1. ALEX AND SUPERCOMPUTERS. Okay...let's add up the facts a) Alex never left New Mexico, b) Alex (when outside his room) walked around in a dazed state, c) Alex broke the alien language system and decoded the book.

Let's see...a bit of reality check here. As smart as Alex is...why him? Did that seem plausible to you?

And did Alex blatantly lie to his friends? Or was Alex himself unaware of just what had been going on in his own life?

And Thai food...morning/noon/night...ever eat thai food...some is hot and quite...spicy. Sound familiar?

2. ALIEN SEX. Floating...1 hr...hot electric energy. You know, I never thought I'd say it, but I always thought that Max describing sex would be really exicting. But that description left me cold. Granted that we allegedly have a freaked out alien teenage Dad on our hands...the whole relationship between T/M is so strained at this point that it is difficult to get excited about what ought to be exciting...alien sex...with Max no less!

3. MAX AND LIZ WARS. Did you think that the scene where Liz and Tess were talking and Max comes into Valenti's house was weird? Why accuse Liz of accusing Tess of mind manipulation? Was that our writers' tongue in cheek way of poking fun at the viewers who are willing to blame Tess for all that is evil? Because if Tess is really guilty of mindwarping--she was a pretty good actress. At this point I'm convinced that Tess' actions are for real. Are you?

And when did Max's regard for Liz turn into such hate?

4. MAX AND INSTANT SONOGRAMS. Cute little hand wasn't it? And yet...every thing felt so curiously flat. Of course, I'm a dreamer and I have to be honest that that fact might be influencing me in this eppy...but Max himself is acting ambivalent at times about this whole Tess/baby thing.

Alien babies and earth's atmosphere...Hmmm. You know, I keep thinking to myself...who wants to get the podsters back to their home planet? Remembering last week's eppy...I am loathe to trust what I see...and instead want to go with my instincts. Why wouldn't a baby of two hybrids be okay on earth? I don't buy the atmosphere explanation at all. But then...if it is bogus...we have some serious mental influence here.

5. ZE BOOK! ZE BOOK! At last, we get back to a SF plot element of Season One! And now we have a translation. And it tells or podsters how to go home. ??? Do you believe it? Is the book legit? Is the translation legit?

6. THE ELUSIVE LEANNA. Who is she? What control did she have over Alex? Was her relationship with Alex real? Or the stuff of dreams? And was poor Alex constantly trying to "wake up"?

Well folk, we are leading up to the finale when all things SF will be explained (we wish--ha!).

What did you think of "Baby It's You"?

LSS

I saved this on my comp form a previous thread because, I...being spoiled as I am knew that "Alex" had deciphered that book.

I was LMAO at your comment. Now I just want to be able to read what the book says. From what I could see from rewinding and staring real hard and close...the book does mention the podsters names...which is something the Mom-o-gram *didn't* mention.

And yes, I still think Tess is mindwarping or someone else is mindwarping them all.

Gotta get to .

There has to be someone helping Tess with all this. I find it too convenient for the translation of the book to be discovered just when Max has "decided" they need to do something about the baby. He has been so confused about all this (looking for apartments:confused, talks to Isabel, maybe he realizes that they need to go "home" . . . and then Mickey drives up -- all there in black and white describing how to go home!!!

Notice when Max grabs the book at the pod chamber to decifer it, Tess doesn't seem to interested!! Her plan was to convince him that they need to go home. (I think - maybe I should re-watch the episode again - I do believe I need to get the awful taste out of my mouth from this episode - so behr with me here!!) -- I felt she wasn't interested b/c she knows that sooner or later the translation will come back to them. Lonnie (Leanna??) had set them up to find the computer. Didn't the information come to Liz & Maria a heck of a lot faster in this episode?? Maybe because Maria was helping, but how convenient for them to spot Leanna at the concert - full of people!! Then they discovered that her real name was Jennifer. And so on!!

What's up with Michael?? He seemed a bit off to me - very monotone throughout the episode. Actually, the whole episode seemed off. Was that on purpose or is it because I'm having trouble accepting this storyline??

IMHO, Max is definitley mind-warped throughout the show. His voice is even different. (Great job, JB) But as a Dreamer, he seemed very UPSET and SAD at the situation when Liz left the Valenti's. Is he regretting his coldness?? Is he trying to push Liz away as far as possible to make him feel better about the Tess situation??

I thought your comment that this show was a "three ring circus" was very apt. I actually thought the podsters were being set up with the translation of the Destiny Book. It was way, way too easy for Liz and Maria to "just stumble" into Leanna. Oh, and for contrivance sake, if Maria mentions calling Michael, he shows up! Huh?

I did think the booby-trapped pyramid was cool, but if I'm right, they (K'var? Skins? Shapeshifters?) wanted the crystal and the translation to get back to the podsters.

I have a sneaky suspicion that Liz's powers wouldn't have let her die...but it was nice that Michael got to save the day.

As for alien babies, if we get science lectures on DNA and RNA sequencing from Larek and we actually, heh! like pay attention, this whole (baby can't breath) thing makes no sense even within the context of the show! They are supposed to by hybrids which technically suggests they can't have kids, (destiny book pictures aside). But if their "recessive" alien genes combined to create an 100% alien baby then how and the heck can a hybrid alien body carry it to "term"????

And for the final three ring circus event, are we supposed to think that the snow falling from Isobel's hand in Baby Its You, reflects back to the Roswell Christmas Carol? Why snow? Was it supposed to represent that peace had been made between the siblings? If Isobel can change the weather which is what her referring back to the death of a guinea pig and Michael's comment seem to suggest, where does it lead?

I've wondered before if Kyle's "enhanced" power isn't mindwalking like Isobel does. Isobel saw Laurie in a box while mindwalking Kyle. He seemed to have no problems adapting to the playboy bunny daydreaming at the gym. Can you imagine Liz doing the same thing without trauma? No way.

Now, back to the topic at hand. I did like this episode, it was charming for the most part (though I thought Sexual Healing did a better job with intimacy issues). It was fast paced and answered some questions.

I'm still puzzled by the dichotomy between Isobel making "snow" and all our cold/snow references from last week's episode. And Alex was eating spicy Thai food morning, noon and night. How odd. Makes you think he might be an alien eating hot & spicy sweet and sour food. Or Alex possessed by an alien. So if the alien possessing Alex was bad, then the alien killed Alex because he was trying to warn the podsters? Liz & Maria & Michael have scored a good one for the podsters. But if Alex was possessed by a good alien, then perhaps Alex was killed by bad guy aliens who wanted him to stop his research? I just realized I've argued in circles. Time for bed.

Sadly, I don't believe any more.
Jamethiel

About the scene with Max and Liz...
Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but to me his over reaction looked like either
a) mind manipulation (note that Tess was present) or
b) pure guilt over him sleeping w/ Tess and his fear that Liz would find out.
His glances between Liz and Tess looked like he was trying to figure out if Tess had spilled the beans and what Liz's reaction would be. Knowing that Tess was pregnant with his child, he may also have lashed out to push Liz further away.

as to the insta sonogram... um... I know they said it was a one month gestation period, but that little hand looked a bit large to be embryonic, especially considering that Tess wasn't even "showing".

Alex and the supercomputer; Alex would have been the perfect choice to manipulate in to translating the book, because he already was a computer "geek" and had a working knowledge. His odd behavior obviously points to him being mind warped or "inhabited" ala Brody... but by whom. Kivar would not have wanted Max to come home because it would have meant a power struggle for the throne. Whoever the manipulator is, they are a supporter of the four. Perhaps Leanna (or whatever her name was) was not the manipulator, but was working in tangent with whomever it was.
I'll have to mull this over a bit more

I will have to post another day after rewatching, but here's HolndPark's bit of the translation: quote:You are the royal four. Zan, the king, Ava his queen, Vilandra his sister, Rath his counselor. You were created from the genetic material of your alien predecessors and human subjects. You were given human form so that you could live safely on the planet undetected until the time come for your return. You have been given the granolith, a transport between this planet and Antar. You have also been given the communications
technology which will allow you to access information from your true home. The chamber containing your hybernation pods and the granolith has been hidden away from human settlement. It can only be accessed by the four of you. You have been provided with a guardian who will protect you from danger and keep you hidden from your enemies, both human and Antarian.

Then it goes on for a few paragraphs about abductions.
Oh, and someone pointed out on the Liz Thread that the triangle bomb looked like the UFL's ('could it be creepier') symbol from silverhandprint.com.

And what's up with these crystal rods? I guess TPTB will be able to recycle them for their new Superman series next season. I shouldn't laugh at that, but with the cancellation rumors I'm getting a little bit depressed.

I honestly have no idea what's going on with Alex and his double life. Let's think about the possibilities. If the real Alex were doing the decoding, I can't believe he would have kept it a secret from Liz and Maria. Then there's the whole matter of decoding a language that is completely alien in nature. Supercomputers wouldn't help with this. He knows nothing of the culture, the physical surroundings, the body types, the family structures or anything. These are hieroglyphs so how exactly would he recognize the hieroglyph for "granolith"?

If possessed Alex were doing the decoding, and therefore a great cryptographer/computer guy, I can't believe he would have missed the Leanna is not Leanna message. In addition, I'm guessing that the possessor already speaks the language, and wouldn't need to translate it at all.

"Why does everything have to be a lie? Why is everything so wrong?" Is it just me or do these lines seem like the most significant ones of the last several episodes?

The Book -- did anyone else think that Tess acted as if she'd never seen or heard of this book before? Max was explaining it to her -- "this contains everything about us". Um --- hello? She gave them the book. And the translation from Alex seemed to fit together a little too neatly, but ::shrug:: I'll suspend some disbelief for that.

Alex -- Why Thai food morning/noon/night? Did Alex like Thai food before? It was his last meal, but I wonder now if that is in-character or OOC for him. It sounds to me like he was possessed by someone, because of the way the student said Alex didn't even acknowledge his existence.

Red pyramid bomb -- was that there all along, guarding the computer? Or did it appear when they crossed the threshold into the room, a sort of trigger? Does that mean that someone knows M/L/Mi were there, now?

Ok, I'll be gone the rest of the week. So unfortunately I won't be able to participate in any further discussion here... Ah well. Have a good week!

Thanks for that sci-fi analysis. This was the thread I used to come to in an effort to escape all the negativity. I guess not anymore....

-Lots of clues in this eppy that make me believe that Alex was possesed: Thai food for every meal, dazed state of mind, just plain old not letting Maria and Liz in on his detective work

-I keep going back and forth on what's happening to Max. Tess seemed genuinely unconcerned when Liz asked her about her mind-warping capabilities and didn't jump on the bandwagaon when Max was lighting into Liz. Was Liz asking about mind-warping with regards to Alex?

Tess (oh yeah, she's Evil again now) can't read the book, so she's working Max over to remember his past so she can get him to read it FOR her (to what end?) -- playing luvvie, the conveniently accelerating/problematic pregnancy (it's all smoke and mirrors) and so on. Like a violin. I mean, dag, Max is The Sensitive Type and all, but any man foot-massaging someone with whom he has little relationship like that is just plain p-whipped (just makes me *shudder* thinking of it). My Boy SAP. The trash scene is a just rare moment of clarity when he is not being played by her, and all his "gee I never appreciated you" lines are just about Max's innate honor making him Do The Right Thing.

When Tess said "oh my god" how many of us were yelling "OMB" at the screen?!

While in absentia, Alex was possessed by -- Who? When he realized it, he killed himself rather than be used again. OR, to cover-up a host-body that was catching on, his possessor took over and made Alex's body run itself into the Mac Truck, hopping out just pre-impact.

Isabel makes snow. That doesn't melt. Or make anyone cold. Looks a lot like confetti or little styro chips. Why not just one momentary swirl for effect then let it go?

Nellie Fur-frikkin-po-tato? WT**F**? More sci-fi: in some WAY alternate reality, this means someting.

Just had to mention Kyle in his blankie -- who cares if it's off-topic, the way this show's going?

Speaking of being possessed, is Michael's hair possessed by BillyRayCyrus er what? I actually didn't mind the "shaggy do" but dude the wet head is dead and there is just WAY too much mass there: you are getting some bad Q-tip-head goin on. Do anything!

I want some of that "60 minute man"! Now THAT's sci fi!

SQUIRREL MASTER
Give me S3 just to resolve this stuff!

Courtney did say that Earth's atmosphere was hostile to the Skins and that husks were required for them to survive. But it still doesn't ring true that M/T offspring wouldn't be capable of living on Earth.
quote:

[b]The Book -- did anyone else think that Tess acted as if she'd never seen or heard of this book before? Max was explaining it to her -- "this contains everything about us". Um --- hello? She gave them the book. [/B]
Annoying, but it could be the common "soap opera" tactic of catching new viewers up on the mythology.
quote:

[b]Alex -- Why Thai food morning/noon/night? Did Alex like Thai food before? It was his last meal, but I wonder now if that is in-character or OOC for him. It sounds to me like he was possessed by someone, because of the way the student said Alex didn't even acknowledge his existence.
[/B]
Liking LSS's theory of sweet and spicy...

Thai food is also sweet! I also wondered if the sweet & spicey thing was supposed to make us think that Alex was an alien.

Were we supposed to think that the red pyramid device was alien, or could it be some sort of government device? That part confused me...

I agree that Max was probably so mean to Liz at Valenti's house because he felt incredibly guilty about sleeping with Tess. He probably initially thought that Liz had come over because she knew about the incident?

Did anyone else think that Michael might have been a shapeshifter when he suddenly appeared from behind the bus? At first I thought that Leanna had taken on his form.

Yes, nobody, not even Liz asked that Question. I was hoping for more answers before OTM.

Thai food. I've had bad experiences with Thai food. Cringe.

2)ALIEN SEX

Freaked out Alien Dad. It was obvious from the Morning After look on his face that sex as a band-aid isn't all it's cracked up to be. If he had doubts he should've waited instead of using Tess to make himself feel better.

3)MAX AND LIZ WARS

I don't buy into the Tess Mind warp theory. My ears did perk up when Liz asked about mind warping powers. Max was just being a hurtful, spiteful, injured, little...
Even Tess was trying to intervene in Liz's defense.

As for the writer's tounge in cheek poking fun, could be, or Liz is thinking Alex was under the influence of something similar. I think that's where it leading myself.

4)MAX AND SONOGRAMS

I was touched by that scene in the Pod Chamber. It was very cute, very paternal of him. As for Max acting ambivilant at times about the Tess/baby situation, he's a mess, he's taking risks for the first time in his life, he's charting new ground in and of himself and yes he's disconcerted and uncertain, and now less than 24 hours after he took the plunge he's discovered that he's fathered a baby, which will come to term in a mere month, if it doesn't die of atmosphereic poisoning or endanger Tess's health first. Talk about your world crashing down around you. We've been waiting for the cool calm Max passive leader tightly wrapped control freak to finally explode under all of the pressure of torture, heartbreak, responsibility for the fate of another world, enemies seeking his life, divisions in his own ranks... well he finally hit rock bottom and Lost it, went all out rabid on the trash cans.

Alien babies and atmosphere, I don't get it either. I'm no biology wiz but I always thought seperate species hybrids were sterile, so I have no clue. I don't know.
Again I'm no bio wiz, but the baby appears human shaped, five fingers etc, and I assume is in amniotic fluid and not using lungs to breath right now, getting it's oxygen from the mother's blood cells. Now Tess's blood is not human, who knows how it's functioning in this respect. Is this a defect in their engineering, or is a pregnancy, as it's pictured in the destiny book, truly the precedent to going home?

5)ZE BOOK

At last! How did Alex or an Alien get a hold of a complete copy of the text? The book has been safely tucked away in the Pod chamber. Unless of course the Dupes had a copy themselves. If they did, why again did they need Alex, I don't recall him ever being hinted at as a computer wiz kid. There are plenty of real computer wizards they could kidnap and manipulate. Alex's Sweden cover was carefully orchestrated.

Ah the Crystal. Is it the same one FM used to operate the Granolith? Looks to me to be the very one. And what was with the Red Pyramid proximity bomb? Definitely proof of Alien involvement.

6) LEANNA

She is the key to understanding Alex's actions. I hope we'll get a resolution to Alex involvement before the season ends. I'm starting to think they're gonna leave this a CHAD.

I really liked the eppy. I've been waiting for Max to hit bottom and really feel the fallout of his recent actions. I loved Michael through out the eppy - he really had some winning lines "You couldn't have gotten Tess pregnant because you're too responsible", "What if it comes out green with four fingers, throws a monkey wrench in laying low" (something like that)again exhibiting the Max/Michael role reversal. The Liz, Michael, Maria tag team. Michael protecting the girls and swiftly using his powers to hurl the alien bomb out of striking range. How Superman of him!
Even Valenti was surprised by Max's irresponsibly bringing Tess home in the wee hours of the morning. Loved Tess trying to defend Liz and Kyle backing Liz up with an alibi. Loved Izzy and Kyle having fun at Max's expense, but I'm glad that after a while it left a bad taste in Izzy's mouth. I'm glad she witnessed Max's breakdown, his utter pain as a result of his choices and I'm glad she showed him compassion and mercy. Hopefully Max and Izzy have grown from this experience.

Sterility of hybrids between species (and we have to assume that it is viable that a hybrid of Antarian and human origin be obtained in the first place for our podsters to exist) is observed very frequently, though some experimentally obtained species hybrids have proved to be fertile. I would like to believe the former for that would mean that Tess is somehow manipulating the situation and offspring resulting from their union is not possible. But, let's assume (so that we can argue about the ability of the fetus to survive Earth's atmosphere) that is it possible. It has been discovered that the fusion of cells of two different species produces a hybrid cell that undergoes extensive chromosome loss, primarily of the species whose cells have the longer generation time. In the case of the human-Antarian hybrid, human chromosomes would have been lost. I know that this doesn't quite fit the story but maybe human characteristics are lost everytime a union occurs and this loss would be responsible for the fetus' adverse reaction to the atmosphere.

Raven

Hi estherterrestrial (love the user name)!

Or...that there was an alien with him in the room?

BTW--Nesedo never used T sauce did he? I wonder if our aliens' dietary quirk is only hybrid specific?

LSS

No, but there was that usage of tic tacs, which fell into the black hole of storylines.

1)While Liz and Maria were rocking out at the concert, I tried to figure out if anything in the scene was relevant to the plot. There was a large plastic backdrop behind the stage, made up of "cells" in a repeating pattern of four colors. Each cell was covered with clear plastic. The size and shape was remarkably pod-like.

2)When Isabel made the highly local snowstorm, she recalled the time it had snowed right after Max's guinea pig was killed. The implication was that Max's grief had somehow triggered it, though it could have been a natural event (though we don't know what time of year this happened). Anyway, Isabel says that it had been the worst local storm in over a century. They seem to be hinting at time travel again (eg, Alex in front of a building that was torn down in 1994). I wondered if what she was doing was not so much "making" snow, as bringing snow in from another time at the same place.

One reason I thought of this was Maria's conversation with the computer guy at UNM. He opens the file Alex was working on, and says that it looks like Native American writing. One CHAD I've wondered about since last year is, how long have the aliens been interacting with the Mesaliko/Mescaleros, and how much have the cultures picked up from each other?

In Leaving Normal, when Grandma Claudia gives Liz what may be the only hard copy of her manuscript on local Indian culture, GC says that it includes her translation and interpretation of symbols that were discovered over a hundred years ago (if I remember correctly-don't have a tape). Although this is expecting way too much continuity from the writers, I've wondered if the reappearance of the Destiny Book might somehow nudge the never-since-mentioned GC manuscript out of its hiding place (last seen going into a drawer or shelf next to Liz's bed).

3) As far as why an alien who could do this advanced supercomputing on his own would want or need to possess Alex, one thing I can think of is that Alex is already socialized to the norms of the tribe of geek. He and his father (some kind of an engineer, I think they said in Into the Woods?) may well already know people, at least by email, at the compsci dept at UNM. They would be part of the same group of people who are, or were, interested in model railroads, ham radio, and electronics as well as computers (remember from TLV that Alex knew enough about high-end surveillance equipment to recognize that the spycam in Michael's flat was not Radio Shack type hardware). Alex would be likely to know more than most people about what equipment this small state university had (if I were an alien looking for major supercomputer capacity somewhere in NM, I think I'd start at Los Alamos), and the alien could use Alex's memories to see how to act and gain people's trust in this environment (his odd behavior at the dorm might not seem all that strange to other computer fanatics).

Recall that before Brody was an eccentric billionaire, he was a software engineer. It may be that Larek chose him because of that, though I wouldn't assume that Larek possessed Alex.

4) As far as the baby not being able to breathe, I suspect this will remain a plot hole, but I agree with all the people who say it doesn't make physical sense, although I know very little about biology. Two problems I can think of:

a)Jr. isn't actually breathing the unmediated atmosphere. He's getting whatever he needs from Tess's umbilical cord and uterus. She's breathing the atmosphere, but if he couldn't tolerate the elements of it her reproductive system passed on to him, how could he have gestated this far in the first place?

Did anyone else think of the ad for some brand of minivan when they saw Jr. writhing around in utero? The ad shows this couple discussing the results of the uterine scan while it's in progress. They talk about how they'll need to buy a minivan now that they have a kid. The fetus looks up, appalled, and begins to thrash its arms and shake its head in violent disagreement as the heart monitor races. Then the dad says he's looking at the advertised brand of minivan, and the fetus calms down again, finally giving a thumbs-up in approval. It was one of those ads so tasteless you can't ignore it, which I guess is the point. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was the inspiration for the Jr. scene.

b)When the podsters brought Nacedo Harding back to life in Destiny, he briefly went through an "alien" phase, and didn't seem to have a problem with the atmosphere. The two shapeshifters in Summer of '47, though quite different-looking, seemed to be doing OK, too. Though it's never been discussed on the show, I've assumed that one of the reasons the Antarans chose Earth to hide their exiled royalty was because it's a place where they can survive unaided, while their enemies can't.

Third, look at the timing of the events. Tess has her first "the baby!" moment in the pod chamber as Max suggests getting rid of the problem. Then later when Tess says she thought the whole point was to go "home," Max makes it clear he doesn't intend to do that anytime soon. It is after that conversation that Tess falls and Max "sees" that the baby is struggling to breathe meaning they HAVE to go home. Hmmmmm.

Add to that that what plenty of people have mentioned: why would their child have any trouble breathing?! Roughly speaking, Max and Tess are both half alien, half human. Their offspring would then be half alien, half human, i.e. the same as them and not unable to breathe earth's air.

Plus, once upon a time (in Max to the Max I believe) Tess said they reproduce in the human way. Also, in Michael's and Isabel's visions in 4 Square (I think?) their kid was perfectly fine: human-looking, air-breathing. (Of course that was probably a mind-warp anyway.)

Anyway, just my theory.

Thoughts in no real order:

I'm not sure if I got a sense of what Liz's motivation was for going to Tess to ask about her powers. I wish there had been something leading up to it.

Pyramid power -- good catch about the UFL symbol. I must say I thought of the dome structure first. A pyramid, or an equilateral triangle, is structurally strong because of its equal corners. Any New Age interpretations out there on the spiritual aspects of pyramids? Who "set" the bomb? Leanna, or someone else?

Yes, Michael has Canadian hockey hair, but he rocks. I had a feeling during the scene in Alex's bedroom at the funeral that he'd be coming around soon.

Still no real word on whatever became of Alex. If he was posessed, was it by someone good or someone bad? And there's no explanation yet of the photos from "Sweeden." If as LondonLuvs says, he was brainwashed with memories of Sweeden, wouldn't it be awfully dangerous to brainwash him with memories of Leanna too? Wouldn't that invite someone to dig? And I'll ask only one more time: who sent the #$%%@ flowers to the Whitmans?

Why did Alex have to die? If the work was completed, as this episode indicates, someone did a poor job of trying to stop him from translating the book by murdering him. If he did actually commit suicide, in reaction to his being used, he picked an odd time to do so (after the work was done). He's been back in Roswell for quite some time. Did he and/or Leanna finish the translation months ago? Then why suddenly decide to kill him off/why would he kill himself now? If he was posessed, as we seem to be agreeing here, was he posessed by someone good, who wanted the kids to have the translation, or by someone bad, who wanted it for themself? And as Luna G pointed out (thanks), wouldn't a posessor in all probability already know the language?

Where, then, did Alex get the text? Or did Leanna get it? Oh, Plumeria, Tess didn't exactly "give" them the book, she quite literally pulled it out of thin air. And the veracity of that book has always been questioned. By the way, the S1 book had pictures, if I recall, and seemed bigger. Are there any more devoted watchers out there who can assure me that this is in fact the same prop?

In reference to Luna G's other comment about the difficulty of translations, well, linguists have been at this stuff forever, and at least in human languages, with just a few sentences you can identify a noun and a verb, a subject and an object. I imagine a computer would actually be a great help in that if you had a lengthy text to decipher, and it could pop up the frequency and position of certain symbols in reference to others. If % by itself appears at the beginning of sentences only, and @% always is at the end of a sentence, you could begin to make judgements about the grammatical rules of using %. Hieroglyphics have been interpreted by archaeologists and linguists. It is an actual science, though I agree about whether a teenager, albeit a gifted one, could accomplish this just with a computer.

Not going anywhere near the 'hot alien sex' theme, but I want to thank Raven for her comment on hybrids and sterility. If a hybrid is sterile and can't mate with another hybrid, wouldn't that mean it can't procreate with a non-hybrid being also? I also thought it to be curious that we are taking Max's "findings" at face value (that the offspring can't survive the atmosphere, even in utero). Is this the real Max, a new, Alien Pediatric Max?

I kid, but I really did like this episode. LSS, no comments on Kyle being able to join in Isabel's whatever-that-was? Fantasy walking?

LSS

umm - floating...1 hour..hot electric energy

except for the floating and the electric energy, wouldn't u call that an orga*m?

that letter is stared coz there might be little people read this and they're probably too small to know about this stuff. wait til they're 2. just kidding

My thoughts are...if Alex was used to decode the book, then he was brainwashed...maybe they did a poor job of brainwashing him, and it all started falling apart, he obviously started remembering things, hence 'Leanna is not Leanna.' Maybe whoever brainwashed him HAD to kill him cus they knew he was starting to remember the truth about where he had been all that time...

as for the baby not being able to breath...I think thats a ploy from the home planet to get the royal four BACK home....I think Tess is innocent in all this.

Gotcha. I can buy this.

quote:Originally posted by LondonLuvs:
as for the baby not being able to breath...I think thats a ploy from the home planet to get the royal four BACK home....I think Tess is innocent in all this.

Okay, so the plan is:

1. Give them the means to go home (instructions for using the Granolith)

2. Give them a reason to go home (the Tess/Max spawn's survival)

3. Kill them off once they get there.

Am I following you?

About the baby and the atmosphere: I rewatched/listened, and Max doesn't say it can't breathe, he says 'the atmosphere is poisoning it.' There are lots of ways for a toxic atmosphere to reach someone.

Also, the podsters spent 40+ years in incubation pods. Who knows what changes were made to their bodies to adapt to our atmosphere. Possibly the changes which are needed aren't a natural occuring thing. Perhaps it's something that has to be engineered manually. That's sort of how the books explained too.

I've seen several posts in the past about how Liz and Kyle might be "changed" because of their alien encounters. While I really like that theory and think it'd make a good storyline, SF-wise it wouldn't hold true in the show. Because if it was that way, then every lock the royal four has opened, or every bottle of fingernail polish they re-hued would glow at night or act strangely on a meter or something. Now saying that though, does bring to mind the strange Cadmuim X too. So I guess I'm on the fence here, but I'd love to hear some more supporting or contempting statements about it.

Either way, I like the SF aspect of the show, even though some things don't always add up. Those things allow me to think and that's enjoyable.

I was delighted to see the book again, the granolith key, and the pod chamber. The only real dud story device in my mind was about the poison atmosphere. Heck, earth's atmosphere is poisonous to a fully 100% human fetus, too. Its lungs aren't fully formed and capable of processing oxygen, a corrosive and destructive gas, until almost term.

I saw a theory on another thread that Leanna/Jennifer = Serena. Since the crystal from EotW was discovered among her stuff, this makes sense to me.

Gotta run. Kid is graduating from high school and I'm going nuts.

I was delighted to see the book again, the granolith key, and the pod chamber. The only real dud story device in my mind was about the poison atmosphere. Heck, earth's atmosphere is poisonous to a fully 100% human fetus, too. Its lungs aren't fully formed and capable of processing oxygen, a corrosive and destructive gas, until almost term.

I saw a theory on another thread that Leanna/Jennifer = Serena. Since the crystal from EotW was discovered among her stuff, this makes sense to me.

Gotta run. Kid is graduating from high school and I'm going nuts.Vf, so nice to 'see' you again.
You should be VERY proud of your daughter. I saw her step in and conduct an award-winning choir last week when the teacher was out sick. Too bad your daughter can't give the Roswell Director's a few pointers.

I find it hard to believe that a civilization capable of cloning an individual's essence and creating a "hybrid" body for that essence to inhabit would mess up so badly in the area of reproduction. Part of the reason they were sent in two mated pairs was for purposes of reproduction, wasn't it? In fact, I seem to recall an image of a pregnant Tess in the book. So surely a viable pregnancy would not only be possible, but expected by those responsible for creating the podsters.

Or perhaps, like with human babies, most alien-hybrid pregnancies are viable while some are just not compatable with life. Maybe there's a flaw in the baby's biology that would have happened on the home planet anyway. Besides, as human-alien hybrids, physically, they would be just as much aliens on the home planet as they are here, right? Perhaps even more so, since it's only their blood and "essences" that are alien. Even their powers are (albeit advanced) "human" powers.

Someone mentioned earlier about the unlikely size of that little (but admittedly cute) glowing hand, and I have to agree. I did a little checking. If my math is correct, two days of alien gestation is roughly equal to 5 weeks of human gestation. Assuming that alien-hybrid babies grow at the same rate as human ones, the embryo would be just 0.05 inches (1.25mm) long. Also, it wouldn't have formed limbs yet. At this stage, the basis of a heart, neural system and skeletal system are at the very beginning of development. Of course, for dramatic purposes, a little glowing hand is far more effective. How much would it tug on the ole heartstrings if instead Max just saw a little C-shaped blob that's barely recognizable as a life-form, let alone humanoid? And I'm assuming that since he knows it's a boy, he can see (or scan?) it on a chromosomal level.

Rachelle,
who's got babies on the brain since her due date was yesterday...

I'd like to believe Max is brainwashed, or Zan, or something - I haven't liked him since Toy House but I didn't find him evil. But a lot of his worst stuff - blackmailing Isabel - was done with Tess not around, and he just seems to know what Max should know and act like an evil version of Max, not an evil imposter.

I also note he implied to Isabel that the baby is behind the problems. The baby hadn't been conceived then. I hope she finds out. I think the mythology they've learned from the Skins was deliberately warped. It isn't Vilandra/Isabel they need to worry about. It's Max who was the betrayer, and will be again.

Unless Max is the person who was Vilandra, and Isabel has the essence of the leader, but then how do you explain Max remembering kissing Tess/Ava? Or is that the Mindwarp? Maybe even an unintentional mindwarp, since Tess has that memory and was really wanting Max to remember it?

Good points also, about the above, it could just be he made a "connection" with it just like he can with Liz or any of the other 4 through contact.

I'm still perplexed about the atmosphere thing, because technically, in a normal earth pregnancy, unless there are electromagnetic fields, RF interference, or very strong x or gamma ray emissions, the atmosphere the unborn child is exposed to is the mother's womb. Her internal environment is the child's atmosphere. So unless it's gravity pulling, there's not much more environment that can affect it.

I think the changes we've seen in Liz have to do with her glowing hickeys and flashes and all that stuff from Season 1. We haven't seen any evidence of this from Kyle as yet.
I don't know that the kids from ARCC will ever exhibit any of these tendencies because they weren't brought back from the "brink of death" like Liz and Kyle were (yes, they were mighty sick... but not on the way out, yet). Ava alluded to the fact that because Liz was saved as she was in the process dying that she was changed. (er...or something like that)

Since not only has the Destiny Book reappeared, but also, Liz wore her Grandma's necklace to the prom, I'm thinking that might be exactly where they're going.

A couple of other random thoughts that I've had on this ep:

1. Someone on the CHADs thread (?) suggested that perhaps Alex wasn't posessed at all, but might have been acting on the request of a Podster returned from the future, just as Liz did in EOTW.

Part of why this makes sense to me is that I don't recall the floormate ever physically describing "Ray," just talking about his taste for Thai food. So, since Alex got Thai food for carryout in CYN, I figured that Alex must have a thing for Thai food.

That would, of course, mean that Alex got the DB from the FPodster.

2. Someone else mentioned the possibility that this isn't our podsters' Destiny Book at all, but the DB of the Dupes. Which would, of course, mean that the message of the DB would be substantially changed.

Perhaps the MOG set it up so that the Dupes would come home, be mistaken for the real Royal 4, and be assassinated/executed by K'Var, leaving the real Royal 4 safe on Earth, so the DB gives the instructions on using the Granilith to get home, not to help the real R4, but as a trap for the Dupes.

Congratulations, Rachelle!

So, is it a boy? A girl? Are you waiting to find out?

Be sure to let us know when the little Podster arrives!

One of my theories about why Earth's atmosphere might be hostile to Skins, but PSAWN's atmosphere wouldn't be hostile to mostly-human Podsters was the level of air pollution.

And so I looked up the effects of carbon monoxide on human fetuses at PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed) and it looks like the human placenta does *not* filter CO out (which makes sense if I recall my high school biology correctly, and CO bonds to the hemoglobin where O2 should), so if the skins's problem with our atmosphere is CO, then it would be realistic to say that the baby could be "poisoned" by our atmosphere.

Providing the baby is at least part Skin . . .

I posted some observations on a recent Liz thread; in case you're interested, here's the link: http://bbs2.fanforum.com/Forum3/HTML/007292-7.html
They seem to relate to the "Changed Liz" theory. (which, if I remember right, originated on the Science Fiction threads, with Elliott and LSS?)

Let's see...a bit of reality check here. As smart as Alex is...why him? Did that seem plausible to you?...Well, we have Brody being chosen as an emmissary, and he was a smart, computer type. And the sudden obsession with sweet, spicy Thai food seems like an overt clue for the audience's benefit.

Hmmm...come to think of it, maybe this has something to do with Max's attraction to Liz? Maybe in the Future, Tess would have gone to Antar with the baby and used Liz as her emmissary? Okay, that's very freaky.