the murder memory in Mitchell whom they thought would use the diplomatic immunity and leave and that they could also use his supposed guilt as the murderer as leverage in contract negotiations.

Of course, all of the above is speculation.

Anyway, thank you creative team! Whether by accident or by design, this is an intriguing, plot twisting mystery. I hope SG1 will revisit this planet in the future; I really enjoy the deviousness of the government.

I hadn`t read the whole thread, then saw someone had quoted you in a later post, so had to go hunting for this. This is why one really should read the whole thread (which I usually do, but you people are so. . . prolific that I just don`t have time, you know?)

Thanks, Zelda, for this theory of how that whole kiss scene is plausible. And it puts the Emissary back in the floodlight as still being involved in the murder, which would have bothered me before but the way you put it is too logical and like you said enjoyably devious to be overlooked. And thanks to NotAscended as well, even though I haven`t seen your post that got Zelda following this train of thought.

[Fargater]

This has nothing to do with anything, but did anyone else notice that Cam/Ben has what looks like a gauze bandage wrapped around his right elbow when the cops/whoever are hauling him up off the floor at the beginning of the ep? IIRC it doesn`t show up later (I looked for it) so it got me wondering if we were supposed to see that. I wonder if BB got a booboo during shooting.

[Madeleine]

Bummer that the others didn`t have much to do except stand around exchanging glances,

I thought that even though the others had small roles they were extremely well written, to the point that it felt to me like a Team ep. In particular Daniel and Teal'c said very little, but what they did say was enough to stamp their prescence on the episode very firmly. Daniel's bit about a person's memory being fundamental to their identity was all but ignored in that specific conversation, but as a theme it ran right through the episode underscoring *everything*. Teal'c and Sam were perfectly in character and the actors' emotion and committment in their efforts to help Cam enhanced the three smaller roles.

M&M have a skill I admire; at times they write very few lines for a character - but by making them lines which encapsulate the essence of the character and which move the plot along they make the character's role seem more integral than a totting up of # of words would suggest. Jack in Fallout being the classic example.

[Dani347]

M&M have a skill I admire; at times they write very few lines for a character - but by making them lines which encapsulate the essence of the character and which move the plot along they make the character's role seem more integral than a totting up of # of words would suggest. Jack in Fallout being the classic example.

I hadn't really noticed a pattern like that with their episodes, but I do agree here that I felt that they all had something to do, regardless of how many lines they had.

[Fargater]

I thought that even though the others had small roles they were extremely well written, to the point that it felt to me like a Team ep. In particular Daniel and Teal'c said very little, but what they did say was enough to stamp their prescence on the episode very firmly. Daniel's bit about a person's memory being fundamental to their identity was all but ignored in that specific conversation, but as a theme it ran right through the episode underscoring *everything*. Teal'c and Sam were perfectly in character and the actors' emotion and committment in their efforts to help Cam enhanced the three smaller roles.

Yeah, you`re right. It speaks to the strength of the actors and characters that they say so much even when saying so little. And thanks for mentioning Daniel`s line about memory. I thought it was very thought-provoking and clean forgot to mention it! My duh.

I guess because they do it so well I want to see more of it.

M&M have a skill I admire; at times they write very few lines for a character - but by making them lines which encapsulate the essence of the character and which move the plot along they make the character's role seem more integral than a totting up of # of words would suggest. Jack in Fallout being the classic example.

I hafta agree with this too. I hadn`t really thought of it before reading this post, but it`s true.

[Stricken]

With Stargate episodes these days, you either love them or you hate them, there's no in between and to be perfectly honest this episode didn't have me as hooked as last weeks...to begin with, it started slow but gradually built its way up (after t he first commercial break )

Slow start to the episode, but that only added to the plot, which made it all the more better, the “murder” seemed to fit, all the evidence was there the “motive” and the confession! But when you consider the “memory” altering technology then you suspect something else going on.
The relieving of memories is nothing new and Cam’s “copied” someone else’s memory which is strange to see but has been done before in other Sci-fi shows.

I believe that they have filmed some new outside mountain scenes which don’t have the guards walking round holding their guns, and Deluise is going to have to come up with some new captions for the scene.

Cameron’s line “I'm hoping there'll be dancing.” Was a point in the show where it came to me that Jack would have said “I'm hoping there'll be cake” or something to that effect, it shows the differences between Cam and Jack, Which is good as the two characters are completely different.
Teal’c and Daniel raised a good point with the potential abuse of this technology which was the central point of this episode, Teal’c and Daniel didn’t seem to have much to do in this episode, but this is probable because it was a Mitchell centered episode. The locations in this episode portray a beautiful planet which we all see and think that’s what it will be like, but apparently they have a crime problem just like Earth!

In my opinion, it was about time Cameron had an episode in which he was the center point as it gave us a chance to see more in too what makes him tick, and to added to the little known information about his background. We can actually work out this age, which is something is almost impossible to do with the rest of the cast. It would seem that the character has had a rather troubled childhood and time in the military which in my opinion makes for a much more interesting character.
The “opposing” of the military is something that has been used in Stargate before, Dr Weir as an example. This would give the perfect motive for her to be murdered by someone in the military. The emissary attempts at stopping the investigation made him in my opinion a suspect, but then when it turned out that one of the other scientists was married to the victim made him another suspect on a list which would seem to grow forever at this rate.

No Dr. Lam in this episode but she had been heavily involved in the last two, and to be in this one as well she would have to be a regular and not recurring. And then Walter’s stumble of what he had been told was great

Cam’s memory of killing innocent people was moving, I felt something of what must have been going through his mind at that time and he was right just when you think that a memory is gone, it turns out that it is still there and can be painful to remember. The obviously simulated graphics were so good that they looked real and you could tell that they might have been faked. Then once we knew that Cam was innocent, which we all had already knew, he wanted to continue and find the murderer, and then the emissary trying to stop them again made him an even bigger suspect.

With Daniel saying that only working with Cam for a short time, that he wouldn’t let this go, made me think that the team is gelling together great and are starting to “bounce” after each other.
And then for the reveal, its that scientist guy who know one knows the name of he killed her!! And then grafted a memory over what he had done, just when you think you have it solved BAM it’s completely different to what you thought. It was wrong in my opinion to allow him to continue working even though they whole incident was erased again from his mind, you could see that Cam was on edge when he returned. Good to see that Cam had his original memory put back as it was. I hope that we will be conducting further relations with these people, if only to get technology.
The scene at the end between Cam and Landry was emotional to say the least with Cam understanding that memories don’t go away and the technology on this planet was wrong because of what it could do, it could erase memories which make us who we are, and that in my honest opinion was what this episode was about.

Strong and powerful episode and not for explosions and shooting ships out of the sky, which is what I enjoy. It was a background episode for Cam but not the best in the world.

Collateral Damage receives a S.G.C rating of 6 out of 9 Chevrons!

[Simhavaktra]

The first thing that struck me about this ep was that the lighting guy done wrong to Ben Browder - literally. In the very first scene, there on the floor, he looked like it’d take a belt sander to deliver a smooth complexion to his face. Later on, another lighting guy done the same wrong to Amanda Tapping, too – she looked about 30 years older than usual. Must’ve been filmed during fictional armed forces disservice week.

Another thing that struck me about Collateral Damage was the “Ah – there’s the perp to be now!” moment I had watching the reception when Mitchell made the ‘wallflower’ remark about the guy that turned to be what’s-her-name’s ex, and her killer. (I’m just gonna have Jack-style lapses of memory on all the names in all the eps this season, aren’t I, Dr. Freud? ) I’d read spoilers that said Dr. What’s-Her-Name was a gonner some time hence, but I really wasn’t expecting to be subject to a psychic detective moment watching the ep.

The third thing that struck me was how the plot felt like they’d just decanted a script with a “Brief Candle” vintage from the script tank (Freud again :snerk: ), tinkered with a scene that had once showed an F-4 or F-105 piloted by young Jack O’Neill doing some shooting fish-in-a-barrel-easy bombing/strafing run in Vietnam, only to discover that he, as the first plane in, got a free shot at the bait/target so that the rest of the squadron would come in, and the concealed AA positions could blast them out of the sky – a scene that originally explained Jack going from fighter piloting into Black Ops – replaced the Vietnam era aircraft with a dodgy looking CGI F16 and Jack with Mitchell, changed “Sputnik” to “Space Shuttle” in another scene, and then all that was left to do was tell BB to ignore that they’d crossed out “Jack” and scribbled in “Cam” next to all of his lines, and the whole thing was ready to film, woo hoo! :rolls eyes, gags, spits: What’s-his-name-the-slimily-political-auburn-haired-emissary-to-the-aliens even reminded me of Kinsey. They should’ve subtitled the ep ‘Déjà vu’.

Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like Amanda was acting/reacting/playing Sam towards/with regards to Mitchell like Jack had really been there when they were filming, and then they’d CGI’d Jack out of, and Mitchell into, the ep before broadcasting it. Her reactions would have made sense toward Jack at any time after Solitudes, especially after the shippy references developed, but they came off as wrong, inappropriate and OTT to me, when they were directed at Mitchell. Having Sam act like Mitchell would automatically value her touch and her friendly-to-the-point-of-getting-all-huggy-touchy rather than professional concern really fractured my suspension of disbelief (which is not to say that the “excuse me – how did this dude manage to stun/zat Mitchell, beat his wife to death, implant the false memory in Mitchell so perfectly it was undetectable by ordinary means, dabble Mitchell’s hands/self in ex-wife’s blood (maybe he did that before the memory thing) and stage the entire murder scene, leave no incriminating evidence on himself, go home or back to the lab or wherever and implant the false memory in himself, and not manage to get caught, or find himself staring at a memory device saying ‘what am I doing here staring at a memory device’” factor didn’t destroy my suspension of disbelief regardless); since Sam’s actions implied a degree of closeness between the Sam and Cam characters that was apparently created with a magic wand between last week’s script and this week’s, because it sure didn’t seem to exist to date that I can recall. I pray that they aren’t in the process of making Sam Carter into the kind of female character that falls for every male designated as attractive who experiences a day + dwell time in her presence. What a stupendous insult to the Sam Carter character that would be! And darn if they don’t seem to be headed straight in that direction some times. And if they proceed from here to overt ‘Scam” Sam/Cam, ship, I fear my personal reaction would be to barf in the direction of the PTB-Continuum and grace their viewing audience never more – but then, that’s just me.

Also, I found the touchy-feelie hang-around-and-hang-on-your-every-reaction-and-word-at-the-ssme-time-without-a-serious-effort-at-connecting-with-the-science-or-the-tech thing that they had Sam doing with Cam disturbing since, after Four Horsemen 2, it implies that Sam Carter, genius astrophysicist, dedicated scientist, serious student of Goa’uld technology, seasoned warrior, inter-galactic explorer and intra-galactic traveler, jet pilot, starship pilot, strong and independent woman is now the designated baby-sitter, purveyor of ‘Caring’ to all the rests of SG-1, and the Hand-Holding-Mama’s-Worried-About-You-Baby-Boy go-to girl of the SGC. What a stupendous waste. :headdesks:

Overall, this whole episode was just another reiteration of Cameron Mitchell’s “can’t kill the kudzu vine even with Agent Orange” level of dogged persistence. Thanks, but I’ve been told this before, and that more than once, so could we move on to something else? New and relevant info? Or was the new and relevant part of this ep supposed to be the repealing of the ‘letting aliens take you home from the party might result in behavior inappropriate to an Air Force officer on duty’ idea that we had after Jack O’Neill discovered alien cake and Kynthia in the same ep? Not a good thing, IMO. If it’s a bad idea on Earth, or at least bad form, isn’t it automatically an even worse idea off of Earth, where the chances of knowing the consequences in the local culture are so astronomically smaller? Ugh. Wait – that can’t be the new info, can it, cause we had the ‘indulging in sex with dubious aliens (different kind of dubious, but still) can lead to dubious consequences but you can still do it’ idea with Daniel in PU. I find I didn’t give a fig about Cam’s relationship with his father beforehand and I still don’t afterward. I just wonder why a family member that apparently won’t be back to do something interesting in upcoming eps needed so much flashback screentime, especially when said family member came across as a much more compelling character than Cameron himself. Maybe Mitchell the elder could come to work at the SGC?