Thomas Paine was going to South Korea to talk about forming an "East Asian Space Alliance." I get that this is an excuse for the writers to put him on KAL 007, but Korea didn't have a space agency (KARI) until 1989 and no orbital rockets until 2009 (in our timeline). While NASDA already had rockets (based on licensed Deltas) and astronauts being trained in the 80s, but Japan's space program wasn't even mentioned. Maybe they will be part of the future Mars mission?
Someone Has to Die
"If we didn't use the shuttle and we had to create a whole new vehicle for travel, it was going to cost me a lot more," said Moore. "There would be no clips that I could use. There is an existing set that replicates the interior cockpit of the space shuttle. The spacesuits are available.""
Back to the idea of a rogue Russian attack on the base: When you go rogue in the Soviet Union, You end up in a gulag, or dead... So it should be very improbable if they want to be 'historically accurate'
Quote from: hektor on 04/25/2021 10:50 amSomeone Has to DieYeah, but...The flip side of this is Plot Armor, where characters become immune to getting killed off, either because they are popular with the fans, or the writers love them. As TV shows ramp up the stakes season-to-season, the characters then have increasingly implausible escapes from certain death. So just about everything is a trope--characters live, and it's a trope, characters die, and it's also a trope. The only show that really blew that all off the table was Game of Thrones, where they followed the great Joe Bob Briggs' famous saying "Anybody can die at any time."
The old show E.R also loved to kill tons of characters but it was mostly because their cast / casting went south after season 7 - and it lasted until season 15, dear god. So there were people maimed and crushed by falling helicopters, the hospital turned into an annex of Syria civil war, and on, and on. 24 was different. Basically, Jack Bauer character stole every single bit of ultra-heavy plot armor, the unfortunate consequence being that every single other remotely important secondary character, liked or not by viewers ended pretty vulnerable to whacky terrorists and their evil plots... and it was a carnage.
I get the clips part - but I think the cockpit could have been hand-waved as a "convenient" similarity relatively easily. Especially the pressure suits.
That's Ronald Moore's style, as shown numerous times in BSG. Sometimes it does seem like he wants to make an episode of Dallas. I'll predict that the Karen-Danny fling will lead to a falling out between Ed and Gordo. This presumes that Gordo doesn't get killed in some military showdown on the Moon.
One of the things that bugged me most this season was the Karen-Danny thing. Keep in mind that he's 19 and she is in her 50s, probably 52 or 53 based upon her meeting and marrying Ed while he was flying during the Korean War. I won't say it was completely implausible, but if you think it out at all, it implies that Karen is really messed up. After all, she slept with a young man who was friends with her dead son. Oedipus ain't got nothing on her.But there was really nothing indicating that Karen was that messed up. She was mad at Ed for going back to spaceflight and clearly she was acting out. But that anger does not match up to her actions unless she has some kind of undiagnosed mental illness.
Quote from: Blackstar on 04/27/2021 03:02 pmOne of the things that bugged me most this season was the Karen-Danny thing. Keep in mind that he's 19 and she is in her 50s, probably 52 or 53 based upon her meeting and marrying Ed while he was flying during the Korean War. I won't say it was completely implausible, but if you think it out at all, it implies that Karen is really messed up. After all, she slept with a young man who was friends with her dead son. Oedipus ain't got nothing on her.But there was really nothing indicating that Karen was that messed up. She was mad at Ed for going back to spaceflight and clearly she was acting out. But that anger does not match up to her actions unless she has some kind of undiagnosed mental illness.The age gap isn't that shocking, IMO. It's, in a sense, natural (though not necessarily ethical) to be attracted to youth and vigor. Though the casting makes it a touch hard to recall how old Karen is supposed to be--48 would be the bare minimum age she can be, and the actress is only 37. Going after her son's childhood friend, and the current friend of her adopted daughter, however, is very concerning. On the other hand, it might be something as simple as "he's available, interested, has a plausible excuse to spend time with her, and can plausibly be blackmailed because her husband is an Admiral."
I hope they don't continue the story line with Karen-Danny.
I think that it'll be Ellen who'll be working in a more senior position in the next season -- perhaps as an astronaut politician -- as was hinted at with the Lee Atwater scene. Maybe Ellen will be a congresswoman, or even Vice President of the United States.I was even thinking that the President of the United States in Season 3 might be Hillary Clinton, as per the show's desire to give women an upsized role in history. But it's going to be intriguing to see how the show contrives a Soviet Union and a Cold War that survives into the 1990s and beyond. The alternate timeline is going to diverge even more strongly than before.
What if Clinton loses the 1992 election against Bush Sr? That would give him a second term and be the one in office for the Mars landing in 95, which would be a fit as he announced the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) in 1989.
Is it established that the boot was the one of a NASA astronaut?
The events of Season 2 that we watched were talking place in ~ circa 1983, as part of President Reagan's 2nd term in office. He gets elected to the presidency in 1976 in the alternate timeline, so he's there 4 years ahead of schedule and also finishing 4 years ahead of real life timeline. That would mean Reagan's successor (whoever that may be) is elected to office in 1984. Note that Reagan's VP in the alternate timeline is not George Bush Sr, but is US Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania. This may mean that there is no subsequent President George Bush Sr, nor even a later President George Bush Jr.
Quote from: Blackstar on 04/26/2021 10:48 pm"If we didn't use the shuttle and we had to create a whole new vehicle for travel, it was going to cost me a lot more," said Moore. "There would be no clips that I could use. There is an existing set that replicates the interior cockpit of the space shuttle. The spacesuits are available.""I get the clips part - but I think the cockpit could have been hand-waved as a "convenient" similarity relatively easily. Especially the pressure suits.
Quote from: Skylon on 04/27/2021 01:35 amI get the clips part - but I think the cockpit could have been hand-waved as a "convenient" similarity relatively easily. Especially the pressure suits. Yes. But then somebody on here would be complaining about that too, right?
