Review Welcome to Paradox (1998) - episode 2 "Our Lady of the Machine"

Holy cow! What a great episode!/Was this episode written by a machine? Grade it now.

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Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
Aired Aug 17, 1998 on Syfy

A telepathic detective investigates a hologram with a holy image.


CAST

Steven Bauer ... Det. Angel Cardenas
Ben Cardinal
Oscar Gonçalves
Nicole Oliver ... Captain
Brandy Ledford ... Sergeant Darcy
Suzy Joachim ... Holograph of Virgin Mary
Mina E. Mina ... (as Mina Erian Mina)
Michael Philip ... The Host
Rick Dobran ... Paily Huachuco
Pamela Diaz ... Cina
Stefania Ciccone ... Mama Cardenas
Frank Ferrucci ... Ramon
Jahren Corrigan ... Suspect
Chris Villaruel ... Young Angel
Conan Graham ... Guard
Erick Kaffka ... Beta Cop (uncredited)


WRITTEN BY

Alan Dean Foster...(story)
Miguel Tejada-Flores...(teleplay)


DIRECTED BY

Clark Johnson
 

Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
So, now we can finally and openly say that the whole show takes place in Betaville, and that was not just the first episode. But that doesn't limit the show at all. Betaville is like the Simpson's Springlfield: everything happens there. Betaville means "the future" with lots of technology, and establishing a specific location is just a plot device. That doesn't decrease the freedom the writers have to create good stories, especially considering that most episodes are strongly based on already published science fiction short stories.

That was a very interesting episode. I've always wondered how I would react if I had a revelation about God. Some strong believer might consider an apparition would confirm everything he already believed in, but if you're an skeptic, first you would look for mundane explanations for that apparition (some technological trick, hallucination, etc) and then, if no such explanation was found, you could think it was some sort of superior intelligence or powerful being, even a alien, but not necessarily God. And now I'm thinking of Star Trek V, which, even if it was a bad movie, had an interesting and thought-provoking premise.

Betaville is a criticism on how excessively we rely on technology as a society, and the consequences that brings. But faith will always exist, except that in a place where technology is practically worshiped, technology and religion could easily be confused with each other, and "God" might as well be a high-tech construct.

A few problems I see. The story relies on the stereotype that Latinos are simple, superstitious/excessively religious people, a character type that reminds us of those poor Mexican peasants in old cowboy movies. As a Latino myself, I'm not very comfortable with this characterization. Also, the protagonist was a skeptic with a strong analytical mind, a high-tech expert and... could read minds? That almost makes him a Mary Sue. If the story hadn't included the mind-reading element, the story would've been more grounded, and nothing would've changed in the plot. Unless the visions he had when the Virgin touched him were connected with his telepathy? How come if she was a computer program, not a human being?

It's nice to see a young Stephen Bauer again. I remember him in several good shows in the 1990s (as well as in films such as Scarface). Unfortunately, actors do get old and stop getting hero roles. His last participation of notice was Don Eladio in Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, I'm not sure. I think it was the latter.

I'm still deciding the grade. I think it's a good idea to have watched a few reference episodes to start grading.

OK. This episode gets 8 Hail Marys.
 
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Brimfin

Member: Rank 3
I was way behind with everything on Friday morning, but I decided to use it to check out “Our Lady of the Machine.” Boy, was I glad I did.

Definitely an improvement over last week’s episode, more focused, more logical, and with a delightfully multi-layered storyline. I’m not a fan of stories that ridicule religion, but this tale did not do any such thing. In fact, it respected the basic tenets of religion more than most shows would do in the present day.

We begin with a man dressed like a stereotypical monk, asking a businessman for money allegedly for his Church. The businessman refuses. The monk goes outside and presses his fancy watch announcing with a smirky attitude, “We have a nonbeliever.” Thus, we see right away that he is no religious man - just a shakedown artist. The businessman, however, then sees a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The writers are careful never to pervert this sacred religious figure. She never says or does anything threatening but speaks simple thoughts about helping others. The businessman isn’t fooled: he knows this is a hologram and has a barrier that should scramble the signal. But the “image” of Mary reaches through the barrier, physically touching and embracing him. The effect is lethal to him.

Enter the main character, a police detective of the future ironically named Angel despite the fact that he is a nonbeliever. He is also an Intuit, meaning that he created Turbo Tax. No, it actually means he can anticipate people moves and has a sense of whether they are lying or telling the truth – so much so that some people think he can read minds. He knows the details of what happened and is sure it is a tactile hologram, something that would take a large amount of power to generate. Having seen other shows where people seemingly enter a virtual reality world and have no trouble interacting or even having sex with computer-generated characters, it’s refreshing to see this story admit that even having a hologram just appear to touch you would be very difficult to achieve.

To be certain that the Blessed Mary he saw on the recordings could not possibly be real, Angel goes to see a genuine priest. The scene showing the priest clearly reaching out to help other people and both characters discussing the Virgin Mary with utmost respect demonstrates that religion is still alive and well in this future. The priest assures Angel that Mary is a religious figure of the greatest magnitude, a symbol or forgiveness and grace, and could never harm anyone even unintentionally.

Angel goes undercover as another businessman and he is approached by the same monk. He tells him a story that is apparently true or partly true that he had a mother who was a true churchgoer and always reached out to help people. But one of the people she had helped came back for more and tried to rob them. His mother ended up dead, and Angel stopped believing in a God that wouldn’t help a good person like his mother. It’s a familiar and all-too-true tale of someone losing his faith when God appears to have abandoned them. Unfortunately, religion is not something that will keep you from never being harmed; it’s something that helps you get through the trials and tragedies you will eventually have in your life. Shortly after his refusal, he too receives a visit from Blessed Mary. But unlike the previous mark, he is not harmed. She tells him he has a pain that he is suffering from and she touches his chest. Earlier on, he had admitted to someone else that he was having a phantom pain in his chest since the day his mother was killed. Doctors have examined it and found no cause for it. Though he doesn’t say anything about it until much later, it is clear from his reactions that the Virgin’s touch has taken away the pain.

The con artist from earlier in the show is captured and unsurprisingly he has been using an alias and his real identity has a long rap sheet. He cooperates enough to tell Angel how to get in touch with the man he works for, by mixing in with his “clergy.” He also learns of a man, now dead, who was working on creating a hologram image of the Virgin Mary to try to do good for the world. Angel suspects someone else took the software and turned it into something sinister. Following the con artist’s instructions he mixes in and is able to follow the man down to his secret lair where there is a massive computer complex. He also finds the supposedly dead creator of the program alive but being held captive. He tries to escape with him, but is caught by the leader. After being beaten up, he is reminded of the night of his mother’s attack. He realizes it was his own Intuit powers that failed him that night. He was the one who couldn’t protect his mother – not God. Left alone afterward, he remembers what he heard about the original intention of the program. He prays to the Virgin Mary and she appears before him. He tells her she must have a replicator program somewhere in case she is destroyed. He convinces her to prove herself by activating it. She activates the program replicating her image, yet still saying that she is the one and only Virgin Mary. This is enough to create havoc in the computer program, shorting the computer out long enough for him to get free and for the rest of his force to break in and capture the bad guys. Confusing the computer’s logic circuits – works every time. Meanwhile, the man who subverted the program is hugged by the hologram and collapses. Did he die from his own tampering with the program, or merely collapse unconscious? Doesn’t really matter either way – that’s left open to the viewer to decide.

The hologram’s creator destroys the program – not wanting to see it subverted for evil purposes again. Angel admits that the fact that the hologram disappeared after the first victim started to die was done so that she could not see that she had harmed anyone, which would have destroyed the program. But Angel admits that Mary’s touch did take his pain away, and he had never told her the spot that the pain came from, but she had touched it anyway. God didn’t create the hologram of Mary, but maybe he had used it for a good purpose. Angel starts to believe again.

I used to read science fiction short stories when I was young, and this reminded me of some that I had read as I watched this. I could almost picture the description of when the businessman first sees the hologram of the Blessed Virgin. This story gets 9 futures that are thankfully not all dystopian like last week’s episode was.
 

Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
No, it actually means he can anticipate people moves and has a sense of whether they are lying or telling the truth – so much so that some people think he can read minds.
Yep, and I'm one of them. I admit I never got that part and how it fit in the story. Your review helped make sense of that.

Now I'm thinking of the final solution thought about by the detective. If the Blessed Virgin duplicated herself, her own self would become "ambivalent," meaning she wasn't supposed to do that and remain being able to claim to be the one and only Virgin Mary. But isn't God supposed to be omnipresent? And wouldn't that apply to the Blessed Virgin and other "high-ranking" figures in Christianity?

The end also reminded me of the classical trope: the hero asks the computer a question it cannot answer without destroying itself.
 

Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
Just making sure the latest episode stays at the top. I asked the admin to unstick ep #1 to avoid that pesky misplace ep in the top position.
 

TheSowIsMine

What an excellent day for an exorcism
VIP
I don't always mind religious stuff in entertainment, if its done tastefully and not to teach me a lesson. But this show seems to be all about lessons. Be ware of technology, *insert message of the week*.
That is not really my thing. But in the 90's you had a lot of shows/movies dealing with the "dangers" of technology.

Story wise, this wasn't my thing, but overall the production was a lot better. The story was more focuses, which also had to do with tighter editing.
 

Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
Be ware of technology, *insert message of the week*.
Well, fiction about technology usually is all about technology that goes wrong, not that works perfectly as predicted. In this episode specifically, it's true the technology in question was perverted to extort and kill, but it also provided a bridge for the protagonist to have a glimpse of a higher truth, so that was a win and it was not only about what can go wrong. Besides, technology is so intrinsic to Betaville that we couldn't think of the city any other way; it's just part of the way of life of the "Betavillans." On the other hand, we have a very different scenario for a cautionary tale when, say, a scientist tries something new and forbidden, it ends in disaster and the hero understands that the technology has to be destroyed because "there are some things we are not meant to know and master because man can't play god" or something. This is definitely NOT the case of "Welcome to Paradox."
 

Cloister56

Member: Rank 3
A tight little mystery this week and an excellent lead character.
I really liked Angel's approach to the situation, he was methodical and didn't jump to conclusions to lightly. His arc in terms of his beliefs was well handled. In the end it really didn't whether it was just a hologram or something more he had gained more insight (whether spontaneous or provoked) into the events that led to him losing his faith.
I thought it was a delicate use of a religious icon which could have easily ended in pious preaching or upset a lot of people.

Having said that I did find the use of the hologram a bit confusing. It wasn't clear how much it had sentience and how much it could be used. It was stated they made it disappear before it saw the results of its actions, when did they learn this was necessary as if it was present once to see it could now kill wouldn't that end the whole scenario. What if one of the later "victims" acted scared of it and said they had heard it had appeared an killed people, would the program be able to work that out?
I guess they just turned it on and pointed it at the people they wanted. The program just wanted the person to believe, the victim linked it to the visit prior from the monks.
I just feel I have more questions about the setup than was answered.

She activates the program replicating her image, yet still saying that she is the one and only Virgin Mary. This is enough to create havoc in the computer program, shorting the computer out long enough for him to get free and for the rest of his force to break in and capture the bad guys. Confusing the computer’s logic circuits – works every time.
Yep "If I were to tell you that the next thing I say would be true, but the last thing I said was a lie, would you believe me?" I memorized that one just in case.

The hologram’s creator destroys the program – not wanting to see it subverted for evil purposes again.
This is often the end to these advanced technologies. The creator see's how it could be subverted and destroys it, the world is saved from this threat. It's clean way to end an episode but realistically it would have been a big team working on it with parts of the technology being built on prior discoveries. Also likely another team would have made similar advances. Destroying the technology would do nothing really, it is coming.




I did find amusing that the police team had a final brief less than 10 feet away from the monks gathering. Good thing none of them looked over at their "brother" being prepped to go undercover or the surveillance team running around the rafters in blue outfits.
It seems the monks temple is quite new as they haven't had time to remove the packaging from most of their furniture.

When Angel goes to the secret underground room with the hologram, it reminded me of the hologram in Robocop the Series and the appearing "flash" is very similar.

It's nice to see a young Stephen Bauer again. I remember him in several good shows in the 1990s (as well as in films such as Scarface).
I knew I recognised him, thank you.

Finally when Angel was holding the photo of the inventor he covers the guys mustache. Why was this? When we see the guy later he still has his mustache. I thought he was trying to decide if it looked like someone he had seen earlier in the episode but I can't think who.

A decent episode, think I prefered last weeks but doing well so far.

7 feet away you need to be to don a disguise and it still work, out of 10.
 
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