A Shock to the System

[Katharine]

Okay, kids- all of these off-kilter posts popping up hither and yon in the site are making me fidgety...it's time for a real thread.  For your consideration or amusement (or considerable amusement, you make the call) how about this for a topic:  what moment in any of the series, in any incarnation, shocked you the most?  I'm not talking about reaction at how horribly BotP was edited or how the G-Force:GOS background music triggered headaches; I'm talking about what storylines, whose dialog, what particular moment got under your skin and made you scream out like South Park's Cartman: "OMFG?!?"   

Everyone knows what mine is, so I'm handing this off to everyone else.  Come on, everyone, it's time for a jam session.   

[cathrl]

You'll have to remind me what yours is

First time round, with BotP, it was probably Zark announcing that Jason was fine, it was just stress. He was SO not fine! Though as a plotline I'd have to go for Anderson's casual "Former G-Force member Donald Wade..."oh boy, was that ever the tiny hint of backplot that launched rather a lot of fanfic... And those two are both from the same episode.

When I finally got to see Gatchaman, it was definitely the submarine episode where Joe remembers that his parents worked for Galactor, and...where was the angst and the secrecy and the loner-ness I'd expected? Completely absent. He turned round to Ken and told him what he remembered.

To me, that makes the way he tries to hide his problems at the end so much more poignant. He doesn't hide them because he's the loner and that's what he does. He hides them because it's so awful that he can't even tell someone who he tells everything to.

[lborgia88]

You'll have to remind me what yours is :

I'd guess something to do with Gatchaman's episode 20?

For me, my memories of watching Battle of the Planets in the 70s are fuzzy, and I know I missed a lot of episodes.  When I first started watching Gatchaman, in late 2006, I'd read so much about it on various sites that I knew of the main storylines and plot twists in advance of seeing actual episodes.

However, the violence in Gatchaman did shock me, in a sense.  I knew that Gatchaman was going to be more violent, but having been a kid in the 70s, in Canada, when cartoons were so comparatively sanitized, it still rather threw me for a loop to watch Gatchaman -clearly a product of the 70s but one that showed people, even ordinary civilians, getting blown to bits, drowned in floods, crushed by falling debris etc.  The realism and honesty were so refreshing, but I can't help but wonder how I'd have reacted at age eight, if it had all been kept in Battle of the Planets!

My only big shock, was hearing Jason's voice again for the first time in 27 years.  I'd watched several episodes of Gatchaman, both in ADV's subbed and dubbed versions, and Joe's deep voice had really grown on me (both the subbed and dubbed versions).  Jason had always been my favourite BOTP character -I could definitely remember that- but I was shocked when I finally went looking on youtube to see if there were any clips of Battle of the Planets, found some, and heard Jason again...

I'd completely forgotten, in the intervening decades, what his voice had sounded like and its... shall we say, "reedy" tone was a shock!

At any rate, I've since watched a lot more Battle of the Planets, and I've gotten used to Jason's voice again.  But that day in late 2006 -it was a shock.

[Katharine]

You'll have to remind me what yours is :

I'd guess something to do with Gatchaman's episode 20?

Yes, that one...but it wasn't my first shock.  My first post-BotP exposure to Gatchaman was by reading the CG Anime comic novels of the 1978 Gatchaman movie, a theatrically-released splicing of the Turtle King, Van Allen Belt (death of Red Impulse) and V2 storylines.  Episodes 1, 52-53, and 103-105, respectively, and at the very end, there's the team standing around Cross Karocolm without openly searching for Joe.  As I thought back then: wait...what??  Why aren't they looking for him? 

Later I got access to actual Gatchaman episodes, and my first look at episode 20.  Five minutes into that one gave me my second shock.  Imagine me hollering: "Where's the damned medivac??"

[Julieann]

I had several while watching BotP back when it first aired. One was when Mark fell apart when they lost Princess in "Fierce Flowers". Then again in Space Center when she says "I always liked you best". I then wanted to thwap Mark for not saying something similar right back.

And then Mark kneeling next to the grave where his dead brother was buried. Wow, did that set off bells! So much was never explored or said after that. How old was Mark when he died? How did he die? (I assumed at the time it was possibly in an aircraft as that was what was on the grave) Did he inspire Mark in any way to aspire to be commander? Did the brother go through the early phases of the G-Force program? Oh my, the questions running through my head!

And then there was "Vacation on Venus", one of the first episodes I saw. It made sense that if his body temperature was different, that meant Keyop was from one of the other planets of the Federation. It explained his speech. It might explain why he was on the team despite appearing so young. Of course, I found out in the 90's that wasn't so. Darn, it was such a good idea. Why didn't they go with that one? In my younger days I had whole mental stories about how Keyop came to be with the team and what his people and planet were like. Phooey.

[Katharine]

I had several while watching BotP back when it first aired. One was when Mark fell apart when they lost Princess in "Fierce Flowers". Then again in Space Center when she says "I always liked you best". I then wanted to thwap Mark for not saying something similar right back.

Wasn't it Mark who said to Princess sometime or other: "you've always been my favorite"?  I can't remember which ep, but whoo boy did it raise my eyebrows...   

-K (and a thousand 'shipper fics were born...)

[sandmonkeys]

The moment that shocked me the most was probably the scene on the Marine Saturn where Joe is willing to tell Ken about his nightmares, as well as how Joe, seemingly without protest, stays out of the mission, letting Ken handle it. Ken's kindness to his friend in this episode shocked me deeply and, I have to admit, I paused the episode and cried, unable to watch any more for several minutes. OK, so I'm a little sensitive.

I was also pretty overwhelmed at the final episodes of season 1, where Joe is dying. Seeing his final fight and the brutality of Galactor really blew me away, and I was decimated when the final episode was done and Joe is presumed dead. I was very, very glad there were more seasons, and that we get to see Joe again - the series wouldn't have been the same without him.

[yulka]

My biggest OMFG was after Nambu`s words « But now your real mission is about to begin. Accomplish this mission, and you’ll finally be able to meet your father» (episode #51). Nambu invented a very cruel quest for Ken, didn`t he? In my childhood I watched GoS, not Gatchaman, and Dr. Brighthead`s phrase was even something like «Your father wants to talk with you, Ace». I was totally when in episode #52 all the characters «forgot» about it. 

[Springie]

Oh my...so many of those you've  mentioned were OMG moments!  I was always paying full attention to Mark/ Princess moments like "I've always liked you best" and "You're the prettiest girl in the Solar System" and "Rover can keep a secret...he's G-Force" and "Mark and I have private conversations"...

But in Gatch...one of the moments that made my eyes bug out was when Jinpei climbs up to save Maria from the kidnappers...HOLY COW! Did I just see a naked girl in the shower? 

[freddok]

Well...hullo...this is my first post....

The biggest shock to my system? It was, after having seen a pretty good amount of BOtP episodes in the early 80's....it was when I saw the Gatchaman movie for the first time.

Talk about culture shock and system shock! Wow!