#subverting the genuinely harmful bury your disabled tropes

[heyclickadee]

One of the slightly frustrating things about the entire Tech situation is that if Tech comes back, “Plan 99” would immediately skyrocket into being one of my top ten favorite episodes. I thought it was an incredible episode when if first aired, and I still think that now, but thinking that is entirely conditional on it being a fakeout—not a death that gets reversed later, but a fakeout specifically. It doesn’t read as a death to me. As a departure and a separation, sure, but not as a death. And if a temporary separation is what it is then, well, I think it’s pretty remarkable as both a fakeout and an episode.

But only if that’s what it is. That I’m none too keen on this particular character dying and his death being treated like that aside, and not to be a broken record, but it doesn’t really work as a main character death. At all. As a main character death it’s staggeringly bad, and bad in a unique way that never gets better or less weird as we move through season three.

So even though I’m basically ride or die on the Tech Lives train at this point, Tech isn’t back yet, so I can’t really like “Plan 99.” But I don’t hate it yet, either. It’s sort of floating off in this nether space until I know one way or another for sure what I think of it. And that’s frustrating because I’d like do be able to do one or the other.

[laughhardrunfastbekindsblog]

YES to almost all of this, the only exception being that currently I cannot stand "Plan 99." After forcing myself through (I think) four rewatches, I'm done. I can't watch that episode again. It's literally the only Star Wars episode/movie on my "do not watch" list (the fact that I can watch AotC over this just goes to show how drastic this is!) And the thing is, I WANT to be able to stomach watching it again, so I hope Lucasfilm brings Tech back soon.

So anyway, Tech lives...

One of the slightly frustrating things about the entire Tech situation is that if Tech comes back, “Plan 99” would immediately skyrocket into being one of my top ten favorite episodes. I thought it was an incredible episode when if first aired, and I still think that now, but thinking that is entirely conditional on it being a fakeout—not a death that gets reversed later, but a fakeout specifically. It doesn’t read as a death to me. As a departure and a separation, sure, but not as a death. And if a temporary separation is what it is then, well, I think it’s pretty remarkable as both a fakeout and an episode.

But only if that’s what it is. That I’m none too keen on this particular character dying and his death being treated like that aside, and not to be a broken record, but it doesn’t really work as a main character death. At all. As a main character death it’s staggeringly bad, and bad in a unique way that never gets better or less weird as we move through season three.

So even though I’m basically ride or die on the Tech Lives train at this point, Tech isn’t back yet, so I can’t really like “Plan 99.” But I don’t hate it yet, either. It’s sort of floating off in this nether space until I know one way or another for sure what I think of it. And that’s frustrating because I’d like do be able to do one or the other.

[phantom-of-the-501st]

I'm with you in the fact that I actually really love Plan 99 as an episode, particularly as a set-up to do some really interesting plot stuff (with Tech!) but the interesting plot stuff with it never happens and when it was confirmed that Tech was dead (still in denial but okay) it was just kind of

Because, ultimately, Tech's death does a whole lot of nothing for the narrative. There was so much potential that was never realised.

"Tech sacrificed himself to save his brothers"

Yes, but the cable car crashed about 30 seconds later and they survived almost entirely out of pure luck, so their survival is only partially down to Tech and mostly down to fate, which I feel like diminishes the sacrifice somewhat.

One of the slightly frustrating things about the entire Tech situation is that if Tech comes back, “Plan 99” would immediately skyrocket into being one of my top ten favorite episodes. I thought it was an incredible episode when if first aired, and I still think that now, but thinking that is entirely conditional on it being a fakeout—not a death that gets reversed later, but a fakeout specifically. It doesn’t read as a death to me. As a departure and a separation, sure, but not as a death. And if a temporary separation is what it is then, well, I think it’s pretty remarkable as both a fakeout and an episode.

But only if that’s what it is. That I’m none too keen on this particular character dying and his death being treated like that aside, and not to be a broken record, but it doesn’t really work as a main character death. At all. As a main character death it’s staggeringly bad, and bad in a unique way that never gets better or less weird as we move through season three.

So even though I’m basically ride or die on the Tech Lives train at this point, Tech isn’t back yet, so I can’t really like “Plan 99.” But I don’t hate it yet, either. It’s sort of floating off in this nether space until I know one way or another for sure what I think of it. And that’s frustrating because I’d like do be able to do one or the other.