Legacy Meta: MacKenzie--evil man or misunderstood?
I will warn in advance that my total experience of psychiatry was a 101 course my freshman year of undergrad *cough cough* years ago (and it was an 8 am class, so I'm not sure I was conscious most of the lessons). Others will likely be able to poke holes in expand on Doctor MacKenzie's medical expertise. (In fact, rydra_wong already gives an awesome essay in the comments of fig's Legacy meta from earlier this week. This meta is more a study of MacKenzie's own personality and motivations.
Among the Earth centered characters of the Stargate universe, few are more vilified than Stargate Command's resident psychiatrist, USAF Colonel--Doctor MacKenzie. After all, he committed one of our intrepid heroes to a padded white room and pumped him full of drugs. Only Kinsey or at least early-season Maybourne should garner so much hate.
Right? Is it any wonder that Daniel hates his very name and avoids him at all costs...oh wait, does Daniel do that?
I proffer to you, gentle reader, that perhaps Doctor MacKenzie has been unfairly maligned in our fanonically protective nature of our SG-1 team.
We first meet Doctor MacKenzie at the very beginning of the series in "CotG"! Or at least he looks like MacKenzie, and he's got some kind of doctor-ish credentials and is played by the same actor. His psychiatric credentials don't get much of a work out however since he's being a coronor to the Jaffa who invaded the base. He noted the weird x's in everyone's abdomen, but I've got to say I don't have any medical training and I might have picked that out. It doesn't really help or hinder the arguments about his motivations and/or abilities as a quack psychiatrist, so let's move on.
We next see the good doctor being very psychiatric-like in trying to help the flagship team deal with the loss of one of their own in "Fire and Water". Janet's been worried about how SG-1's been dealing with the loss of Daniel, especially their subconscious insistence he's still alive (which is handy, because he really is). MacKenzie immediately twigs that they're giving very conditioned responses, especially when it's suggested to return to the planet and find out wtf's going on. He offers to put them under hypnosis. While I have no idea whether or not this is valid psychiatric treatment, in this case, it is the right call. MacKenzie's actions break open the mystery of Daniel's fate and reveal their poor lost teammate isn't "passed on" lost, but left behind. Off the team goes to the rescue...just in time to see Daniel's not waited for them but rescued himself, thank you very much in a typically self-sacrificing and impulsive move. In any case, SG-1 is reunited and MacKenzie's a hero...of sorts, anyway.
So next we come to our current episode "Legacy", where MacKenzie's role is not one of hero, but if not adversary, a source of conflict to the plot. He's got a diagnosis when one of the team, coincidentally Daniel, starts acting, as Jack so eloquently puts it, "nuts". MacKenzie is not alone is his evil plans diagnosis. He has a conspirator, our medical heroine who has saved the team who knows how many times by this point, Janet Fraiser. Just for the record, Janet rocks! all such declarations should be taken as fact, not theory in the biased opinion of this writer. MacKenzie's been studying the effects of this strange alien technology known as the Stargate for a while now. Maybe he's the one that ordered teh OSHA black and yellow strips on the gate room floor? In any case, he's been noting how 53% of the SG team members are having headaches. Daniel, along with Jack and Ferretti, have had the longest exposure to the device, so when he starts acting a bit odd, it triggers a vehement reaction by the medical staff:
MACKENZIE: Dr. Jackson has experienced what I characterize as a first break psychotic episode, which may be manifesting full-blown hebephrenic-schizophrenia.
FRAISER: Migraines are often one of the first signs.
O'NEILL: Wait a minute. Daniel's a schizophrenic, and it's caused by…the Stargate?
FRAISER: It's the only logical explanation we have right now, Colonel.
O'NEILL: Well it sounds fairly theoretical to me. Does anybody think it could be stress?
FRAISER: As much as I'd like to think that's all it is, the evidence just doesn't point that way. Daniel has paranoid delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations.
MACKENZIE: Dr. Jackson's dopamine levels have increased in the left hemisphere of his brain. All these symptoms are textbook schizophrenia.
Since there's no family history (what bad vetters the SGC had way back when to not find dear Nick.) the Stargate's the only cause they can think of. Janet fully concurs in his apparently EXTREMELY inaccurate diagnosis (aside from the fact that it was really an alien bio-weapon after all). This is a problem not only for Daniel, the danger is for all SG team members, the whole program is at risk, so this is not a decision MacKenzie, or a fully cooperative Fraiser I might add, would take lightly. And while conspiracy theorists could leap on this as evidence MacKenzie's even in league with Kinsey, Fraiser's strong advocacy would belie that assumption (see Janet rocks!)
So they take things by steps. First Daniel is allowed to rest (and be observed) in one of the VIP rooms. But after he goes after Jack and has another episode, further steps must be taken.
Here is where the pivotal evidence against Colonel MacKenzie is most damning, for when next we see Daniel, he's without his glasses, without his shoes *plugs ears from the squee sounded by some Danielfans*, and locked in a padded cell. At least he's not in a strait jacket too to complete the ensemble. But it does look to be summer, and that's not really jacket weather.
How much time has passed since Daniel collapsed in the VIP room? Enough certainly that he's been transferred to mental health and been given medications, and is now in need of a shave-which suggests some passage of time. Was he slapped into the rubber room immediately upon entering as a "high risk/classified materials" patient? Certainly, he'd be kept in an isolated section; even crazy, they wouldn't want him leaking classified material. Was Jack's attack enough for them to consider him being a threat to himself or others? We didn't see any other events onscreen. Although he did "attack" Sam trying to save her and/or Teal'c from the Linvris, and Teal'c held him back. Did he have another attack at the ward or on its way? MacKenzie later threatens to restrain Daniel and sedate him further, which could be interpreted that the padded room was a progression of restraints/treatments MacKenzie had ordered as Daniel became more agitated by his hallucinations. There is not canon evidence to support this assumption, but neither is there evidence that the aides beat up poor woobie Daniel as MacKenzie watched.
To be fair to the medical team, Daniel was having full blown hallucinations at the time (as a side effect to Ma'chello's little bioweapon gift). He was extremely agitated when SG-1 visited, and MacKenzie warned them not to expect much, which seems to lend credence to the fact that Daniel's condition was worsening. The medicines weren't having the desired effect, so MacKenzie increased the dosage, which...is a common if not always valid medical treatment. Since Daniel wasn't really schizophrenic, who knows how badly the medications they were using to treat him from their mis-diagnosis were exacerbating Daniel's condition or masking other symptoms of the true cause?
MacKenzie next came in to give Daniel his meds with the two burly aides and a very non-burly nurse, but they seemed to be background, a precaution. The aides didn't instantly go to Daniel like they did when he was having his "episode" with the team. MacKenzie was talking to him rationally, even as Daniel was a bit agitated...even for him, as he admitted himself. Daniel was talking things out, dodging their approach even as he was getting penned in, and MacKenzie let him talk, in some kind of odd ad-hoc therapy session. (Again, I have no idea how good this idea was to stand around talking while holding the needle medicalwise, I'm discussing the motivations). Was MacKenzie humoring Daniel? Trying to get him calm enough for the medication to work better? But there is this final evidence: when Daniel is so calm and insistent to check on Teal'c's condition since the team left, MacKenzie appears to consider this...and we never see him give Daniel that needle after all.
What we do see is that MacKenzie DOES call the SGC, and apparently learns about Teal'c's condition because Hammond informs Fraiser that there's been a change in Daniel's condition and that he wants Jack out there. In that way, he fulfills a promise Daniel asked him to make, that if Teal'c is sick, he can talk to Jack. MacKenzie may have been the one to inform O'Neill Daniel's improved because Jack's already "heard" Daniel's better when Daniel assures him he's fine now.
We don't know if Daniel holds a grudge against MacKenzie or not, but aside from being a bit snippy with Janet when she explains his dopamine levels are back to normal, he doesn't seem to hold a grudge against the co-misdiagnostician (see Janet rocks! above). When he was still in the padded cell, Daniel theorized to Jack that he was looking schizophrenic because he didn't have a Goa'uld for the "buggers" to infect, so there is evidence to support he found Janet and MacKenzie's diagnosis reasonable under the circumstances, although flat-out wrong.
"Legacy" is not the last we see of Doctor MacKenzie. He helps the members of SG-1 at least twice (once more even onscreen). In Season Five's "Threshold", MacKenzie has been working closely with Teal'c to try and break through Apophis's brainwashing. O'Neill comes to visit Teal'c at the "final session", and O'Neill turns to MacKenzie, asking his opinion. MacKenzie shrugs, and so O'Neill lets Teal'c loose.
Of course, as we know, and Bra'tac soon reveals, Teal'c is still brainwashed and trying to trick everyone. But what Teal'c doesn't know is that they're cottoned onto his probable tricks. Sam and Daniel are waiting. This scene is kind of ambiguous, I'll admit, on who knows what when, but Sam doesn't usually wander around base with armed airmen while carrying a zat herself, so I think they were waiting to see what Teal'c was and expecting the worst while still hoping they were wrong. And if this was a "sting" operation on Teal'c, I'd proffer that MacKenzie probably was in on it too if everyone else was. It just seemed so...planned. Also, Jack didn't seem to proffer his usual scorn of the psychiatrist (granted, he wasn't the one on the couch this time, and he *knew* something was squirrelly with Teal'c after that whole "take my teammates prisoner and proud to serve my god" thing on the ha'tak from the last episode).
MacKenzie's final appearance, this time offscreen in "Lifeboat", was fittingly, again for Daniel. (The poor boy). Here Daniel really could be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder-of a very literal kind. Pharrin of the Stromos downloaded a bunch of crew and passengers, including his own son, into Daniel's brain, and probably would've done the same for the rest of SG-1 if Teal'c hadn't woken up so soon. Fraiser called MacKenzie in for a consult on Daniel's condition, and the psychiatrist gave a detailed analysis of Daniel's EEG and MRI readings, determining Daniel had as many as twelve other consciousnesses in his brain. (What a headache that must cause). Once again, MacKenzie helps, and appears not at all ready to slap Daniel back into the looneybin restricted mental ward of the Air Force Hospital.
So, my fair reader, what say you now? Is Dr. MacKenzie a diabolical Mr. Hyde, just waiting to get his hands on Daniel's brains? Is he an incompetent scoundrel just putting in for his government pension? Is he working with Kinsey to shut down the program? Or is he just a guy who's dealing with experiences way beyond anything in prior human experience and just makes a few mistakes? And are you still reading this after all my longwinded blabbering? :-)
Counter theories (even evidence that Janet may not in fact rock), is welcome...
Among the Earth centered characters of the Stargate universe, few are more vilified than Stargate Command's resident psychiatrist, USAF Colonel--Doctor MacKenzie. After all, he committed one of our intrepid heroes to a padded white room and pumped him full of drugs. Only Kinsey or at least early-season Maybourne should garner so much hate.
Right? Is it any wonder that Daniel hates his very name and avoids him at all costs...oh wait, does Daniel do that?
I proffer to you, gentle reader, that perhaps Doctor MacKenzie has been unfairly maligned in our fanonically protective nature of our SG-1 team.
We first meet Doctor MacKenzie at the very beginning of the series in "CotG"! Or at least he looks like MacKenzie, and he's got some kind of doctor-ish credentials and is played by the same actor. His psychiatric credentials don't get much of a work out however since he's being a coronor to the Jaffa who invaded the base. He noted the weird x's in everyone's abdomen, but I've got to say I don't have any medical training and I might have picked that out. It doesn't really help or hinder the arguments about his motivations and/or abilities as a quack psychiatrist, so let's move on.
We next see the good doctor being very psychiatric-like in trying to help the flagship team deal with the loss of one of their own in "Fire and Water". Janet's been worried about how SG-1's been dealing with the loss of Daniel, especially their subconscious insistence he's still alive (which is handy, because he really is). MacKenzie immediately twigs that they're giving very conditioned responses, especially when it's suggested to return to the planet and find out wtf's going on. He offers to put them under hypnosis. While I have no idea whether or not this is valid psychiatric treatment, in this case, it is the right call. MacKenzie's actions break open the mystery of Daniel's fate and reveal their poor lost teammate isn't "passed on" lost, but left behind. Off the team goes to the rescue...just in time to see Daniel's not waited for them but rescued himself, thank you very much in a typically self-sacrificing and impulsive move. In any case, SG-1 is reunited and MacKenzie's a hero...of sorts, anyway.
So next we come to our current episode "Legacy", where MacKenzie's role is not one of hero, but if not adversary, a source of conflict to the plot. He's got a diagnosis when one of the team, coincidentally Daniel, starts acting, as Jack so eloquently puts it, "nuts". MacKenzie is not alone is his evil plans diagnosis. He has a conspirator, our medical heroine who has saved the team who knows how many times by this point, Janet Fraiser. Just for the record, Janet rocks! all such declarations should be taken as fact, not theory in the biased opinion of this writer. MacKenzie's been studying the effects of this strange alien technology known as the Stargate for a while now. Maybe he's the one that ordered teh OSHA black and yellow strips on the gate room floor? In any case, he's been noting how 53% of the SG team members are having headaches. Daniel, along with Jack and Ferretti, have had the longest exposure to the device, so when he starts acting a bit odd, it triggers a vehement reaction by the medical staff:
MACKENZIE: Dr. Jackson has experienced what I characterize as a first break psychotic episode, which may be manifesting full-blown hebephrenic-schizophrenia.
FRAISER: Migraines are often one of the first signs.
O'NEILL: Wait a minute. Daniel's a schizophrenic, and it's caused by…the Stargate?
FRAISER: It's the only logical explanation we have right now, Colonel.
O'NEILL: Well it sounds fairly theoretical to me. Does anybody think it could be stress?
FRAISER: As much as I'd like to think that's all it is, the evidence just doesn't point that way. Daniel has paranoid delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations.
MACKENZIE: Dr. Jackson's dopamine levels have increased in the left hemisphere of his brain. All these symptoms are textbook schizophrenia.
Since there's no family history (what bad vetters the SGC had way back when to not find dear Nick.) the Stargate's the only cause they can think of. Janet fully concurs in his apparently EXTREMELY inaccurate diagnosis (aside from the fact that it was really an alien bio-weapon after all). This is a problem not only for Daniel, the danger is for all SG team members, the whole program is at risk, so this is not a decision MacKenzie, or a fully cooperative Fraiser I might add, would take lightly. And while conspiracy theorists could leap on this as evidence MacKenzie's even in league with Kinsey, Fraiser's strong advocacy would belie that assumption (see Janet rocks!)
So they take things by steps. First Daniel is allowed to rest (and be observed) in one of the VIP rooms. But after he goes after Jack and has another episode, further steps must be taken.
Here is where the pivotal evidence against Colonel MacKenzie is most damning, for when next we see Daniel, he's without his glasses, without his shoes *plugs ears from the squee sounded by some Danielfans*, and locked in a padded cell. At least he's not in a strait jacket too to complete the ensemble. But it does look to be summer, and that's not really jacket weather.
How much time has passed since Daniel collapsed in the VIP room? Enough certainly that he's been transferred to mental health and been given medications, and is now in need of a shave-which suggests some passage of time. Was he slapped into the rubber room immediately upon entering as a "high risk/classified materials" patient? Certainly, he'd be kept in an isolated section; even crazy, they wouldn't want him leaking classified material. Was Jack's attack enough for them to consider him being a threat to himself or others? We didn't see any other events onscreen. Although he did "attack" Sam trying to save her and/or Teal'c from the Linvris, and Teal'c held him back. Did he have another attack at the ward or on its way? MacKenzie later threatens to restrain Daniel and sedate him further, which could be interpreted that the padded room was a progression of restraints/treatments MacKenzie had ordered as Daniel became more agitated by his hallucinations. There is not canon evidence to support this assumption, but neither is there evidence that the aides beat up poor woobie Daniel as MacKenzie watched.
To be fair to the medical team, Daniel was having full blown hallucinations at the time (as a side effect to Ma'chello's little bioweapon gift). He was extremely agitated when SG-1 visited, and MacKenzie warned them not to expect much, which seems to lend credence to the fact that Daniel's condition was worsening. The medicines weren't having the desired effect, so MacKenzie increased the dosage, which...is a common if not always valid medical treatment. Since Daniel wasn't really schizophrenic, who knows how badly the medications they were using to treat him from their mis-diagnosis were exacerbating Daniel's condition or masking other symptoms of the true cause?
MacKenzie next came in to give Daniel his meds with the two burly aides and a very non-burly nurse, but they seemed to be background, a precaution. The aides didn't instantly go to Daniel like they did when he was having his "episode" with the team. MacKenzie was talking to him rationally, even as Daniel was a bit agitated...even for him, as he admitted himself. Daniel was talking things out, dodging their approach even as he was getting penned in, and MacKenzie let him talk, in some kind of odd ad-hoc therapy session. (Again, I have no idea how good this idea was to stand around talking while holding the needle medicalwise, I'm discussing the motivations). Was MacKenzie humoring Daniel? Trying to get him calm enough for the medication to work better? But there is this final evidence: when Daniel is so calm and insistent to check on Teal'c's condition since the team left, MacKenzie appears to consider this...and we never see him give Daniel that needle after all.
What we do see is that MacKenzie DOES call the SGC, and apparently learns about Teal'c's condition because Hammond informs Fraiser that there's been a change in Daniel's condition and that he wants Jack out there. In that way, he fulfills a promise Daniel asked him to make, that if Teal'c is sick, he can talk to Jack. MacKenzie may have been the one to inform O'Neill Daniel's improved because Jack's already "heard" Daniel's better when Daniel assures him he's fine now.
We don't know if Daniel holds a grudge against MacKenzie or not, but aside from being a bit snippy with Janet when she explains his dopamine levels are back to normal, he doesn't seem to hold a grudge against the co-misdiagnostician (see Janet rocks! above). When he was still in the padded cell, Daniel theorized to Jack that he was looking schizophrenic because he didn't have a Goa'uld for the "buggers" to infect, so there is evidence to support he found Janet and MacKenzie's diagnosis reasonable under the circumstances, although flat-out wrong.
"Legacy" is not the last we see of Doctor MacKenzie. He helps the members of SG-1 at least twice (once more even onscreen). In Season Five's "Threshold", MacKenzie has been working closely with Teal'c to try and break through Apophis's brainwashing. O'Neill comes to visit Teal'c at the "final session", and O'Neill turns to MacKenzie, asking his opinion. MacKenzie shrugs, and so O'Neill lets Teal'c loose.
Of course, as we know, and Bra'tac soon reveals, Teal'c is still brainwashed and trying to trick everyone. But what Teal'c doesn't know is that they're cottoned onto his probable tricks. Sam and Daniel are waiting. This scene is kind of ambiguous, I'll admit, on who knows what when, but Sam doesn't usually wander around base with armed airmen while carrying a zat herself, so I think they were waiting to see what Teal'c was and expecting the worst while still hoping they were wrong. And if this was a "sting" operation on Teal'c, I'd proffer that MacKenzie probably was in on it too if everyone else was. It just seemed so...planned. Also, Jack didn't seem to proffer his usual scorn of the psychiatrist (granted, he wasn't the one on the couch this time, and he *knew* something was squirrelly with Teal'c after that whole "take my teammates prisoner and proud to serve my god" thing on the ha'tak from the last episode).
MacKenzie's final appearance, this time offscreen in "Lifeboat", was fittingly, again for Daniel. (The poor boy). Here Daniel really could be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder-of a very literal kind. Pharrin of the Stromos downloaded a bunch of crew and passengers, including his own son, into Daniel's brain, and probably would've done the same for the rest of SG-1 if Teal'c hadn't woken up so soon. Fraiser called MacKenzie in for a consult on Daniel's condition, and the psychiatrist gave a detailed analysis of Daniel's EEG and MRI readings, determining Daniel had as many as twelve other consciousnesses in his brain. (What a headache that must cause). Once again, MacKenzie helps, and appears not at all ready to slap Daniel back into the looneybin restricted mental ward of the Air Force Hospital.
So, my fair reader, what say you now? Is Dr. MacKenzie a diabolical Mr. Hyde, just waiting to get his hands on Daniel's brains? Is he an incompetent scoundrel just putting in for his government pension? Is he working with Kinsey to shut down the program? Or is he just a guy who's dealing with experiences way beyond anything in prior human experience and just makes a few mistakes? And are you still reading this after all my longwinded blabbering? :-)
Counter theories (even evidence that Janet may not in fact rock), is welcome...