Collateral Damage (912)

[Naonak]

How is it different?

In the Voyager episode, somebody (I can't remember who, it's been a while) plays around with the victim's memory to make it look like Tom killed her, and then he's forced to experience her last memories every however-many hours it was as punishment. Tom denies the murder.

In Collateral Damage, the murderer gives Mitchell his own memory of having killed Reya, so that even Cam himself thinks that he killed her. (And the episode is used to show more of his backstory.)

Similar, sure, but I'm sure there's plenty of sci-fi out there involving murder and memory manipulation.

[Dinoman]

what a dangerous piece of technology to have on Earth.

[suse]

what a dangerous piece of technology to have on Earth.

No kidding. Good thing KInsey was already dead.

What a piece of tech to let someone use who had no business knowing about the tech.

suse

[Petra]

Well, it wasn't a bad episode. I wouldn't call it "good", but it was quite decent - at least till you start thinking about all the plotholes and mischaracterisation..

I'm not bothered by the plot repetitiveness (WoO is also a rip off after all ) and I really liked the ending. Lack of happy ending marked some of the best episodes in the past.

I don't care much about Mitchell's backstory, although his relationship with his father was nicely done and his "friendly fire" incident was also ok. I'd just prefer to know how exactly Mitchell knew SG-1, for example.

Again, there was no team. Sam got to stand around and look concerned, Daniel and Teal'c got to play messenger boys. I didn't get the sense they were overly concerned about Cam. The only nice teamy moment was at the beginning, when Daniel teased Mitchell about flirting with the doctor.

The scene at the end between Landry and Mitchell was a huge wasted opportunity to have a team moment. I still don't know why the heck Landry came to see Cam..

Speaking of Landry, he just proved again here why he's not only the worst SGC commander in the history (Bauer excluded, because he was supposed to be a bad guy) but a bad CO in general. Why did he let Cam stay on the planet, even after Sam pointed out they didn't know that planet's legal system?
-Bring him home
- But he wants to stay
-Oh, okay then, he can stay.

Then there's the issue of Cam going AWOL and his drinking on duty. If he wanted to get it on with the doctor - I'm okay with it, but please do this off-duty, not in the middle of a diplomatic party without notifying your team.

And can someone explain to me how was it possible for the husband to surprise them, kill the women, render Mitchell unconscious, somehow bring him to the lab, change his memories, bring him to the crime scene again, stage the scene, come back to the lab again and erase his own memories without anyone noticing? Don't they have cameras in the lab? It's supposed to be top secret. Wouldn't the guy wonder what he was doing there instead of being in his bed after he'd erased his memories? And why would he kill his wife, whom he loved, instead of Mitchell, who was his rival? It just doesn't make sense.

[mrscopterdoc]

I think this is a good eppy for Cam

[LaEsmerelda]

It was nice that they had an episode to develop Browder's character, but it was very predictable. I told my husband early on what would happen right down to seeing himself in a mirror to determine the murderer. THe only thing I didn't guess right was the murderer, but the way things played out was too obvious.

[suse]

The whole ep was a sci-fi cliche. And I felt like I was watching Browder emote, not Mitchell. Done better in Voyager. (I liked Voyager, til the writing ticked me off and i stopped watching for a year. How they can take likable characters and decent actors and give them such drivel... Just goes to show if you assume viewers will watch anything with a franchise label on it - you are wrong. )

[maneth]

I agree, the way it played out was rather obvious. I just wonder if they have anything else to do with the planet in future...

[mathpiglet]

There was an episode in Star Trek: TNG which was very similar to this one. Ryker was accused of murder.

There are just some storylines that keep coming back!

[Jae'a]

^Ah, nothing's original anymore!

My LiveJournal post

I love this ep, but poor Cam..

[NowIWillDestroyAbydos]

It was an okay ep. Love Walter and the medical babble when he gave Landry, Lam's report. I give it a **.

Agreed with myself.

It was nice to see an episode that felt like a classic episode. You know, SG-1 going off-world to meet some aliens from another planet. It was also nice not to hear the Ori even mentioned once.

Tomorrow, multiple SG-1 teams, and some old friends return.

[Krisz]

A break from the Ori and them being 'Hallowed' all the time is good!

Another episode that gives us more on Mitchell's background. I've found with rewatching this season that I'm giving a chance to get to know Mitchell this time round. He irritated me as a character so much with the first viewing that I never gave him a second look, until now.

This meant that I actually enjoyed this episode for what it was, seeing more of Mitchell and what makes him who he is and forget that I'd seen this memory grafting story line in Star Trek's Voyager. That's what put me off the first time round.

The idea of messing around with memories for various purposes is a bit unsettling.

[discodiva]

Not my favourite episode....I actually am a big fan of the Ori arc and was quite happy to leave the "fillers" out....also William Atherton played a prat, a very nasty minded and unethical one at that...

Deeds xx

[Lieutenant Sparrow]

I tried to avoid this ep as long as I could. Not because it's that bad but because this is the 3rd time I have seen it. Which has put me behind a couple of eps.

Good to learn more about Cam's personality. And what he has been through.

We end up using this technology on earth don't we? But it serves a different purpose.

[jelgate]

If Babylon was about defining who Mitchell is as a character then this episode is about his backstory. Through the memory recall device we are able to see what define Mitchell like his father's accident and killing those refuges. Thats the part I like. I like seeing the backstory to define who Mitchell is. I know some are probably are tired of so much focus on him but I think its one those unfortunate side effects as the other characters had 8 years of development. The story of trying to find the murderer and how Mitchell was framed is interesting but I was more intrigued of using the device to show us Mitchell's background. I remember hating the leader after he used the technology to erase the memory of the murderer.