February 21st, 2003, 05:51 PM
Author august
Member posted February 13, 2001 01:29 AM
Topic: Random Thoughts on "Truth Be Told" (Attn: Joel and Chris Graves if you're lurking!)
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Well I thoroughly enjoyed it.
As several people have noticed in the past, they are amazingly adept at planting the seeds for plots and plot devices long before they ever use them. Much in the style of comic books, where Superman will suddenly remember that the key to defeating the villain is in the bottle city of Kandor, from 3 years before.
The rift between Voic and Hel? Early early on. Creegan's connection to Hel's family was from the second episode. Along with the Betrayer ID chip from "Double," Hel's dad's apparition from "Perceptions," the holo-pic from "Mauser's Day Out," and the trans-psionic plane weapon thing from "Out of Body." That's a LOT of inter-connectedness!
Anyone notice who wrote part 2? Melissa Blake, once Rob Tapert's secretary, whom we saw portrayed by Lisa Chappell in the HTLJ episodes "Yes Virginia" and "For Those of You..."
Things I liked:
the Mr. Data-ish explanation of why Hel and Creegan could walk through walls, but their feet enabled them to walk on top of the floors - Creegan spouts off techno-gibberish about an interface with the decompostion of matter.... I expected him next to blame a distortion in the space time continuum that led to a temporal anomaly, causing tachyon emissions in the forward sensor array.
- Hel's wisecrack about "the hair and the make-up" and Joel's response "rrrrrraaaiiirrrr!" Wonder if that was an ad-lib?
- Mauser's wonderfully deadpan advice to Cleo to "act naturally - like me." Who would have thought Sorbo's stunt double would be such a good actor?
- Cleo's repeated Death Star references.
- her initial imitation of a Betrayer. "Crush, kill, destroy." OK - who caught that? It was a "Lost in Space" reference. Will, Dr. Smith et al. encountered a killer robot called IDAK - Instant Destroyer And Killer. All it would say was "Crush, kill, destroy."
- the Dr. Octopus-like link-up of the Betrayer to Bailey Central.
- Creegan's classic line "I must go through, like, 50 mutants a week..."
- Cleo's imitation of a Betrayer. The old military command "present arms" takes on a new meaning! Her whole malfuntion thing was hilarious, but when the chips were down, boy did she back Creegan down! You go girl! (Even if he did get a nice grab of her @ss at the end.)
- the *other* blatant Star Wars reference: "Aren't you a little short for a Betrayer?"
- the funny but accurate observation that there weren't too many spare weapons in Betrayer central, since everone could make their own!
- the new info on what the Bailies are. Organic (I guess if we think of humans as having carbon and iron and zinc in our bodies, it's more believable) creatures who absorb human neural tissue; "in a sense, they are us." Now *there's* a topic for discussion!
- Cleo's own unique way of protecting her friends with her force field: "Group Hug!"
- The final shot. Did anyone notice the composition? It was *very* planned out. A triangle, with Hel at lower right, Sarge above her at left, Cleo above both in the center. Like a Botticelli painting, it was so structured. Then Hel moves away, just as she says she can't trust Voice. Cleo wonders where that leaves the team. Mauser moves in, in between Cleo and Sarge, creating a second triangle, with him at the center and highest point. It doesn't get any more symbolic than that!
Hey Joel - I bet you're lurking out there. Good job, man! And kudos on the cameo in "Xena this week too! And a big congrats and thanks to director Chris Graves. (OK, OK, to the writers and cast too, but that goes without saying!)
LMRS
Member posted February 15, 2001 04:31 PM
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You gotta see the first LOST IN SPACE epsiode. After Dr. Smith reprogrammed him, one of the first things the Jupiter II robot said was, CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY!"
Mind you, I remember the IDAK robot (I don't think I'll able to forget him).
august
Member posted February 15, 2001 10:09 PM
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oh the pain, the pain. William, save me!!!
Bailey 1729
Member posted February 15, 2001 11:26 PM
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Yeah, this episode really tied a bunch of stuff together! As mentioned by august above, references to events in Creegan (the 2nd ep), Double, Perceptions, Mauser's Day Out, Out of Body, and also (not mentioned above) Hel and Highwater 2 (at the end of that ep they were wondering why the captured Bailey helped them save the underground). Also ties to the other Raina eps since we find out Creegan and Raina knew each (and may have even worked with each other).
LMRS, found it interesting you said "A lot of questions were answered. Too many questions, in fact. I got the feeling that they were trying to tie the whole flipping show together". You think when they wrote this they had in mind wrapping up a few of the mysteries, possibly moving towards wrapping up EVERYTHING in a final episode or two? (or did you mean something else?) Hmmm, I don't know ... still a lot of mysteries, for example is Hel's dad (Carter) really dead, what does "in a sense they are us" mean, what will happen to the team now, were the Baileys created by humans and why, how and why did everybody get driven underground, anything special about Cleo, what happened with Lily and her promised combat training, what about those memories Hel gained in Brain Drain, and many more ...
this ep seemed to be sort of a turning point (to me), rather than a movement towards a conclusion, since at the end the future of the team is in doubt.
Interesting how a character changes in your mind once you get some history. So for example after Mauser's Day Out I didn't think of Mauser as basically a robot anymore; it humanized him. Now we got Creegan's version of his story. Turns out he's not a psychotic murderous power-hungry megalomaniac after all! No, he was a brilliant young scientist (approximate quote: "I spent years working on that problem, Hel. I solved it by retuning the residual gravimetric particles to interact with the decoherent matter at your feet"), who was wrongfully dismissed from his job by Voice and Carter! Probably they were envious of his brilliance! (Or, as I joked on another thread, possibly the lab he was working in had a dress code, which he ignored). And now, quite rightly, he wants some revenge (and also I guess to be the ruler of the underground, but hey, he's brilliant, he deserves it!).
I like the gravimetric particles business (another tie-in: they also used the term gravimetric - I think - in Juggernaut Down), instead of simply calling it a gravity field or talking about gravitons or something. This is either very subtle or very silly, since gravimetric just means "gravity measuring" (it might possibly be subtle since one way of thinking about the basis of quantum mechanics has to do with unavoidable interactions between measuring devices and systems being measured).
So, referring to Carter's line "in a sense, they are us", august said "Now *there's* a topic for discussion!" OK ... let's discuss it! Any theories on what this really means? For example: maybe Baileys were genetically engineered by humans, using human DNA as a base, to ... OK let's use the old environment theory, why not? ... to save and protect the environment. So they "are us" because genetically they're based on human DNA (with this theory). But why in the world would they need human neural tissue? That's not very good engineering! Another mystery to add to the list!
Melody
Member posted February 15, 2001 11:33 PM
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Maybe they need human neural tissue now because whatever technology originally was in the Baileys was destroyed and the only way the Baileys could keep their "smarts" was to turn to humans again Hey, it is 2525 and we still don't know when the Baileys were created
august
Member posted February 15, 2001 11:52 PM
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Hey good call on the Creegan-Raina connection - he even had some cute line about her, but I forget what it was. Anyone remember?
I too like the humanization of Creegan (and Edward Mauser!) I now sort of picture him as one of those disgruntled office workers who begin to dress and act oddly before going postal.
Hey refresh my memory - why did the Bailey want to save the Underground? Do you mean because Bailey Central is there?
As for the whole human neural tissue thing, I'm still unsure. My biology class days are far behind me. What does that imply, exactly? Clearly something from humans is needed to make the artificial intelligence sentient. Is all they are implying a sort of Borg-like collective mind, with remnnants of human memories and/or instincts in there somewhere?
See, the whole organic vs. machine thing bothers me. The exterior of the Bailies is totally metallic and machine-like. So much so that the blaster that was severed in "Quest for Firepower" was compatible with the Underground's technology. Of course, the whole morphing technology that the (presumably) simpler Betrayers have might explain that. But on the inside, they appear to be like the inside of a person. Gooey and sticky. What's up with that?
And while we're on the topic. OK, in "Double" Mauser says that the Betrayers are exact copies of humans, right down to the molecular level. OK, so where is all that silver stuff we see? And the wiring gizmos that we saw protruding from the Betrayer head in "Baby Boom?"
Melody
Member posted February 15, 2001 11:59 PM
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Um..august--this is supposed to be sci-fi. Some things just are and aren't meant to be explained...or is that for Xena?
And maybe, just maybe--and this is my scientific biology self kicking in momentarily--when Mauser said that Betrayers were identical to humans down to the last molecule, he was right, they just figured out how to make the mechanical stuff read as DNA on any scan. Either way..I wouldn't go looking for a full and complete explanation. By the time TPTB get around to(or could get around to) explaining things, there would be inconsistencies the size of_____(you fill in the blank )
Bailey 1729
Member posted February 16, 2001 08:25 PM
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august, I thought the implication of the discussion Hel and her dad were having (when he said Baileys use human neural tissue; in a sense they are us; etc.) was that they didn't want to destroy humanity because they need humanity as a supply of neural tissue -- didn't Hel say something in this scene like oh so that's why they don't want to destroy us?
Can't remember Creegan's line about Raina.
I think maybe there have been different models of betrayers (oh and btw I realize that it may be silly to put more thought into these topics than the writers etc. possibly - probably - did; I just think it's fun). So Mauser is probably an early model; Cleo's double the latest (in fact Hel said something to this effect in Double, about Mauser being more primitive or something). The "identical at the molecular level" is ridiculous, if interpreted literally, since for example a single individual is different at the molecular level from one instant to the next due to continuous metabolic processes (you know, at the molecular level, every cell in your body is in a continuous state of change). I figure what this really meant was that Mauser determined that in some random sample of cells (bone, muscle, nerve, blood, etc.), scanned from Cleo and her double, the cells were the same at the molecular level for the molecules that are semi-permanent in cells (like DNA), within some error tolerance (but with only 1/2 hour he couldn't have said all that, the show would have been over by the time he finished explaining!) -- this interpretation leaves room for undetected nanotech in Cleo's double (just need a few large molecule sized nanomachines after all -- they can do morphing like stuff by changing existing material into whatever at a geometrically increasing rate, see?).
Yes, nanotech! Nanotech can explain everything -- it's magic! All the morphing abilities of Baileys and Betrayers and so on. So we throw in some different models of Betrayers (maybe the new ones don't turn all silver? Cleo's double didn't), some nanotech, etc., and we can "explain" it all! Including organic Baileys that may seem to be machine like.
But it doesn't explain why they need human neural tissue. Melody, I like your theory.
Or maybe they can create new Baileys without human neural tissue, but they're just clones; to get new smarter Baileys they need ... HUMAN BRAINS! now there's a time-honored SF concept ...
STRIFE
Member posted February 18, 2001 08:49 PM
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Creegan's line was something about having to look her (Raina) up sometime!
Member posted February 13, 2001 01:29 AM
Topic: Random Thoughts on "Truth Be Told" (Attn: Joel and Chris Graves if you're lurking!)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Well I thoroughly enjoyed it.
As several people have noticed in the past, they are amazingly adept at planting the seeds for plots and plot devices long before they ever use them. Much in the style of comic books, where Superman will suddenly remember that the key to defeating the villain is in the bottle city of Kandor, from 3 years before.
The rift between Voic and Hel? Early early on. Creegan's connection to Hel's family was from the second episode. Along with the Betrayer ID chip from "Double," Hel's dad's apparition from "Perceptions," the holo-pic from "Mauser's Day Out," and the trans-psionic plane weapon thing from "Out of Body." That's a LOT of inter-connectedness!
Anyone notice who wrote part 2? Melissa Blake, once Rob Tapert's secretary, whom we saw portrayed by Lisa Chappell in the HTLJ episodes "Yes Virginia" and "For Those of You..."
Things I liked:
the Mr. Data-ish explanation of why Hel and Creegan could walk through walls, but their feet enabled them to walk on top of the floors - Creegan spouts off techno-gibberish about an interface with the decompostion of matter.... I expected him next to blame a distortion in the space time continuum that led to a temporal anomaly, causing tachyon emissions in the forward sensor array.
- Hel's wisecrack about "the hair and the make-up" and Joel's response "rrrrrraaaiiirrrr!" Wonder if that was an ad-lib?
- Mauser's wonderfully deadpan advice to Cleo to "act naturally - like me." Who would have thought Sorbo's stunt double would be such a good actor?
- Cleo's repeated Death Star references.
- her initial imitation of a Betrayer. "Crush, kill, destroy." OK - who caught that? It was a "Lost in Space" reference. Will, Dr. Smith et al. encountered a killer robot called IDAK - Instant Destroyer And Killer. All it would say was "Crush, kill, destroy."
- the Dr. Octopus-like link-up of the Betrayer to Bailey Central.
- Creegan's classic line "I must go through, like, 50 mutants a week..."
- Cleo's imitation of a Betrayer. The old military command "present arms" takes on a new meaning! Her whole malfuntion thing was hilarious, but when the chips were down, boy did she back Creegan down! You go girl! (Even if he did get a nice grab of her @ss at the end.)
- the *other* blatant Star Wars reference: "Aren't you a little short for a Betrayer?"
- the funny but accurate observation that there weren't too many spare weapons in Betrayer central, since everone could make their own!
- the new info on what the Bailies are. Organic (I guess if we think of humans as having carbon and iron and zinc in our bodies, it's more believable) creatures who absorb human neural tissue; "in a sense, they are us." Now *there's* a topic for discussion!
- Cleo's own unique way of protecting her friends with her force field: "Group Hug!"
- The final shot. Did anyone notice the composition? It was *very* planned out. A triangle, with Hel at lower right, Sarge above her at left, Cleo above both in the center. Like a Botticelli painting, it was so structured. Then Hel moves away, just as she says she can't trust Voice. Cleo wonders where that leaves the team. Mauser moves in, in between Cleo and Sarge, creating a second triangle, with him at the center and highest point. It doesn't get any more symbolic than that!
Hey Joel - I bet you're lurking out there. Good job, man! And kudos on the cameo in "Xena this week too! And a big congrats and thanks to director Chris Graves. (OK, OK, to the writers and cast too, but that goes without saying!)
LMRS
Member posted February 15, 2001 04:31 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------
You gotta see the first LOST IN SPACE epsiode. After Dr. Smith reprogrammed him, one of the first things the Jupiter II robot said was, CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY!"
Mind you, I remember the IDAK robot (I don't think I'll able to forget him).
august
Member posted February 15, 2001 10:09 PM
---------------------------------------------------------------
oh the pain, the pain. William, save me!!!
Bailey 1729
Member posted February 15, 2001 11:26 PM
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Yeah, this episode really tied a bunch of stuff together! As mentioned by august above, references to events in Creegan (the 2nd ep), Double, Perceptions, Mauser's Day Out, Out of Body, and also (not mentioned above) Hel and Highwater 2 (at the end of that ep they were wondering why the captured Bailey helped them save the underground). Also ties to the other Raina eps since we find out Creegan and Raina knew each (and may have even worked with each other).
LMRS, found it interesting you said "A lot of questions were answered. Too many questions, in fact. I got the feeling that they were trying to tie the whole flipping show together". You think when they wrote this they had in mind wrapping up a few of the mysteries, possibly moving towards wrapping up EVERYTHING in a final episode or two? (or did you mean something else?) Hmmm, I don't know ... still a lot of mysteries, for example is Hel's dad (Carter) really dead, what does "in a sense they are us" mean, what will happen to the team now, were the Baileys created by humans and why, how and why did everybody get driven underground, anything special about Cleo, what happened with Lily and her promised combat training, what about those memories Hel gained in Brain Drain, and many more ...
this ep seemed to be sort of a turning point (to me), rather than a movement towards a conclusion, since at the end the future of the team is in doubt.
Interesting how a character changes in your mind once you get some history. So for example after Mauser's Day Out I didn't think of Mauser as basically a robot anymore; it humanized him. Now we got Creegan's version of his story. Turns out he's not a psychotic murderous power-hungry megalomaniac after all! No, he was a brilliant young scientist (approximate quote: "I spent years working on that problem, Hel. I solved it by retuning the residual gravimetric particles to interact with the decoherent matter at your feet"), who was wrongfully dismissed from his job by Voice and Carter! Probably they were envious of his brilliance! (Or, as I joked on another thread, possibly the lab he was working in had a dress code, which he ignored). And now, quite rightly, he wants some revenge (and also I guess to be the ruler of the underground, but hey, he's brilliant, he deserves it!).
I like the gravimetric particles business (another tie-in: they also used the term gravimetric - I think - in Juggernaut Down), instead of simply calling it a gravity field or talking about gravitons or something. This is either very subtle or very silly, since gravimetric just means "gravity measuring" (it might possibly be subtle since one way of thinking about the basis of quantum mechanics has to do with unavoidable interactions between measuring devices and systems being measured).
So, referring to Carter's line "in a sense, they are us", august said "Now *there's* a topic for discussion!" OK ... let's discuss it! Any theories on what this really means? For example: maybe Baileys were genetically engineered by humans, using human DNA as a base, to ... OK let's use the old environment theory, why not? ... to save and protect the environment. So they "are us" because genetically they're based on human DNA (with this theory). But why in the world would they need human neural tissue? That's not very good engineering! Another mystery to add to the list!
Melody
Member posted February 15, 2001 11:33 PM
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe they need human neural tissue now because whatever technology originally was in the Baileys was destroyed and the only way the Baileys could keep their "smarts" was to turn to humans again Hey, it is 2525 and we still don't know when the Baileys were created
august
Member posted February 15, 2001 11:52 PM
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Hey good call on the Creegan-Raina connection - he even had some cute line about her, but I forget what it was. Anyone remember?
I too like the humanization of Creegan (and Edward Mauser!) I now sort of picture him as one of those disgruntled office workers who begin to dress and act oddly before going postal.
Hey refresh my memory - why did the Bailey want to save the Underground? Do you mean because Bailey Central is there?
As for the whole human neural tissue thing, I'm still unsure. My biology class days are far behind me. What does that imply, exactly? Clearly something from humans is needed to make the artificial intelligence sentient. Is all they are implying a sort of Borg-like collective mind, with remnnants of human memories and/or instincts in there somewhere?
See, the whole organic vs. machine thing bothers me. The exterior of the Bailies is totally metallic and machine-like. So much so that the blaster that was severed in "Quest for Firepower" was compatible with the Underground's technology. Of course, the whole morphing technology that the (presumably) simpler Betrayers have might explain that. But on the inside, they appear to be like the inside of a person. Gooey and sticky. What's up with that?
And while we're on the topic. OK, in "Double" Mauser says that the Betrayers are exact copies of humans, right down to the molecular level. OK, so where is all that silver stuff we see? And the wiring gizmos that we saw protruding from the Betrayer head in "Baby Boom?"
Melody
Member posted February 15, 2001 11:59 PM
------------------------------------------------------------------
Um..august--this is supposed to be sci-fi. Some things just are and aren't meant to be explained...or is that for Xena?
And maybe, just maybe--and this is my scientific biology self kicking in momentarily--when Mauser said that Betrayers were identical to humans down to the last molecule, he was right, they just figured out how to make the mechanical stuff read as DNA on any scan. Either way..I wouldn't go looking for a full and complete explanation. By the time TPTB get around to(or could get around to) explaining things, there would be inconsistencies the size of_____(you fill in the blank )
Bailey 1729
Member posted February 16, 2001 08:25 PM
-------------------------------------------------------------------
august, I thought the implication of the discussion Hel and her dad were having (when he said Baileys use human neural tissue; in a sense they are us; etc.) was that they didn't want to destroy humanity because they need humanity as a supply of neural tissue -- didn't Hel say something in this scene like oh so that's why they don't want to destroy us?
Can't remember Creegan's line about Raina.
I think maybe there have been different models of betrayers (oh and btw I realize that it may be silly to put more thought into these topics than the writers etc. possibly - probably - did; I just think it's fun). So Mauser is probably an early model; Cleo's double the latest (in fact Hel said something to this effect in Double, about Mauser being more primitive or something). The "identical at the molecular level" is ridiculous, if interpreted literally, since for example a single individual is different at the molecular level from one instant to the next due to continuous metabolic processes (you know, at the molecular level, every cell in your body is in a continuous state of change). I figure what this really meant was that Mauser determined that in some random sample of cells (bone, muscle, nerve, blood, etc.), scanned from Cleo and her double, the cells were the same at the molecular level for the molecules that are semi-permanent in cells (like DNA), within some error tolerance (but with only 1/2 hour he couldn't have said all that, the show would have been over by the time he finished explaining!) -- this interpretation leaves room for undetected nanotech in Cleo's double (just need a few large molecule sized nanomachines after all -- they can do morphing like stuff by changing existing material into whatever at a geometrically increasing rate, see?).
Yes, nanotech! Nanotech can explain everything -- it's magic! All the morphing abilities of Baileys and Betrayers and so on. So we throw in some different models of Betrayers (maybe the new ones don't turn all silver? Cleo's double didn't), some nanotech, etc., and we can "explain" it all! Including organic Baileys that may seem to be machine like.
But it doesn't explain why they need human neural tissue. Melody, I like your theory.
Or maybe they can create new Baileys without human neural tissue, but they're just clones; to get new smarter Baileys they need ... HUMAN BRAINS! now there's a time-honored SF concept ...
STRIFE
Member posted February 18, 2001 08:49 PM
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Creegan's line was something about having to look her (Raina) up sometime!
August - Jack's Pack Fan # 1, Keeper of the List, 3-Time Speaker of the JoAT Fan Quote of the Week, and the only person ever to have Back 2 Back Jack and Cleo fan quotes !
