1.16:Vanishing Point

[RangerOne SG13 SOR]

Review

Taggart wakes up in hospital, unaware Dr Bertran is playing for time as he attempts to download information from the captain's brain.
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Episode starts with the dragging of 6 bodies from the bottom of a river. They have trauma to the fave and all died froma brain disorder.

Kurt still shows remorse over the dockyard deaths from is sentients.

Chuck comes back and decides to go fishing but is kidnapped after Niel access info over the net about a group/cult who beilieve in concious transference from the brain to machine.


Chuck struggles in a simulated world where Paige is alive. As he rejects the reality of his prison the sentients change the world to try and keep him under control.

The group search out for Chuck and find him from GPS coordinates from a previous victim.

Sarah and Angela kick sythetic butt in the lab and Niel enters teh simulated world to pull Chuck out.

Chuck at first does not believe Niel (who is trying to lead him to the exit). He changes his mind and they go to a bridge. The idea is they jump off and they will then be released from the machine.

They jump but it does not work. They come face to face with a Sentient (in the guise of Paige)who explains that he/she is collecting human minds. She explains that humans are about to be replaced by a new evolution.

Chuck makes a remark about her talking like the seeker and does she know him. She smiles and says no.

Chuck persauades her to believe his the world will end (she passes it of as a dream) and that unless she releases him and Niel she will die in 5 years time.

She agrees but says she will be checking up on them.


They jump and leave the simulation and the Sentient then changes back to its natural form except.

She changes into the same form as the Seeker

They end up back together in the cafe thier fight renewed.

Chuck is back.




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Ranger

 

[Tabitha]

Originally posted by RangerOne SG13 SOR

They jump and leave the simulation and the Sentient then changes back to its natural form except.

She changes into the same form as the Seeker

I blatantly don't remember that far back. I remember the other sentient that was controlling all those people (including Kurt) and that was trying to materialise looked something like the Paige sentient, but I don't recall the Seeker looking like this. Are you sure? Mind you, I have long since taped over that ep, so I am only relying on memory here.


Quite a heavy going episode, this one. I felt as if the virtual reality bit had been done before and was familiar, but, like all things Odyssey 5, I was quite satisfied by the presentation. Peter Weller really is a great actor, and the fact that we saw the other characters in Chuck's VR interacting without his presence (Kurt and the Harvard Law lady) threw me a bit before I really believed it was a VR.


This is a quite sad nitpicky point, but when Angela runs her hand across the dead engineer's book shelf, she says something along the lines of "Your husband had an impressive collection of Science books", the books we see for that split second are mostly american history books! I know this cos they are on my shelf too, and have quite distinctive spines. Plus they all had little labels on the spine that mean they are probably library books anyway. Think of the late fines.

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hello?



I'll get me coat

 

[RangerOne SG13 SOR]

The other sentients are like a whirling dark spider (lol so hard to describe) but when you look at them you feel evil etc. They instantly make you think of a virus.

The seeker however when he changed to his natural form was much different.

It was a lighter colour a kind of white/blue. Its was a more crystaline form like a snowflake. Giving impression of good.

The first clue is when Chuck says to her

"you sound an awful lot like the seeker, I dont suppose you know him?"

She denies this but with a strange smile. I didnt see the link at first until the end when she changed back. Instead of the black virus thing she morphed into the double snowflake type thing (lol great use of words i know).

So this just confuses the issue more and more. Either this is intentional and part of the storyline or Coto screwed up.


Ranger

 

[Tabitha]

I wish I could remember that, but I trust ya Ranger.

That throws an entire different perspective on everything, especially added to the whole VR subplot we got with this ep. What if their entire experiences from sometime before their original Odyssey mission are all VR, with the Seeker as a sentient that is trying to find out more about his competition? Or something. No, actually that wouldn't work, but you get my drift

I like the Kurt subplot at the moment - and I feel that his hostility to his companions is very believable.

What I don't find convincing is how people seem so eager to give the five information. Is Sarah being a reporter enough for a justification here? I don't really know that much about journalists, but it seems to be pushing it.

 

[Dave]

At first I didn't understand what was going on with the dual timeline stories. I though that it must be some kind of 'Matrix'-like thing that had taken over Chuck's mind. I was right and Chuck is 'the One'! He realised what was going on quite quickly, though clearing all the rubbish off that table was a little too obvious.

But then it became 'Total Recall' instead. Is this back to reality, or yet another different virtual reality?

Then finally it was 'Vanilla Sky' with them jumping off the bridge to exit!

Did no one else think that it might be a kind of homage to those films?

I can't find that 'Transhumanist Guild' website that Neil said Chuck should check out.

But, transhumanists do exist and they are into cyborgs, nanotech and humans interfacing with computers.

Just to add, we mentioned the FBI calling last week, but the police now have a massive number of unsolved murders, and the 'Odyssey 5' have all been linked to them in some way, it shouldn't be long before they begin asking why?

 

[Tabitha]

Yeh, I didn't think that Chuck would have figured it out so quickly. And with a complete access to all his memories wouldn't it make sense that it should be totally seamless? And it seems a bit mad that Chuck was able to trick the sentient into making a mistake.
Mind you, I guess he was suspicious from the beginning.

You know I never saw the Total Recall similarity at the time, but you're right, it is striking. I was reminded of Vanilla Sky, but I could let them away with that one