stargate, yet again
5x13 'The Outsiders' was fine. Not brilliant, like the last two weeks but fine. Rodney is a genius.
But instead...
I know this is a rant that has been ranted many times before, but: why do the writers have it in for Rodney McKay? Case in point, his introduction:
Just to get it out of the way, let us have a moment of squee for McKay with lots of silly hair and looking so weirdly, geekily, grad-student-ly skinny. He looked like a schoolboy. Not that David Hewlett wasn't dishy then, but I vastly prefer the less tufty, older version.
Getting to the episode itself-- what crawled up Carter's ass and died? For the majority of the episode, she was the one making stupid faces, and getting irrationally angry, and generally being a bitch. Granted, her team-mate was trapped in the gate and Simmons is hardly her person of the year, but McKay made it clear that he didn't work for Simmons and she still behaved completely gracelessly. Which is unlike her: she's kept a cool head under many circumstances. (Though doesn't deal well with intellectual equals it seems, considering her own behaviour with her parallel universe self in 'Point of View' though she was awkward rather than antagonistic). She was pissy when McKay pointed out that it was their lack of DHD that caused the flaw, even when O'Neill and the Goa'uld confirmed it. Yes, McKay was not being as sensitive as he could be but this was a far, far nicer incarnation of McKay than I had been led to expect.
-He is the one that introduces himself to her
-He goes after her after their first meeting, to reassure her that he doesn't work for Simmons and because 'they got off on the wrong foot'
-He doesn't even go into a classic McKay rant about citrus (it's pretty limited) but the serving guy doling out lemon chicken still gives him a deathglare, wtf?
The only real moments of McKay assholishness were his 'I wish I didn't find you so attractive' lunch conversation. Carter was justifiably pissed off that he called her a 'dumb blonde', but her hackles were up way before then. The other interesting thing they played off was McKay being a theoretician, to the point of being unconcerned with the real thing-- this younger, more foolish version of McKay holds it to be a virtue. It isn't a thrill to be near the StarGate in real life, the computer simulations are more than adequate...I think the older McKay would blush and want to hit his younger self in the face for being so self-satisfied. Despite this, many of the things he points out are true-- Carter is making a guess, an educated one, but a guess. What McKay doesn't realise (and what Carter doesn't explain, or even try to acknowledge or put across in any reasonable fashion) is that in the field and in real life sometimes you don't get to have all the data, and you just have to make the call. Empirical evidence isn't everything. McKay doesn't get the meaning of Team, and he doesn't trust them the way Sam does. Why should he trust that O'Neill's info is solid, he hasn't been there with them. He is as right to be suspicious as Sam is to want to try everything, and this is what the show fails to acknowledge. The episode should have been about two approaches to science and progress and the unknown, in a universe where all of these 'abstract' ethical issues have real and literally groundbreaking consequences...and instead it was about cheapp sentimentality and caricature.
Sigh. At least they brought him back for Atlantis, is all I'm going to say about this.
End rant.
Thoughts?
But instead...
I know this is a rant that has been ranted many times before, but: why do the writers have it in for Rodney McKay? Case in point, his introduction:
Just to get it out of the way, let us have a moment of squee for McKay with lots of silly hair and looking so weirdly, geekily, grad-student-ly skinny. He looked like a schoolboy. Not that David Hewlett wasn't dishy then, but I vastly prefer the less tufty, older version.
Getting to the episode itself-- what crawled up Carter's ass and died? For the majority of the episode, she was the one making stupid faces, and getting irrationally angry, and generally being a bitch. Granted, her team-mate was trapped in the gate and Simmons is hardly her person of the year, but McKay made it clear that he didn't work for Simmons and she still behaved completely gracelessly. Which is unlike her: she's kept a cool head under many circumstances. (Though doesn't deal well with intellectual equals it seems, considering her own behaviour with her parallel universe self in 'Point of View' though she was awkward rather than antagonistic). She was pissy when McKay pointed out that it was their lack of DHD that caused the flaw, even when O'Neill and the Goa'uld confirmed it. Yes, McKay was not being as sensitive as he could be but this was a far, far nicer incarnation of McKay than I had been led to expect.
-He is the one that introduces himself to her
-He goes after her after their first meeting, to reassure her that he doesn't work for Simmons and because 'they got off on the wrong foot'
-He doesn't even go into a classic McKay rant about citrus (it's pretty limited) but the serving guy doling out lemon chicken still gives him a deathglare, wtf?
The only real moments of McKay assholishness were his 'I wish I didn't find you so attractive' lunch conversation. Carter was justifiably pissed off that he called her a 'dumb blonde', but her hackles were up way before then. The other interesting thing they played off was McKay being a theoretician, to the point of being unconcerned with the real thing-- this younger, more foolish version of McKay holds it to be a virtue. It isn't a thrill to be near the StarGate in real life, the computer simulations are more than adequate...I think the older McKay would blush and want to hit his younger self in the face for being so self-satisfied. Despite this, many of the things he points out are true-- Carter is making a guess, an educated one, but a guess. What McKay doesn't realise (and what Carter doesn't explain, or even try to acknowledge or put across in any reasonable fashion) is that in the field and in real life sometimes you don't get to have all the data, and you just have to make the call. Empirical evidence isn't everything. McKay doesn't get the meaning of Team, and he doesn't trust them the way Sam does. Why should he trust that O'Neill's info is solid, he hasn't been there with them. He is as right to be suspicious as Sam is to want to try everything, and this is what the show fails to acknowledge. The episode should have been about two approaches to science and progress and the unknown, in a universe where all of these 'abstract' ethical issues have real and literally groundbreaking consequences...and instead it was about cheapp sentimentality and caricature.
Sigh. At least they brought him back for Atlantis, is all I'm going to say about this.
End rant.
Thoughts?