Thoughts about the character changes from S1 to S2 with reference to Connor's techie skills

[deinonychus_1]

Recently I've been having some quite intersting discussions with Munchkinofdoom re the change between S1 and S2 with Connor, and the sudden appearance of his techie computer and engineering skills. Leaving aside how much you take canon at face value for the use of these skills (which myself and Munchkin do entirely disagree about), I've been

Comments

[entangled_now]

I completely agree with you, they had the wrong sort of geek in season one and I think they spotted it and were given the perfect opportunity with the shifting timelines to fix it for good. Which, if it's true, seems to be proof that we will probably never actually get back to the timeline/universe the show started it.

If does Cutter disappear I suspect they'll bring in another expert rather than adjust Connor any more.

And like you I really want Abby to get the chance to use some of her animal skills. She knows living animals and their instincts far better than Cutter ever should.

[deinonychus_1]

I think it was Andrew-Lee in an interview who commented about thw writers taking the opportunity to change the things that didn't work from S1. Now you mention it, I suspect you're right about it meaning they never intend to go back to the Claudia timeline.

I'd love to see Abby have more to do in S3. In S1 she was obviously there as the animal expert, but in S2 pretty much all the creatures were big nasty predators, so it was a case of shooting them from a long way off rather than handling them, so Abby had sod all to do really apart from those nice scenes wirh the mammoth towards the end.

[entangled_now]

so it was a case of shooting them from a long way off rather than handling them

Yes, this! After all the giant predators I'd enjoy another Dodo-like episode, some non-threatening species just for a change that could be studied and passed around (and possibly be ridiculously cute?)

[deinonychus_1]

We *so* need there to be an episode featuring ridiculously cute and fluffy creatures for a change. I want to see Nick's happy dodo-face again! Surely not everything that comes through an anomaly has to be big and nasty and want to eat the team?

[missyvortexdv]

I wouldn't call it a radical change myself. Tech skills may not have been at the forefront but by the existence of what looked like a potentially custom coded database application in S1 still speaks of vastly more computer skills than any other characters show. Not to mention if I recall correctly there were some videos on there too and whilst Connor may have collated info including the videos from other sources, but he may also have animated them himself possibly based on the other info he'd got...

I'd definitely concede that at the very least they have considerably emphasised his hardware tech skills. S1 was more about knowledge, both explicitly pointed out dino-geekery and more implicit software/coding and research skills.

[deinonychus_1]

I'd quite like to think that the computer skills were there all along in S1, and it is possible to argue that it was merely a case that they were never relevant to any plotlines, so were never obviously used. Certainly the database was impressive, and maybe hinted at more techie skills than we ever actually saw in S1, but to me it just felt like a big jump away from what we had previously seen of the character.

I suppose there isn't enough evidence in canon to be certain either way, but I defintiely feel that the writers deliberately went in a different direction with Connor in S2, and made far more of an effort to give him something that was 'his' area of expertise.

[joereaves]

But in S1 those computer skills were clearly *software* skills. Being able to program a complicated database is a completely different skill to being able to engineer the moon rover thing or the Anomaly Detector. Nothing in S1 suggested he spent his spare time building computers or such - nothing specifically said he didn't, but it's a skill that there was no evidence of before S1. I could probably, at a push, figure out the database, but I couldn't build a moon rover :D

[missyvortexdv]

It may be moot considering S2 changes, but personally I didn't have a problem thinking he could make for example the moon rover.

They *are* different skills, but based on the software geeks I know - who do not have any more experience than repairing or putting together pc's on occasion - they're quite happy to go with the school based electronic they did and figure out how with the help of the internet guides.

As for the ADD, we never have any evidence he made the hardware, do we? I can't believe he orchestrated it all himself - that's got to take a team, even if he was leader of it (which seems unlikely to my mind unless it's a title for sake of ego).

[munchkinofdoom]

I think there is more than enough evidence from season 1 to point to Connor being a bit of a software geek in addition to their baby dino geek. *g* I suspect he'd pretty much built that database from scratch. It was just the sudden hardware/tech skills that strained my credibility.

Someone, in one of the previous chats, mentioned that it is entirely possible that the season 2 Connor has a different past to season 1 Connor. It looks like he's either finished his education or dropped out by season 2 - so it is entirely possible that his education has some differences, including a more tech basis rather than natural sciences.

*shrugs* Personally, although I love my little dinosaur show, the Powers That Be are sloppy writers. *g*

[deinonychus_1]

I suppose it can be argued that things may have happened differently for the character background in the S2 timeline, but I tend to work on the basis that it was largely the same as what we saw in S1, with the obvious exceptions of Claudia and moving to the ARC at an early stage. If you argue that Connor did a different degree, then how did any of them ever get involved, since it was Connor coming to Cutter and Stephen that sparked off the entire thing for the team. If Connor doesn't have that academic link with Cutter then the whole thing falls apart.

True, all of this can be explained away by 'sloppy writing', which is a real shame. I'd like to think that the writers did put more thought into it than that.

[telperion_15]

I think if they want to shuffle Connor back towards dino-geek in S3, there is still some precedence for doing that. I don't think that aspect of his character was completely absent in S2 - didn't Stephen and/or Cutter ask him about what they could expect to see in the Silurian in 2.05 (although admittedly he was wrong about the 'bug sized' bugs!)? So there's still some aspect of the dino database there

[joereaves]

Plus while Cutter did know about the millipedes, it should be remembered that he *isn't* a palaeontologist. He's an evolutionary zoologist. His expertise shouldn't be confined to prehistoric creatures and because of that he shouldn't know everything there is to know about them. His specific area of expertise is evolution and specifically the things that don't fit Darwinian theories. Like that fish in the first ep.

So Connor's dinogeekiness isn't a direct duplication.

[deinonychus_1]

it should be remembered that he *isn't* a palaeontologist. He's an evolutionary zoologist. His expertise shouldn't be confined to prehistoric creatures and because of that he shouldn't know everything there is to know about them. The trouble with that is that it doesn't fit with what we see on screen. To all intents and purposes, what Cutter comes across as onscreen *is* a palaeontologist. He has never yet misidentified a creature or time period. And just as a random question, what is the difference btween an 'evolutionary zoologist' and a 'palaeontologist'? I know a palaeontologist studies fossils of past animal life, so what's the actual distinction? I kind of always wished that they would jst call him a palaeontologist on the show and be done with it

[joereaves]

Well a palaeontologist studies prehistoric life through the physical remains, kind of like an archaeologist studies human life through its remains. An evolutionary zoologist is a zoologist (ie someone who studies any animal life), but focussing on evolution, which depending on his specialism could be purely modern animals. A palaeontologist certainly wouldn't be on any kind of expedition where they'd be tracking panthers for example, but Nick has been. There would be some crossover between the two disciplines like there is between history and archaeology (although less crossover I would think since there isn't any history that can't utilise archaeology), but they're different.

Honestly Cutter shouldn't have the amount of knowledge he seems to. I would think his knowledge should be more general (ie it's a raptor of some kind rather than it's 'specific species of raptor'). It's slightly sloppy writing in always giving him the answers when they should come from Connor more often.

[lukadreaming]

One of the things we don't know yet is how much of S2 was iffy writing and how much is stuff that will be explained in S3.

One of the annoying things about TFWIC playing fast and loose with the timelines is that we don't know what the situation with Connor is. Did he get his degree? Did he drop out?

I've always seen him as a software geek. I'm sure he fiddles around with hardware and I always have an image of lots of dismantled computers all over the bedroom floor *g*. But I've assumed he would need help with complex hardware projects. He'd know what he wanted, but might need an expert to work with him.

[deinonychus_1]

I'm sure he fiddles around with hardware and I always have an image of lots of dismantled computers all over the bedroom floor *g*. But I've assumed he would need help with complex hardware projects. He'd know what he wanted, but might need an expert to work with him.This is really where Munchkin and I disagree. I have no problem seeing him having the hardware skills to back up the software skills, and I have always imagined from what we saw in S2, that he really did build the ADD himself. Okay, he almost certainly had a team assisting him, but I think he was personally the driving force behind designing it, and that he was very hands-on with the building of it as well. In 2.3 when it first goes online, he takes it very personally when people believe that the ADD has failed to work. This doesn't strike me as the reaction of someone who just told a team of designers and engineers what he wanted, and then let them get on with it. This is the reaction of someone who was intimately invloved in creating it, it's his 'baby', that's why he

[telperion_15]

In 2.3 when it first goes online, he takes it very personally when people believe that the ADD has failed to work. This doesn't strike me as the reaction of someone who just told a team of designers and engineers what he wanted, and then let them get on with it. This is the reaction of someone who was intimately invloved in creating it, it's his 'baby', that's why he takes it personally.

That's totally how I interpret it too. It's clearly his 'pet project', and he's clearly been thrilled to have been given responsibility for it. And I reckon most of the others see it that way too. Cutter certainly defers to Connor on matters regarding the ADD (e.g. the spyware/virus), and I'n sure there's a scene in one ep where the siren goes off, and when they all congregate round the ADD a tech gets up and hands over control to Connor - that suggests that everyone thinks of it as 'his' (of course, I may have imagined that scene... *g*)