321 Nuclear Family

Nuclear Family


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If people in the Jewish communities knew what was being planned, why didn't they try to escape? Why didn't they fight back? I remember seeing a movie, also a true story, I can't remember its name, but it had guy who is the newest James Bond (Daniel something) as the main character. He and his brothers saved entire Jewish communities by having them run from the ghettos and live in the woods, and at the same time create a resistance to fight off Nazis if they should come near. It's obvious that there were people trying to fight back - it just astounds me that so many just laid down and died...

Wow...this just astounds me in its insensitivity. The Jewish people (and others) who were murdered under the Nazi regime during the Holocaust didn't just "lay down and die". Hitler's "Final Solution" (the planned execution of all European Jews) wasn't something that came about at the snap of a finger and wasn't widely publicized. It was part of a well-planned and well-orchestrated attempt at genocide that started with state sponsored racism and then grew worse and worse.

An excerpt from the Holocaust Museum's website that may help to explain some of what was happening:

Under the rule of Adolf Hitler, the persecution and segregation of Jews was implemented in stages. After the Nazi party achieved power in Germany in 1933, its state-sponsored racism led to anti-Jewish legislation, economic boycotts, and the violence of the Kristallnacht("Night of Broken Glass") pogroms, all of which aimed to systematically isolate Jews from society and drive them out of the country.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151

The "Final Solution" wasn't put into play until 1941. By that time the Jews were already in the concentration camps and forced labor camps. Many of them were too weak to even resist at that point. As they were being led to gas chambers, they were being told they were taken to communal showers.

For the most part, most of the world didn't even know about Hitler's "Final Solution" and as the Allied forces advanced, the Germans would try to hide evidence of the death camps.

As the Allied forces liberted the concentration camps and death camps and word of what the Nazis were doing reached the rest of the world, many couldn't believe that it was happening...that someone could hate another so badly as to try to wipe the very existence of a race from the planet...that is how atrocious what was happening was...it defied human nature.
 
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... was something that came about at the snap of a finger and was widely publicized. It was part of a well-planned and well-orchestrated attempt at genocide that started with state sponsored racism and then grew worse and worse.

I think you meant 'wasn't something that came about...'

And yes, people did try to escape. Many did while they could (Albert Einstein was one.) And it wasn't always possible. You may wish to look up the S.S. St. Louis and what happened to to those people that tried but failed to escape.

Basically, Hitler's regime 'boiled the frog.' (Note: I'm not advocating doing this...it's just an illustrative story.) That is, if you put a frog in boiling water to start with, it will attempt to jump out. However, if you start the frog in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, it will not attempt to leave until it's too late. There were many quite reasonable people that could not conceive of what Hitler planned to do. Additionally, it wasn't just the Jewish people who suffered. Gypsy's, the disabled (physically and/or mentally), and pretty much anyone that didn't fit the 'perfect picture' of the Third Reich were systematically destroyed.

I definitely liked the way Sam handled his coming face to face with the woman and the fears that had become a permanent part of her psyche. What the people with those numbers endured was nothing short of pure unadulterated hell. I pray fervently that we never have a group that repeats those evils any where or any time.

As to the Cuban Missile Crisis, I did live through it as a child. I was about 5 years old and I remember both the TV special alerts and how people acted around me. My parents certainly didn't try to scare us but fear has a way of seeping out even when we think we're being bastions of serenity. I remember my brothers and I being much like the children on the show.

And yes...we saw the duck and cover films. Keep in mind that even in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not everyone died even fairly close to ground zero. Many died within hours or days but some survived for years. The duck and cover scenario wouldn't have done much, but it may have helped a few people depending on the actual deployment of a bomb. Additionally, I've been at the Trinity bomb site and I saw how far the people who witnessed the detonation were which wasn't that far relatively speaking (a few miles) and all of them survived and many lived for years although there was a high rate of cancer deaths in the witnesses. There were towns not much further out (e.g. 30 miles) from the bomb that felt some effects but weren't destroyed or even seriously damaged. So, yeah, in the 1960's it was the best that could be done living in that insanity.

Also, there was a Twilight Zone episode that appeared in the 60's much closer to the threat. In it, a physician is having a birthday and all their friends (neighbors) are at the dinner. An alert comes across the air and the show is how all the neighbors react since the physician has a bomb shelter and none of the others do. The story has all sort of realities in it as the veneer of polite society disintegrates. I suggest you compare the two shows and perhaps some of Paul Brown's motivations could be seen. It's not an exact duplicate but some of the concepts are similar.

Oh..and as to the way Sam was treated, keep in mind this. Sam was being their uncle but all of the sudden he's not acting like their uncle always had in the past. Previously, the uncle probably agreed with his brother. Now, in the midst of all the crazyness that was affecting that community, he starts spouting what (as Bluedana pointed out) could be seen as treasonous words. He'd been going to college and many felt that many professors were secretly 'red.' So...his brother throwing his brother out could have been directly related to 'OMG...my brother's becoming one of them...' and as a father, he wants to protect his children from messages that were abysmal to him.

Anyways...that's how I see the show in various context's. Interesting thread.
 
Wow...this just astounds me in its insensitivity.
Sorry, that was a poor choice of words...

The Jewish people (and others) who were murdered under the Nazi regime during the Holocaust didn't just "lay down and die". Hitler's "Final Solution" (the planned execution of all European Jews) wasn't something that came about at the snap of a finger and wasn't widely publicized. It was part of a well-planned and well-orchestrated attempt at genocide that started with state sponsored racism and then grew worse and worse.

An excerpt from the Holocaust Museum's website that may help to explain some of what was happening:

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151

The "Final Solution" wasn't put into play until 1941. By that time the Jews were already in the concentration camps and forced labor camps. Many of them were too weak to even resist at that point. As they were being led to gas chambers, they were being told they were taken to communal showers.

For the most part, most of the world didn't even know about Hitler's "Final Solution" and as the Allied forces advanced, the Germans would try to hide evidence of the death camps.

As the Allied forces liberted the concentration camps and death camps and word of what the Nazis were doing reached the rest of the world, many couldn't believe that it was happening...that someone could hate another so badly as to try to wipe the very existence of a race from the planet...that is how atrocious what was happening was...it defied human nature.

Again, I should have chosen my words more carefully. I knew that the Final Solution was a step in plans that had been taking place for years. It just made me wonder why they allowed the anti-Jewish legislation to be passed which, to use your metaphor, "started the water boiling". And it makes me wonder why there wasn't more of a protest...
 
It just made me wonder why they allowed the anti-Jewish legislation to be passed which, to use your metaphor, "started the water boiling". And it makes me wonder why there wasn't more of a protest...

You must understand that as large of a Jewish population there was in Germany at that time, they weren't the majority. Added to that, that particular population had faced anti-semitism for centuries in a variety of countries (including Germany.) Look up pogram, the Spanish Inquisition, and historical forms of anti-Semitic actions. Add to that the at that point in time, protests were usually soundly trounced (e.g. Occupy Wall Street or 60's type protests would have been summarily ended by the police.) Thus, a combination of 'this too shall pass' and an inability to actually protest meant there were not the type of protests you are seeking in history.

Yes, a lot of people left when this started. However, more got caught up the situation never believing that what eventually happened could ever happen.

If you really want to know the answer to your question, why don't you study more about this time in history from reputable sources. There are many books and other resources out there. A mix of media's provides the fullest picture. The biggest thing to understand, though, is these people did not just act like lemmings and 'allow themselves to be killed."

P.S. Here's a good start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany

2nd P.S.: In regard to the episode, my husband was in his mid-teens during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He says that he felt the portrayal of what was happening during that time was incredibly accurate. You may argue why Paul Brown wrote it the way he did, but from people who actually lived through that specific time, it looks like he did a pretty good job.
 
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I think this episode perfectly encapsulated what Quantum Leap was all about - really capturing a specific era or period in history and showing what it was like to live back then. In fact I'm hard-pressed to think of any other episode that so perfectly portrays a moment in time - maybe Leap Home Part II. So many episodes do a great job of telling stories about specific characters, but the time in history is too often secondary and even sometimes arbitrary.

Of course, to be fair, it would be impossible for this show to pinpoint as many moments in history as significant as the Cuban missile crisis, but this is one of only a handful of episodes that literally could not have taken place at any other time.

The panic at the end, when JFK comes on TV and suddenly the lights go out and the air raid sirens start, is palpable. You can really feel and believe why something like that would go down.
 
I must say that I'm quite embarrassed by my older posts in this thread of all episodes, to the point where I refuse to even look at them.
Several of my posts here are in argument with JuliaM over the interactions between Sam and Mac which I sorely regret.

After watching this episode recently I've become utterly baffled at how it had once annoyed me.
It was a well portrayed take on an important historical event and one reason I may be able to appreciate that now is that I've come to enjoy history.

Despite how Sam preached that nothing would happen what he was probably too young to remember and Al even pointed this out is how that nothing had been excruciatingly close to being something. Which reminds me of Scott's line in his later film Blue Smoke (very good film) "Nearly doesn't count". Perhaps that's the view Sam had taken but he was nine years old at the time and did not live in Florida with a Cuban nuclear missile base in his backyard. So he was unable to understand how real it was for these people.

"Well, how come they're building a nuclear missile base not more
than 200 miles from our backyard?"


When the father says this the son Stevie then gets '200 miles' stuck in his head. A very generous rounding off due to panic, anger and possibly even some denial, literally it was 90 miles south of Florida and launched from that location they would have been able to very quickly reach targets in the eastern US. Unlike the Ellroys I am beginning to feel like the Becketts may not have exposed their children to all that news/information.

Remember, of course we do, the beginning of the season The Leap Home when Sam tried to reveal the future to his family?
We see him now doing that again only this time it was a family of strangers. I liked that. I liked that we got that perspective of the concept.
I'm reminded of episode 3 of the Star Wars prelude trilogy where we are shown quite powerfully through the birth of Darth Vader how future information can literally be destructive.
The words 'It will be ok" are so fragile as demonstrated by the older woman with the Holocaust tattoo.

"It's the words. 'It's going to be ok'. That's what they told us, and look what happened."

That was powerful. My favorite scene hands down.
So Sam pushed, the Ellroys pulled.

A really well done episode.
 
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I wasn't sure whether to give this one only a "fair" score or not. But I analyzed it a bit more and realized that it was nobody's fault. It's one of the very few QL episodes that makes me pretty uncomfortable while watching it and one I always try to stay clear of... but for some reason I can't.

I didn't like any of the characters, of course. From the adults to the kids themselves, everyone was quite annoying in this episode. Those kids had to be the worst actors on the history of television (the little boy was in a Stephen King TV movie from 1991 called "Sometimes They Come Back" and he was terrible there as well). And everyone just kept making bad decisions and guiding themselves through their feelings and not using their heads at all. The only character I cared for was the old lady Sam was trying to sell the shelter to. She was quite compelling and I really felt for her...

But even with all this, it's nobody's fault. Meaning that in this case it's not even the writer, Paul Brown's fault. Normally, I always say that his characters are quite stereotyped and his situations are even worse, but in this case all his situations and his characters, as annoying and uncomfortable as they were, were quite real and believable and made you very concerned, if you were one of the lucky ones to not live through those times and in that country, the U.S.A., about what it was like during such crisis. It's one of the few chapters that almost doesn't have anything funny about it. In fact it only has one funny moment and that's at the beginning, but then everything is so hostile and serious and dark and it keeps getting worse and worse... and then it ends and you can't breathe deeply until he has finally leapt out and you know he won't ever see those people again.

As much as I hate this episode, I have to recognize that this is one of the best ones Paul Brown has ever written. It's just not of my taste. But all the last act, when the real action takes place, is my favorite part. Another thing I dug a lot from this one was that almost always P. Brown has a way of making Sam a bit naive about things, but here that was not the case: He was quite mature, centered and three-dimensional this time, something very rare indeed for a PB ep.

My rating: Average. It probably deserves more but it never leaves me with any good taste at all.
 
Alright my apologies, I'd like to do some revamping of my last post but that damn edit window...I can't even delete it now!

I must say that I'm quite embarrassed by my older posts in this thread of all episodes, to the point where I refuse to even look at them.
Several of my posts here are in argument with JuliaM over the interactions between Sam and Mac which I sorely regret.

After watching this episode recently, it's come to my understanding that while it may come across as annoying for some there is no flaw in that as it was a well written and believable take on an important historical event. One reason I may be able to appreciate that now is that I've come to enjoy history.

Despite how Sam preached that nothing would happen what he was probably too young to remember and Al even pointed this out is how that 'nothing' had been excruciatingly close to being 'something'. Which reminds me of Scott's line in his later film Blue Smoke (very good film) "Nearly doesn't count". Perhaps that's the view Sam had taken and originally I'd thought the Ellroys cruel for subjecting their children to living in fear of dying but I was just as ignorant as I now see Sam as and now have a much stronger grasp on my own raw honesty than when I was younger. So can now appreciate the Ellroys for that.

Sam was nine years old at this time and did not live in Florida with a Cuban nuclear missile base in his backyard. So he was unable to understand how real it was for these people.

"Well, how come they're building a nuclear missile base not more
than 200 miles from our backyard?"


When the father says this the son then gets '200 miles' stuck in his head but that was a very generous rounding off due to panic, anger and possibly even some denial. Literally it was 90 miles south of Florida and launched from that location those missiles would have been able to very quickly reach targets in the eastern US. Unlike the Ellroys I am beginning to feel like the Becketts may not have exposed their children to all that news/information.

Remember, of course we do, the beginning of the season 'The Leap Home' when Sam tried to reveal the future to his family? I like that we are seeing that again now but with a family of strangers. That made for a very intriguing perspective of the concept.

I'm reminded of episode 3 of the Star Wars prelude trilogy where we are shown quite powerfully through the birth of Darth Vader how knowing future information (sometimes without knowing the larger picture) can literally be destructive.

It is demonstrated well how words can be so meaningless with the older woman interested in buying a shelter. She was by far the most well written and compelling character in the episode.


"It's the words. 'It's going to be ok'. That's what they told us, and look what happened."


If anything in this episode can be considered annoying it should be Sam's insensitivity to the point of view of the Ellroys. He pushed, the Ellroys rightfully pulled.

I'll admit one thing that still annoyed me about the Ellroys was the little girl accusing Sam of calling the father a liar but now that stands out as likely being just because I have a tendency to be annoyed by the non-sensical upsets of little kids in general. When my younger cousin was that age her upsets would get identical reactions from me, a lot of the times even aloud (like I said, I have a raw honesty but have only in the past few years been learning to refrain from responding at all if it wouldn't be considered appropriate). So I don't hold that against the show.

So overall I've come to see this as being a good episode.
 
One of my very favourite episodes from season 3 and the series as a whole. In fact, this one just makes my top 20.

I think the best thing about Nuclear Family is that it really captures a moment in history. A lot of episodes of Quantum Leap aren't really about the time or moment they're set in, but more about a story that's been told. Episodes like this one really hit home the time travelling aspect of the show. As a 25 year old Englishman, I have no real connection to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I have no stories from family members about just how scary it was to go through. So I really appreciate how this episode is constructed, because it really feels tense at times. Even though the story never really leaves the house, we still get the feeling that the world really is on the brink of a disaster like no other.

The character of Mac is an interesting one. His love for his family and determination to protect them are admirable, but I still get the feeling that he's basically profiteering from people's fears to sell his shelters. I really like the two kids as well. In fact, all the characters are good/interesting in this episode. Even though she only had a small part, I really liked the old woman. Her scene with Sam in the shelter is probably my favourite moment.

The whole ending really gives off an end of the world type feeling. I can only imagine how people must have felt in a moment like that, so it's good to see it on screen in this episode. The twist with Stevie being the one to shoot Burt is a good one, too.

My rating. Excellent. A really good, atmospheric episode.