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A thought on Grace Under Pressure...
... and Sheppard's reactions therein.
Naturally, being me, one of my foci when watching (and re-watching) the episode is Sheppard's concern for Rodney, which I do think is there despite the lack of overt, outward signs. However, there's one subtle characterization point that took me quite awhile to pick up on ... until last night, in fact. It's simply this -- Sheppard is entirely serious throughout the whole episode. The only point where he gets a little of his normal flippancy back was when they took the puddlejumper underwater and he was trying to get Radek to be excited along with him -- and really, who can blame him; this is Sheppard after all ... if he didn't get at least a little bit excited about doing something new and different with the puddlejumper, you'd have to check him for pod marks. But then he snaps right back to "mister serious" again. Throughout the episode, he doesn't joke, he doesn't make light of the situation as he normally does (he even congratulations Radek for narrowing down the search area, and Sheppard doesn't really *ever* praise people, that I can think of) and at the end, when they find Rodney, there's no teasing *at all*. Even when he's trying to get Rodney to open the door, with the clock ticking and entire weight of the ocean about to come crashing down on their heads, he does it gently ... well, gently by Sheppardian standards, and especially compared to the tactics he normally takes when trying to motivate Rodney (as in Inferno or 38 Minutes).
And maybe I'm wrong and the writers didn't do it on purpose, but it's just so ... consistent, and so different from how he normally acts. He even passes up a couple of perfectly obvious places to tease McKay at the end (like about the Carter thing). And if it is intentional, then that's really impressive, because it's so understated and yet you look back at the episode and it's just there, all the way through, revealing how he feels more clearly than words ever could.
Naturally, being me, one of my foci when watching (and re-watching) the episode is Sheppard's concern for Rodney, which I do think is there despite the lack of overt, outward signs. However, there's one subtle characterization point that took me quite awhile to pick up on ... until last night, in fact. It's simply this -- Sheppard is entirely serious throughout the whole episode. The only point where he gets a little of his normal flippancy back was when they took the puddlejumper underwater and he was trying to get Radek to be excited along with him -- and really, who can blame him; this is Sheppard after all ... if he didn't get at least a little bit excited about doing something new and different with the puddlejumper, you'd have to check him for pod marks. But then he snaps right back to "mister serious" again. Throughout the episode, he doesn't joke, he doesn't make light of the situation as he normally does (he even congratulations Radek for narrowing down the search area, and Sheppard doesn't really *ever* praise people, that I can think of) and at the end, when they find Rodney, there's no teasing *at all*. Even when he's trying to get Rodney to open the door, with the clock ticking and entire weight of the ocean about to come crashing down on their heads, he does it gently ... well, gently by Sheppardian standards, and especially compared to the tactics he normally takes when trying to motivate Rodney (as in Inferno or 38 Minutes).
And maybe I'm wrong and the writers didn't do it on purpose, but it's just so ... consistent, and so different from how he normally acts. He even passes up a couple of perfectly obvious places to tease McKay at the end (like about the Carter thing). And if it is intentional, then that's really impressive, because it's so understated and yet you look back at the episode and it's just there, all the way through, revealing how he feels more clearly than words ever could.
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But I think there were other signs of how worried he was...the fact that he half bullied Radek into going down with him in the jumper to try and get Rodney and Griffin back.
However, I prefer this method of showing us how much the Atlantis people care for Rodney. Particular for guys like Sheppard who aren't going to say it, but will SHOW it in the ways you mentioned above. The writers know this...they have often SHOWED us how characters react to things - trusting the actors show us it without words (facial expressions, vocal tone and body language) and that the viewers will get it without being told directly. It is one of things I really like about both shows is that they do that.
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Yeah ... I think that's the one point in the episode where the mask slips a little bit -- well, that and his "Hey, buddy!" and "Almost thought we lost you..." at the end. I really do think that Sheppard's in a huge case of denial, a sort of cockeyed optimism even beyond his usual -- he just doesn't let himself believe for a moment that Rodney isn't okay (and refuses to even entertain the possibility, when Radek suggests, near the beginning of the episode, that McKay and Griffin might not have made it to safety). We're simply not going to get huge oodles of angst from Sheppard because he doesn't think that way (something which I think a lot of fanfic writers don't quite get -- not that I mind some angst in fic, but canon Sheppard is NOT a guy who worries about worst-case scenarios).
And I agree with you that I really like the understated stuff. There are times when I wish we'd get a little more follow-through, a little more reaction ... but overall, the show is very subtle and restrained with the interpersonal relationships while still managing to show how much the characters care about each other, and I like that. Granted, there *are* times when I wonder if I'm just reading more into it than the writers really meant to be there -- seeing it through my own warped lens, as it were. I'm like a friendship-seeking missile....
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Very true. Rodney is the worst-case scenario guy.
Part of it I think is the different medias. In prose you almost have to be a little more blantent, because there is not a person there to show the emotion behind the words. TV is a visual medium - prose is not.
And I did like the "Hey buddy..." when he was trying to get Rodney to open up the hatch. Sheppard had no idea if Rodney was alive or dead (although I think that was one of the few times he allowed those thoughts to enter his mind) or what state he was in.
I am not sure I it wasn't that he didn't know how far he could push Rodney - I think it was more that he knew that this was not the time to push him...that pushing him wouldn't get the desired results. He would have to have known - even without knowing exactly what Rodney had gone through for the last few hours - that Rodney was not in the strongest of mental states, so the usual teasing would not be the best way to get to him.
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So true!
Thinking back, it seems to me that there's a lot more emotional ambiguity in movies and TV compared to books (and, by extension, fic). I usually find myself ending a book with a pretty good grasp on who the characters are and what they mean to each other. Movies and TV ... not so much. With television, I suppose part of it *is* the serial nature of the thing, and having a lot of different writers working on it ... so you might get a slightly different impression of a character from different writers, and try to fit it together into a whole in your head when actually it's different individual writers' take on the characters. But I think you're right that there's a really big qualitative difference between a medium where (almost) everything is shown and one where everything is said. Television and movies are supposed to be a passive medium, but I don't think that's true, because there is so much, well, WORK that a viewer has to do at decoding the nonverbal aspects of the plot -- paying attention to notice the finer details. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that may be true, but it can take ten times of re-watching a visual scene to grasp a point that might have been made clear in one sentence in a book. Maybe that's one reason why movies and TV tend to inspire more obsessive fans than books ... because fans of the visual media *have* to watch with that obsessive attention to detail in order to get the details that readers of books are given.
(I'm speaking as a confirmed bibliophile and veteran of a number of book-related obsessions here. I love books. They challenge you in some ways that movies and TV don't. But I also think that the visual media can challenge you in ways that books don't.)
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Sheppard's concern was always obvious to me and shown in a way that was in character for him. But I hadn't really picked up on the lack of flippancy. And now that you mention it, that scene when they find the jumper and he talks to Rodney, I can almost hear him holding back. The bit where he explains "OK, long story short,..." etc - well, there's almost a measured quality to his voice, as if he's judging just how much he can prod. And that, as you say, is very different from how he usually prods Rodney into doing something. Usually, he just "jumps in, feet first" because normally Rodney can take it.
And yeah, I do think this comparative tentativeness seems like the result of the tension that Sheppard has been under. And it's hard to know if it was intentionally written that way - but yeah, if was - WOW for the subtlety!
Good call!
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I'd like to think it's intentional -- that the scriptwriters and directing team put that much thought into Sheppard's character and his reactions to the situation. And maybe they did. But you know, even if they didn't, it *works* -- the characters' reactions make sense through that interpretation, so I think that it *is* an entirely valid way to see the episode.
I like what you say about Sheppard seeming to hold back at the end. For a guy who sometimes has the emotional sensitivity of a brick to the forehead, he can be surprisingly insightful at managing people ... particularly when "people" is Rodney.
The thought has crossed my mind that "Grace" is one of those episodes that I found a little disappointing on the first viewing but have liked more and more every time I've watched it. I didn't ever dislike it, but it's definitely become one of my favorite episodes in the series by this point. For an episode with an incredibly straighforward plot and only four characters, it's amazingly multi-layered and I keep discovering new things about it. (Even if half the time I'm afraid I might be making them up ... heh.) And you know, in the early days when I wasn't really sure how to feel about that episode, your "Pride under Pressure" vid (still one of my favorites) made me much more aware of the subtleties of Sheppard's body language -- you did a good job of picking up in the video those parts of the episode where he displays worry and impatience non-verbally.
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-Tazmy
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