1. LAURIE SHE'S ONE IN "FIFTY" MILLION? Okay, tonight we found just how special Laurie and her Grandfather are...only one in 50 million humans have that recessive genetic defect necessary for the Gandarium to use in that DNA/RNA sequencing that ultimately produces human/alien hybrids. Anyone know what the population of earth is? Alex mentioned six billion. At 1/50,000,000 that would give us only 120 humans that "work" genetically. Not a great margin for error is it? Of course...they only needed one didn't they?

And speaking of Grandpa's abduction--who abducted him? Are we to think that our alien's DNA was brought to earth and then engineered (with the Gandarium's aid)here? That might mean that the pods were not on the ship but only later (after the mixing of DNA) were "grown" in the chamber. Can you see another way in which this cloning might have happened? And what role did the crystals play in the process anyway?

2. GANDARIUM--SHADES OF SATURDAY AFTERNOON SF MOVIES AND ALIEN (THE MOVIE). Whew...we had a queen that looked like a mobile jelly fish cum alien baby (via the movie ALIEN). And we are told that only the Queen can infect humans. Convienent for our teens, wasn't it? Hmmmm. As for the Hive, Drones, and workers...such alien communal organization is right out of the old SF flicks of the fifties!

The only thing I am having trouble imagining...is crystaline insects. Are we to understand the crystals as simply outer skins? Shells? Or what? BTW--my 12 yr old asked me at the end of the show...Mom...why didn't Grant's crystals melt? Any answers folks?

Oh--BTW...what danger did the Gandarium represent to our teens? They can kill humans...can they infect hybrids? What of pure blooded aliens?

3. POOR GRANT--POSSESSED AND/OR INFECTED? We suggested "possessed" last week, but was thinking of our distant aliens. I never expected a Queen Crystal! (Yeah--I'm trying to remain unspoiled to some degree this season.) What do you think? Could only the Queen actually "possess" a person? And any human (other than the host) would have been "infected"?

4. LAURIE--WHO WAS THAT TEENAGE GIRL? Was she simply the descendent of the original DNA donor? Why then did Izzy pick up cellular vibs? Simply residual genetic echoes? Have we seen the last of Laurie?

Well--I've got to say that I thought this eppy would tie up a lot of loose ends...and--at least for me--it really didn't.

BTW--anyone think of ALIEN (the Movie) when Michael sucked the air out of that room? Oh...is this a new power...sucking oxygen out of a room? And folks--don't think too hard about that scene. It left credibility way back in Roswell!!!

Well fans. what did you think?

LSS

Hi Linange185:

So you think the cave = the hive? Interesting. I would have thought it would have been a bit busier...of course, who knows what an "active" crystal hive looks like. Are we to think of those crystals in the cave as dormant...or as the "norm"? The mobility the queen had at the end, is that the norm? Or is that "fighting" mode? Or does that mobility simply necessary to switch hosts?

Interesting suggestion!

LSS

What I don't understand is this: Only the queen can infect humans ... so how did Laurie get infected? How was she supposed to get infected buried in the ground if only the queen can infect her? It seemed like there was an indiscrepency there.

GrandMA. Laurie said she never got to meet her Grandma (Ada Jane?) Maybe she's the genetic source for Isabel...

gandarium: So it's like an emulsifier or a catalyst or something, when used appropriately?

Oxygen deprivation -- Did Michael suck out only the oxygen or did he remove ALL the air? 'Cause if it's the latter, everything else should have imploded....

Scratches -- what was the deal with the scratches on necks? Is this how the queen manifests her power? Or does she cause the victim to scratch himself? What?

Possession -- we see that the Queen is what was possessing Grant, making him act bizarrely. When he was fighting it, he seemed almost insane. If Laurie was starting to be infected, would this explain her 'insane' behavior earlier? Or was her earlier behavior simply a manifestation of her fear and of having been surrounded by true nuts for the past several years?

I know there's more I want to say, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

1. Hadn’t done the math that there would only being 120 humans on the earth that could be infected (at any one time), but yes, that would be enough, I think, for their purposes. Did they come earlier to earth and infect grandpa then return to create or pods or did they wait to do so after the crash? Good question with many possible answers. I personally think the Antarians had an expeditionary trip to Earth before the 1947 crash at which time they cultivated the necessary human genes to create our podsters.

2. Yes, I did have flashbacks to Alien, but really found the ‘queen’ scary (I am easily scared!).

3. I have know idea how Isabel got the vibe from Laurie, except for the fact that she was engineered by means of the Gandarium (recombining alien and human DNA) and was able to ‘tune-in’ because of this. I don’t think we will see any more of Laurie. I think that is what the whole lawyer thing was about, wrapping up this character.

I thought that Katims and Moore did a great job on HTOHL and that it was one of the best of the season (IMO). I think this is the only epi that they wrote together and hope there will be more.

Did they create it just for this purpose? If so, they didn't do a very good job considering the dangers it posed to the Royal 4's new environment. If you were going to create something like that wouldn't you take care not to make it potentially lethal to the entire planet?

I liked the episode mostly, but I was bothered by Kyle's summation of events. It seemed too easy - "liz figured out the oxygen and told max who told michael who must have killed the queen which caused all the other crystals to die". Its like they just needed to close off the scene or something. I would have been perfectly happy with them getting out and going home and then talking the Michael and Maria later.

Maybe the hole-like scratches had something to do with those pointy tentacles. Or she needed to breathe. Remember Grant's neck bleeding in Surprise? I thought that was important!

If Grant's crystals melted, I would think they would puddle in the cavity where the queen had resided.

Just a bunch more maybe's and what-if's!

JLinderhof

quote:Originally posted by plumeria:
What I don't understand is this: Only the queen can infect humans ... so how did Laurie get infected? How was she supposed to get infected buried in the ground if only the queen can infect her? It seemed like there was an indiscrepency there.[/B/

Of course we haven't really found out HOW a human is infected yet so this is a tough one to answer. Laurie was in close proximity to the queen because it was Grant who buried her. So the queen had the opportunity. Perhaps it takes time? Also those crystals that appeared in the shallow grave seem to indicated that something was coming up from below (shudder).

quote:[B][b]GrandMA. Laurie said she never got to meet her Grandma (Ada Jane?) Maybe she's the genetic source for Isabel...
[/B]

Sound plausible to me. Wish we had a picture of her...and it would explain why she didn't "recognize" Izzy...perhaps there were no pictures of grandma either?

quote:[b]Oxygen deprivation -- Did Michael suck out only the oxygen or did he remove ALL the air? 'Cause if it's the latter, everything else should have imploded....[/B]

That scene was the least plausible one (for me) in this eppy. But it did remind me of that scene in one of the ALIEN series when the queen was forcibly ejected from the ship by opening the hatch and having the air (and the alien) sucked out into the vacuum of space--the key point of similarity being that sucking the air out of a room leads to overcoming the alien queen.

quote:
[b]Scratches -- what was the deal with the scratches on necks? Is this how the queen manifests her power? Or does she cause the victim to scratch himself? What?
[/B]

yeah--another loose end. Are we to think of Laurie's abduction and burial here? No apparently not...another poster above mentioned a cut scene. Damn...to leave that in was poor editing.

quote:
[b]Possession -- we see that the Queen is what was possessing Grant, making him act bizarrely. When he was fighting it, he seemed almost insane. If Laurie was starting to be infected, would this explain her 'insane' behavior earlier? Or was her earlier behavior simply a manifestation of her fear and of having been surrounded by true nuts for the past several years?
[/B]

Of course the problem is that we do not know the difference between "possession" and "infection." Perhaps only the host which the Queen chooses is "possessed" and all other humans are simply "infected." It does leave open, however, the issue of how Queens reproduce and birth other queens.

Aww--truthfully, our writers have probably now dismissed the Gandarium to wherever the orbs are and that book that outlined "destiny" happened to go!

Oh the plot lines introduced and not traveled!

Sigh,

LSS

I did note that Michael said he sucked out all the air yet we didn't see everything exploding. Must be very sturdy cans of soup.

Also, on the scratches- Sorenson had a scratch after Tess was abducted. The connection? Apparently none. I just can't give up my conviction that he was involved with that too. Well, if the Gandarium is intelligent maybe it has been working with the Skins. (Who are either immune to the contagion or have the means to leave the planet.)

The sci-fi in this ep was just bad. It didn't even make sense in terms of the first three episodes of the arc. When you're writing sci-fi, you have to have some rules that you stick to in order to create your own little sci-fi universe. It doesn't necessarily matter if your science follows the rules of the real world as long as it follows the logic of your made-up world. The writers haven't figured that out yet. And isn't Ron Moore supposed to be helping them ou with that stuff?

I can buy that the little crystals were alive, and genetically created to help make the hybrids as Larek said. I can even buy that there was a queen whose drive to infect and combine with particular humans could posess Grant and make him do odd things. Where I have problems are:
1. Was Grant carrying the queen the whole time, and if so, why didn't she just infect Laurie when Grant first kidnapped her? Why wait for the little crystal critters to catch up if it was only she who could infect?
2. If the human gene is really so rare that only 120 people out of 6 bill have it(I'm trusting LSS's figures here), then how many people would have had it back when the SSers were taking donations and the world population was alot lower? Odd that they were able to come up with all caucation donors too. How many abductions did that take?
3. The hybrids took decades to develop in their pods. Remember in SO'47 Hal said the pods contained human fetuses? Did the SSers bring the queen, find donors, make the hybrids, hover for months while they developed, then run out of fuel and crash? Or maybe they came here, got donations, took them back, made the hybrids and returned later with the fetuses? If so, why bring the queen along to possibly infect the planet you want your little VIP's to grow up on? Duh! Doesn't ANY writer think of plausibility?
4. Speaking of plausibility ... Laurie, one of those 120, just happens to run away TO Roswell, where Grant, who happens to have dug up Pierce's bones, happens to have also been posessed by the queen, happens to find her and plant her where the crystals can get her (and they move pretty slowly towards her concidering how fast they closed the hole on Kyle and Alex). Oh, and Grant happens to also being dating one of the hybrids that came in the ship, that carried the stuff, that sat for years, that suddenly appears, just in time to detect Laurie passing through, so it gets Grant to steal some stuff THE SUMMER BEFORE, from other states, before he meets the crystals, that know of the coming of Laurie, who knows that aliens are after her years before, because her phobia is known by her family, that put her away in the institution, that she escaped, all in the plot that writers built.
In the words of Jim Valenti - "How am I doin' so far?"

quote: (sorry, I don't remember who said this and I got it from another post that was also quoting them)

Hi Lameduck!

Yes there is a lot more SF this season.

And yes, some of it is embarassing in that it does not seem to be well thought out.

But, in all fairness, it is not always that way. I really enjoyed the eppy before this. And I think that there were some really nice relational moments between M/M and M/L (the eraser room) in these last two eppys--at times they made me think of Season 1.

Also--I thought the special effects on this eppy were nice. Unlike other SF shows, Roswell uses precious little in the way of special effects to spark the narrative. The Queen was--I thought--well done.

As for the SF being annoying--I hate to say it--but to some degree that is not simply a characteristic of Season 2. There have always been SF elements that have ticked folks off. Remember the storm that "destiny" caused last season? Or Liz's flashes that seemed to come from....?

It is only logical to suppose that with more SF there are more chances for viewers to be annoyed this season. But there are also more chances to enjoy the SF dimension of our favorite show.

SF elements that I've enjoyed this season are:

1) the skins
2) the granolith (the concept)
3) abductions explained via possession
4) discovering more about the home planet
5) crystals and the cloning process
6) the expansion of our aliens' powers
7) Liz having residual powers (and thus being given an explanation of why she has flashes)

The above were interesting elements introduced this season into our storyline. The annoying part, for me, is that they are not always developed as smoothly as I would like. For instance...what ever happened to the skins? Why haven't we heard of them recently? Are they one of the peoples represented by the entities that met in NY?

Of course, what we "do" on the SF threads is observe, comment, and SPECULATE on the show's SF. Much of what we have always done is to go further in our envisioning of Roswell than even our writers have dared to go!

Anyway--hope your dissatisfaction with the show doesn't turn you off the SF threads. Regardless of what's happening on the screen, you can come here and express your opinions whenever you want!

Stick in there...

LSS

P.S. And yes--a science person on the writing staff would be nice...some of these credibility gaps are simply horrible.

Although it definitely seems a little less reckless to bring something like that to Earth in the first place when you (creatively) estimate the Earth's population in 1947 and calculate accordingly. That way, you get around 48 total candidates.

I got my figures from:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html

quote:P.S. Did those cave scenes seem a bit Camp to you? Several times the Alex and Kyle exchanges almost seemed like a spoof on SF B grade films. Did anyone else sense they were a bit bizarre?

Oh, those scenes probably were a grade-B film spoof. They were also some of the best scenes in the ep, imho.

Kyle wanting to explore for himself was very in-character for Kyle at the moment. And the whole "would you want to go back to being a dumb jock" exchange made a wonderful excuse for Kyle continuing to cooperate with Max, even though he's angry at him.

plumeria wrote:

quote:What I don't understand is this: Only the queen can infect humans ... so how did Laurie get infected? How was she supposed to get infected buried in the ground if only the queen can infect her? It seemed like there was an indiscrepency there.

I think what was meant was that the Queen's job is to reproduce by finding hosts for the "worker" Gandaria. The Queen possessed Grant, Grant found Laurie, but Laurie was never successfully infected with "workers."

quote:Scratches -- what was the deal with the scratches on necks? Is this how the queen manifests her power? Or does she cause the victim to scratch himself? What?

I'm actually kind of glad they skipped the Grant killing the landlady scene, because otherwise there'd still be a scratched neck loose end from "Surprise."

The way things stand now, I can say to myself that the scratches are because the Queen's not so careful about her host's body, and when he's acting possessed, Grant just didn't notice the pain of being scratched.

SF elements that I've enjoyed this season are:

1) the skins
2) the granolith (the concept)
3) abductions explained via possession
4) discovering more about the home planet
5) crystals and the cloning process
6) the expansion of our aliens' powers
7) Liz having residual powers (and thus being given an explanation of why she has flashes)

The above were interesting elements introduced this season into our storyline. The annoying part, for me, is that they are not always developed as smoothly as I would like. For instance...what ever happened to the skins? Why haven't we heard of them recently? Are they one of the peoples represented by the entities that met in NY?

You know, I actually have a theory on this but it has nothing to do with the sci-fi. I think that the skins were supposed to be an arc to cover the entire season, but when they were faced with the possibility of not getting a full season, they crammed it all into the first half. If you look at S&B through MITC, only two eps (Sof47 and TEOTW) did not somehow involve the skins and/or Nicholas.

The only problem is, if I'm right and they already played out their major sci-fi themes for the season, are we going to be stuck with more HC-type sci-fi for the rest of the season?

And I agree with the stuff LSS liked about this season. Despite the silly stuff in Harvest and WipeOut, the Skins arc really was fairly tightly written for this show. And I thought MITC had some great sci-fi and space opera elements to build on. The abduction/possession thing was brilliant.

Here's a question. Did anyone else think kryptonite when the podsters couldn't use their powers on the Gandarium? Although I do remember that in White Room, there was some kind of metal used that they couldn't manipulate as well.

quote:Although it definitely seems a little less reckless to bring something like that to Earth in the first place when you (creatively) estimate the Earth's population in 1947 and calculate accordingly. That way, you get around 48 total candidates.

I got my figures from:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html

Hi PepperjackCandy!

Nice...VERY NICE!!! You are absolutely right--we would need to calculate the numbers from a point almost 44 years ago!

I'm impressed...well done!!!!

LSS

Hi LunaG!

You bring up an interesting point...I hadn't thought of kryptonite specifically. In the Superman story universe, superman only has powers on earth and if anyone from Krypton comes to earth, they have the same powers as well. Moreover, green kryptonite weakens SM while red kryptonite simple causes bizarre effects. But his powers seem ineffective on both.

I see what you mean... crystals = from home planet = powers' ineffective.

Your thinking raises another point...if Max and Co ever went back to their planet, would they have the same powers they have now? Does everyone back home have these powers? Or are they the result of the cloning process? Remember in Season 1 they said the powers were advance HUMAN powers. What do you think LunaG?

LSS

On the Queen infecting humans—the Queen had to successfully infect Laurie so that she could infect the rest of the population. That is why she was buried, so that the Queen could finish infecting her.

Grandma AdaJane as Isabel’s genetic match—highly unlikely since Grandpa Dupree had a recessive gene defect. The chances of Grandma AJ having it were too low.

PepperJackCandy—I agree that Kyle wanting to explore for himself was definitely in his character, as was Michael taking credit for Maria’s smarts

The only way Grandma could have been Isabel's genetic match is if she and Grandpa Dupree met while being abducted, fell in love, and then got married later. Which could be possible since I don't think Laurie's uncle and aunt looked like they were past their mid to late forties.

The whole burial thing would have been totally unnecessary if Larek was right. But Larek has gaps in his information; he's not a reliable source. This was hinted when he told the podsters to leave the planet. Clearly he doesn't know everything about what's going on here as it relates to the "destiny" plan and his home planet/planets. His information was either incorrect or, more likely, incomplete regarding the workings of gandarium.

4. Speaking of plausibility ...

Yeah, it fell apart for me quite a while back. Enjoy the mood, the dialog, the interaction between characters. This is sci-fi lite.

my questions are:
if Grant said he started losing his memory after he began working in Frasier Woods then how/why did he steal all that other stuff before?

Why didn't he get hurt when Valenti shot him? Where does he get those scratches on his neck? WAS he involved with Tess's kidnapping on Surprise? Or did CW do that on her own with the skins?

Can a recessive gene be passed from a grandfather to granddaughter?

Grandpa's aliens looked different from the Summer of 47 aliens. Different species or another inconsistency?

I also noticed that the crystals didn't melt on Grant after they killed the queen. WHY?

Nature vs. nurture-Laurie says Grandpa Dupree was a lot like Michael. He also appeared to be good at art. Coincidence? I don't think so.

I think Isabel felt guilty about Grant's possesion and death. Like it was her fault. she kept apologizing. Maybe she feels that as Vilandra causing their downfall and having them sent to earth and the blue stuff leaking from the ship and infecting Grant that she is directly responsible.

I like this season a lot. Last season I couldn't get into the show at all until I saw Destiny. I thought it was boring (don't kill me please! :lol I heard the reruns over the summer (bad TV reception)but not well enough to even compare the two seasons. I think if there is a third season the writers might actually get it right.

At some point, I'd like to see them hire a Science Consultant (not Andre Boranis, who IIRC was that on ST-TNG and DS9). I'd do the job myself (for union scale), and so would many of the folks here I suspect. They could also use a Continuity Editor, but the head writer or producer should do that anyway.

Someone's gotta tell them that playing fast and loose with this stuff is annoying. If there were a convention going, and someone told TPTB, that would be good. HINT, HINT

You know, I thought of that also...but long after I was through being "sucked in" by the episode.

quote:Originally posted by Palomino:

4. Speaking of plausibility ... Laurie, one of those 120, just happens to run away TO Roswell, where Grant, who happens to have dug up Pierce's bones, happens to have also been posessed by the queen, happens to find her and plant her where the crystals can get her (and they move pretty slowly towards her considering how fast they closed the hole on Kyle and Alex). Oh, and Grant happens to also being dating one of the hybrids that came in the ship, that carried the stuff, that sat for years, that suddenly appears, just in time to detect Laurie passing through, so it gets Grant to steal some stuff THE SUMMER BEFORE, from other states, before he meets the crystals, that know of the coming of Laurie, who knows that aliens are after her years before, because her phobia is known by her family, that put her away in the institution, that she escaped, all in the plot that writers built.

All I can say is, Roswell's a kooky mecca of the unusual. Although in the show's defense, Laurie could have been running elsewhere when Grant abducted her. The crystals could have been gaining strength all along, which is why they closed in on Alex and Kyle so quickly (or it was a logistical defense mechanism, the colony sensed an intruder and tried to Venus Flytrap it.)

On to other issues. Was Laurie actually infected, as Plumeria mentioned? Dramatic evidence seems to suggest she was not. In all her craziness, keep in mind she was right -- something WAS coming for her.

Plumeria and PepperjackCandy also pointed out the mystery scratches on Grant's neck (for the second time). Though I for one am thankful the murderous scene was cut, it still served to prove the point that not even Grant knows what Grant's up to.

Keep in mind, folks -- though it has literal applications, Larek's explanation of the gandaria being like a hive complete with queen, workers, etc., was just a metaphor for its complex behavior. (A metaphor even the measly humans can understand.) The lead organism that seemed to have built its nest in Grant obviously was in control of the lesser organisms, and its destruction led to the whole colony being eradicated. I do however find it plausible that a mission as high-level as the cloning/hybridization of the Royal Four, and its high probablility of failure, would have necessarily included reserves of gandarium on board the ship in case of a procedural problem. That it escaped when the ship crashed had to have been a risk worth taking.

Lameduck brought up photos of Grandpa -- how did the book know what they'd all look like? Advanced Alien DNA-ology, of course. Sort of like when the plastic surgeon lets you "try on" new noses via computer (okay, now I'm just having fun).

And as that goes, just how did Isabel "see" or recognize Laurie though she was not a genetic relation? Quite probably the same way she and Max "knew" Michael when they all met again as children, and the same way she felt drawn to Tess. But it does beg the question, will we later have the chance to find Max, Isabel, or Tess' human progenitors? If it's a recessive gene, then two siblings might both carry it, meaning Max and Isabel could actually be blood relatives. Wouldn't that be a hoot? Tess is longing for family as much as Michael ever did. Where's her action?

I have to also mention that though I thought the first three installments of the series were paced rather slowly and the
"revelations" they offered a bit lackluster, this final part was well worth the effort. Mr. Juniper and I both thought it was very well-done and meaty. We're not special effects connoisseurs, and my Sci-fi consumption is pretty much limited to what's really accessible in print and on television, so I can't say whether any of it is good or bad. But we like it. Then again, we like modern art, too, so maybe our taste is lousy. Overall a good episode and satisfying conclusion.

Well, since Larek took the time and trouble to come back to Brody, I wonder if he didn't give them a snap judgement at first? Then, while Brody was being somewhat better prepared (a few hours, not days), he looked up the gandarum in his Encyclopaedia Twilonia for more useful info.

Is the "Destiny" plan in that too, or how did Larek know about how the pod squad was created? Is everyone in on it ?!?

But I am really confused about the distinction between being "infected" by the Gandarium and the cloning of our podsters. I haven't rewatched last night's ep yet and am typing this offline without having read posts since the early morning, so maybe this will make more sense later, but it seems like it shouldn't be that difficult to understand if it's entertainment--oh well, I had a headache last night too, so I'll just have (torture myself) and watch it again.

But what was the point in burying Laurie if lack of oxygen kills the Gandarium? quote:Originally posted by LSS Did those cave scenes seem a bit Camp to you? ... Did anyone else sense they were a bit bizarre?I think all of Roswell has always been a bit campy, and that is some of its charm. I thought the cave of blue crystals was lovely--not at all sinister, but perhaps seductive (though this was not expressed by Kyle & Alex). I loved the singing part. quote:Originally posted by reguru ...really found the 'queen' scary (I am easily scared!)me too. That's why Roswell is better for us than X-files. quote:Originally posted by Lameduck I always thought that book [Tess] had was fake, but since we now know that a podster will look like his DNA donor, it's now believable that the book could have pictures of the podsters at various stages of their life.Over on the Liz Mythology thread Vhuskas (not spelled that way, sorry )pointed out that the duplicates were exact copies and so had memories, but that the podsters were clones and so had a fresh start. So I'm thinking the book was for the dupes, not our podsters. quote:Originally posted by Lameduck The scratches were from a cut scene. A neighbor of Michael's came up to complain about the noise while Grant was tearing the place apart. Grant killed the neighbor, but she scratched him in the struggle.Ah-ha! Then we can probably also assume Grant got the scratches in Surprise from the chain link fence. So, then, why was the Queen having him abduct Tess? quote:Originally posted by stargaze I was bothered by Kyle's summation of events. It seemed too easy - "liz figured out the oxygen and told max who told michael who must have killed the queen which caused all the other crystals to die". Its like they just needed to close off the scene or something. I would have been perfectly happy with them getting out and going home and then talking the Michael and Maria later.me too. quote:Originally posted by plumeria What I don't understand is this: Only the queen can infect humans ... so how did Laurie get infected? How was she supposed to get infected buried in the ground if only the queen can infect her? It seemed like there was a discrepancy there...Laurie was in close proximity to the queen because it was Grant who buried her. So the queen had the opportunity. Perhaps it takes time?This whole infection thing was really confusing. What I heard was that once the 'right' person (i.e. Laurie) was infected by the Queen, then all who came in contact with her or with her contacts would die. So, I guess Grant was just a host, but not truly infected (not being 'right' for infection and not having come in contact with and infected Laurie or one of her contacts. Perhaps LSS's comment last week of "Grant, whatever has possessed you?" was right on in that the Queen possessed him, not infected him. And I think since the Queen was still in Grant, it had not yet entered Laurie.

BTW, I loved Isabel's last line.

LunaG & LSS, I immediately thought ***kryptonite*** when their powers wouldn't work on it.

Did anyone else flash back to the destruction of the husks in Harvest when destroying the Queen caused a total meltdown back at the cave? Also, I thought it looked more like a black widow than a jellyfish, but I lived in the desert for 20 years.

I took the gene thing as an excuse for why all four podsters are caucasian. Many genetic conditions are racially-linked, including Tay-Sachs (Ashkenazic Jews) and sickle cell anemia (people of African descent). I just figured that the "podster gene" is one of them.

The way I interpreted the "by the Queen" comment wasn't that the Queen would possess Laurie herself, but that she was in charge of finding appropriate hosts for her "children." I guess it's related to Larek's comments about "workers," 'cause I figured that the "workers" would be the ones to spread the disease around.

And when Michael sucked the air out of the room, I would have expected all floating objects (i.e. jellyfish) to be extruded out through the louvres. BTW, are louvres common to bomb shelters?

Even if they could control the blast and make sure that the cave didn't collapse on Alex and Kyle, they were trapped in a cave with an indeterminate number of semisentient beings. Who knows what their reaction would be to a sudden jolt? They might have some kind of defense mechanism that would lead to Alex and Kyle being injured or killed.

Remember, this is Max, king of "Let's make sure we know the ramifications of whatever we do before we do it." A trait that I believe has saved the podsters from far more danger than it's put them in.

I don't think I understand. Couldn't the aliens have abducted Grandpa and Grandma after they'd met and even married? Why must they have been strangers prior to the abduction?

quote:Originally posted by Shapeshifter:
This would fit in nicely with the theory that when Liz saw images seemingly from the orb's point of view (being chased by military and being buried) that the orb was at that point carrying Max's essence.

Wow! I've never heard of that theory before and I love it! Max's essense being transported through the orb... how cool is that.

Two points unrelated to SciFi...

When Maria and Michael were enjoying dinner at Laurie's house, did anyone else flash on the final scenes in Dave's life as a human in 2001: A Space Odessey? The scene and the lighting gave me shivers. Vaguely surreal.

The other point is, after a slime covered Alex and Kyle emerged from Gandarium Command Central, and the crew realized they'd saved the world (again); did I, or did I not, see Tess and Liz dancing around in an enthusiastic embrace? Is that hatchet buried? Is the way being cleared for Tess to accept Liz and Max's eventual reunion?

On the whole the Hybrid Chronicles hung together pretty well for me. A few bumps, but no major non-sequiturs that a little imagination and extrapolation couldn't handle.

Well, clearly there's enough O2 underground for the gandarium to survive, otherwise there wouldn't have been that hive down there. Or maybe some of the O2 from the tanks was used to aerate the soil around Laurie?

quote:Originally posted by Pepperjack Candy
I took the gene thing as an excuse for why all four podsters are caucasian. Many genetic conditions are racially-linked, including Tay-Sachs (Ashkenazic Jews) and sickle cell anemia (people of African descent). I just figured that the "podster gene" is one of them.

I agree -- I think the recessive gene must be racially linked.

The thing is... we know that the recessive gene is necessary for the INFECTION to take hold. What I can't remember (haven't had time to look back at my HTOHL tape) is -- is the recessive gene necessary for successful hybridization? If not, then the other donors might not have the gene.

Additional questions: Why was Grant/the queen going after Laurie specifically? Why not one of the others with the mutation? How could the queen know where Laurie was, or that she had the gene?

And, this might have been discussed in the past, but with all the talk of the hybridization processes, it made me think of it -- why did the podsquad take so long to incubate? They took even longer than the Harvest -- 42 years. And why were they 'born' at the age that they were (6 yrs old)? Why not have them incubate until they were fully capable adults?

I'm thinking of other things, but I suppose they would be better to take to the CHAD thread...

Thinking about all the theories I've read about some of the adults on the show being linked to the aliens, it now seems more possible.

I see what you mean... crystals = from home planet = powers' ineffective.

Your thinking raises another point...if Max and Co ever went back to their planet, would they have the same powers they have now? Does everyone back home have these powers? Or are they the result of the cloning process? Remember in Season 1 they said the powers were advance HUMAN powers. What do you think LunaG?

LSS [/B]

Here are my thoughts on the crystals, powers, home planet question.
(1) The Podsters Powers: In White Room, Nasedo said that the powers were human powers. But that ordinary humans didn't have them because they needed to evolve some more. Since then, we've seen both skins and shapeshifters have demonstrate similar powers, so I am assuming this means that the powers are not exclusive to "evolved" humans, but that "evolved humans" are one of the species who possess these abilities.
(2) Powers on the home world: I suspect that they had some powers on the home planet, but that they may have been weaker or different. In Wipe Out, there was an interaction where Nicholas said to Max something like: "On the home world I was no match for you, but here..." and then proceeds with his mind rape of a helpless Max. So, their respective powers are different in magnitude then they were before. It may very well be that the environment of Earth has some impact there.
(3) The Crystals: After We Are Family, I remember that someone suggested that the pulsing of the crystals might have meant that they were going in and out of time-phase with our reality. I'm thinking about (Wipe Out again) when Courtney said that on their world "time exists in multiple subsets." An organism that's hopping backward and forward in time might be hard to focus their powers on.

This is what I thought of after the fact, but when I watched the episode, all I thought was, "hey, kryptonite"

And ditto on the kryptonite epiphany. The fact that we all thought the same thing at the same time is kind of cool. Cool enough that we will forgive the obvious that they could have blasted the dirt edges of the crystal ring.

When Nicolas was trying to mind-rape Max, he had made the comment that in the old days he would have been no match for them. Courney said Nicolas was 1000 times stronger than them. Max also said in "Surprise" that Nasedo had told them they would be getting stronger. Did Nicolas know the podsters were going to get stronger?

Also, in "Wipe Out!", when Nicolas was attempting the mind-rape of Max, he suddenly was pushed back as Max angrily raised his head. Nicolas looked surprised, but we were immediately taken to green glowing stick in the alien again. The next time we saw Max, his eyes were closed and he was hanging from his bonds. Apparently Max was stronger than Nicolas had estimated and while we were away, the skins somehow subdued him. No one seems to have picked up on this, but I am wondering if Max is going to eventually have the full powers of Zan? It would be stupid to have brought him back weaker than before, concidering he couldn't save himself last time. What if Nicolas has even more of a surprise coming?

And then there's the Liz "grow" issue that keeps surfacing on the show. I realize this is a metaphor for adolescent maturation, but is she going to wind up as Wonder Woman?

Do you think that the 'change' has to do with just being healed by Max? I would guess that it has to do with their constant interaction also. Otherwise all those kids that Max healed in MITC would be affected also. I think that this has already been discussed, but I wish they had explored Ava's knowledge more on the show.

He is still so young, and so new at the leadership thing. Too much power too soon could throw him off balance even worse than he is now.

Too bad they dropped the ball on the Liz/Kyle having powers thing. I hope they bring it back.

Hmm. The gals have mental powers. Tess is a transmitter, as is Liz, and Isabel is a reciever. The guys tend to have physical powers. Max is defensive, and Michael offensive. So...

Kyle will probably have a physical ability. I'm going to say "offensive", like Michael. I don't think either Liz or Kyle will be able to heal anyone; but that's an interesting possibility. Tess changes minds, Kyle bodies?

The whole trapped in the cave thing is confusing and it's unclear what the writers were trying to get across. I've presumed that the crystals/gandarium were in the water table and able to absorb oxygen from the water. Only Alex and Kyle were actually in any danger once the gandarium sealed them in the cave since the oxygen in a form humans could breathe was limited. The piece of crystal Kyle sealed in the bottle had no oxygen of any kind once it was used up. Even if Kyle and Alex had died in the cave the crystals would have still been able to get oxygen from the water. All in all its still confusing.

Yea, on the oxygen thing, I can only guess we were supposed to assume that the crystals would get priority on the oxygen--that is, the humans would die before the crystals. But really I get the impression that all 4 eps were written before they started shooting, and then once they started, that was it; so the last one didn't get edited as well as the first --like when you're proofreading a letter or term paper as you go along--the first part gets proofed more times because you reread it everytime you sit down to write again. I also got the impression they really rushed some of shooting of the last part. I mean, if Michael is sucking the air in one direction, then everything floaty should thwap up against the louvres.

As I type my 17-year-old daughter is literally leaving another piece of her innocence and my Mazda somewhere by the side of the road.

Wow, that's really interesting. Has that been brought up as one of the possible reasons for Max's attraction to Liz? Maybe that Grandma Claudia had been healed, and that whatever changed in her had passed on to Liz? So that when Max and she met he recognized something in her, the way that Isabel recognized Tess and Grant?

I wouldn't be surprised to see Liz embrace her change, and scientifically explore and develop her potential.

I see that tess, liz, and isabel all have similar powers already. And I guess I just assumed that when they all mature enough, they will be able to do it all. tess and liz will be able to dreamwalk, liz and isabel will be able to mind warp, and isabel and tess will be able to astral project. At least isabel and tess. I'm not sure about liz, as she is not a full hybrid (oxymoron )?

First, consider bacteria. Roughly spherical, free floating like on the microscope slide. Put a bunch of them together, and you have two choices: if they are unattatched, you have a pile of them; a blob. If they are in contact with each other, and roughly the same size, they'll stack.

Think of a box of marbles. The ones on the bottom will organize themselves into a pattern of triangles. The next layer will also be in triangles, each marble sitting in the "hole" between three on the bottom layer. (There are twice as many holes as marbles.) The third layer will be in triangles, sitting in the holes of the second layer. The marbles in this third layer can be exactly above the first layer's marbles, or it can be above the unoccupied holes in both the first and second layers. The stacking order is ABA, or ABC. It's been a while since I took Crystal Chemistry in college, but IIRC, if it's ABA, then the crystals will be "body-centered cubic", if ABC then they'll be hexagonal. If I saw correctly, the crystals we were shown were hexagonal. (I am not making this up.)

Going from an amorphous blob to a crystal is just a matter of the bacteria "holding hands" or not. Pretty easy to acomplish, which is why we saw them go back and forth quickly. They can flow, as a blob, so this is probably how a group travels. When they are colonizing a body, they are probably either a blob or diluted as individual cells. Closing ranks as a crystal probably makes them more powerfull, though.

As for the "queen geranium" itself, think terrestrial slime moulds. Ordinarily, it's a shapeless slime blob. When the time comes for it to spawn, though, the cells organize themselves into a "fruiting body", on a stalk. This fruiting body releases spores, to float away to other colony sites. I think that the "queen" body we saw was the analog of the fruiting body. It was probably mostly a bubble, so that it would be buoyant and could float around. Zipping along as it did was improbable; I'd believe pulling itself slowly along by the tentacles, though.

Taking over someone's mind, and giving him explicit directions? Feh.

First, consider bacteria. Roughly spherical, free floating like on the microscope slide. Put a bunch of them together, and you have two choices: if they are unattatched, you have a pile of them; a blob. If they are in contact with each other, and roughly the same size, they'll stack.

Think of a box of marbles. The ones on the bottom will organize themselves into a pattern of triangles. The next layer will also be in triangles, each marble sitting in the "hole" between three on the bottom layer. (There are twice as many holes as marbles.) The third layer will be in triangles, sitting in the holes of the second layer. The marbles in this third layer can be exactly above the first layer's marbles, or it can be above the unoccupied holes in both the first and second layers. The stacking order is ABA, or ABC. It's been a while since I took Crystal Chemistry in college, but IIRC, if it's ABA, then the crystals will be "body-centered cubic", if ABC then they'll be hexagonal. If I saw correctly, the crystals we were shown were hexagonal. (I am not making this up.)

Going from an amorphous blob to a crystal is just a matter of the bacteria "holding hands" or not. Pretty easy to acomplish, which is why we saw them go back and forth quickly. They can flow, as a blob, so this is probably how a group travels. When they are colonizing a body, they are probably either a blob or diluted as individual cells. Closing ranks as a crystal probably makes them more powerfull, though.

As for the "queen geranium" itself, think terrestrial slime moulds. Ordinarily, it's a shapeless slime blob. When the time comes for it to spawn, though, the cells organize themselves into a "fruiting body", on a stalk. This fruiting body releases spores, to float away to other colony sites. I think that the "queen" body we saw was the analog of the fruiting body. It was probably mostly a bubble, so that it would be buoyant and could float around. Zipping along as it did was improbable; I'd believe pulling itself slowly along by the tentacles, though.

Taking over someone's mind, and giving him explicit directions? Feh.

But now we know that the only candidates for hybridization are those with a genetic defect, and Laurie says that she inherited some bad blood from her grandfather.

So perhaps the hybridization process creates what seems like a normal human except where the faulty gene(s) are located, where the gandarium modifies it or inserts it’s own DNA. My God! Continuity!

And while Alex/Kyle were trapped, I 1/2 believed that Kyle would do something to get themselves out of there by him using his powers.

Why did the grandarium trap Alex and Kyle? They were basically hunted and captured by the stuff.

speaking of the blue crystal, my roommate was the one that paid $1,000 for the crystals mounted to a lightbox. When we got back to the room, we plugged it in and turned off the lights and stared at in in awe.

I have a picture some where.