Other Characters on
"The Pretender"

This is Sydney, (Patrick Bauchau) one of a set of twins (his brother's name was Jacob). He came to The Centre as a young idealist with high hopes and a lot of enthusiasm. He mentored Jarod in The Pretender Project for over 30 years. When the focus of The Centre's projects turned from benevolent to malevolent, however, it was too late for Sydney to just walk away. He's found himself trapped by fear and guilt, and remains at The Centre, in part, to use his position there to protect Jarod from those in The Centre bent on harming him. Mr. Raines [see Mr. Raines] has warned Sydney that the only reason why Sydney hasn't been disposed of yet is because of his close emotional umbilical with Jarod... and the longer Jarod is away from The Centre, the thinner the tie between them becomes. When it's gone, The Centre will have no use for Sydney at all; and, considering what he now knows, may even come to think of him as a threat.

We learned in the second season that Sydney and his twin brother, Jacob, were the only remaining members of their family. The rest of the family was killed by the Nazis when Jacob and Sydney were children. The boys were kidnapped by Dr. Werner Krieg, isolated in a concentration camp, and subjected to eugenics experiments. (It is only recently that Sydney has come to realize that what the Nazi did to him was not so dissimilar to what The Centre did to Jarod and his family.) Because Sydney and Jacob were twins, Krieg was using them to try to seek out the "twin gene", so he could then breed sets of twins designed after Hitler's notion of a "master race".

In the "Indy Show" episode of The Pretender, viewers also learned that it was Sydney who had attempted to kill Mr. Raines in Boston (first season), but succeeded only in hitting his oxygen tank (which exploded and engulfed Raines in flames.) This was in contrast to Sydney's personality as it was suggested to viewers earlier in the first season: he had exclaimed on other occasions that he abhorred violence and didn't like guns. Before the shooting incident, however, Sydney had divulged to his psychiatrist that he was nearing the end of his rope with regards to Raines, and even showed the psychiatrist the gun he had purchased in a moment of murderous anger against Raines. Viewers were left to suppose that Sydney had shot at Raines in Boston in an desperate attempt to save Jarod (whom Raines was trying to shoot in the back at the moment his oxygen tank was struck).

Having been thrust together for over thirty years, Sydney formed what is thought of by some viewers as an "unhealthy" or "unnatural" father-son relationship with Jarod. Some have noted, too, that Jarod, as a child, behaved too often in a "parentified" fashion. As was noted before (see Jarod), Jarod was often seen providing solace and support for Sydney; he was also, quite frankly, Syndey's meal-ticket for 30 years.

Unlike Sydney, Jarod was often seen taking responsibility for what was going on around him when all of the adults refused to acknowledge any responsibility themselves. When Jarod realized, for example, that his Simulations were being used for nefarious purposes, he immediately removed himself from The Centre rather than allow the Simulations to continue. This is something, many fans have said, Sydney himself should have done decades earlier.

How ever forced their relationship might have been, and how ever "odd" Jarod's behavior and "fixations" might appear at times, Jarod obviously got SOMETHING good out of his time with Sydney Jarod seems to have learned a sense of morality and decency, for example, and treats most other people with deference and respect. He also seems to have a healthy ego and a fair amount of self-esteem. These qualities would have been lost (as they were to agreat extent in Kyle) had Jarod not received some sort of nurturing support as a child.

Some fans find Sydney a sad character worthy of sympathy and compassion, others think of him as inexcusably cowardly. He surely has the knowledge and evidence to expose The Centre's history and stop its current exploitation of children if he wants to, but, instead, he seems to have adopted a "wait and see" attitude... in part because he fears what might happen if he DOES expose The Centre. (Jarod, too, of course, could go on television talk shows and tell the world what happened to him, but chooses to use his skills to thwart The Centre in a less public more privately satisfying way.) Some fans can't forgive Sydney for the fact that he allowed the exploitation of Jarod to continue for so long. Yes, fear might have kept him from rescuing Jarod himself, but is "fear" really a reason for non-action or just an excuse to soothe a guilty conscience? Catherine Parker risked her life in an attempt to save Jarod... some fans want to see Sydney do the same thing. And actually he DID and DOES every time he interferes with a Centre assault on Jarod. It was Sydney, afterall, who stepped out onto a busy street and put his own body between a Centre sedan and a taxi cab that was carrying Jarod's family in an attempt to give Jarod's family time to escape.

Nevertheless, Syndey's initial claims that he was "just following orders" or that he "didn't know" what was really going on around him at The Centre, just didn't hack it with some fans. They were and are unwilling to allow him a refusal to accept responsibility for his own actions or to claim ignorance as an excuse for his behavior. Other fans seem more forgiving, and stress that Sydney has since acknowledged that he "will be judged" for his past actions, and that he's trying to make amends now by protecting and helping Jarod as much as he's able.

The convoluted relationship between Sydney and Jarod is one of the most intriguing and thought-provoking character studies in the show.

An extra aspect to Sydney was added in the "Bulletproof" episode, wherein viewers discovered that Syndey's lost-love was still alive... and that Sydney had a grown son, Nick, whom he never knew existed. We weren't told much about Nick except that he was a bright and exceptional young man who was a teacher. Sydney's lover, Michelle, had been a co-worker of Sydney's at The Centre when they were younger. On the day Michelle found out she was pregnant with Nick, she rushed back to The Centre to tell Sydney, but was confronted instead by a man she had never seen before. This man threatened to have Sydney killed (in an "accident") if Michelle refused to leave The Centre with her as yet unborn child. The man told her he didn't want Sydney distracted from the Pretender Project (or from Jarod, we're to assume) by a new wife and family of his own, and told Michelle that if she agreed to leave, Sydney would be safe, and Michelle's child would receive a hefty amount of money in a trust fund. Reluctantly, Michelle agreed to leave. When Sydneycame to work the next day, he found Michelle's office empty, all of her project reassigned to other people, and no trace of her of her at her home. She had vanished. He didn'tknow what happened to her, or that Nick was his son until 1998, when Jarod sent Sydney a copy of Nick's birth certificate.

Realizing that The Centre had deprived him of a whole facet of his life (a wife and child), Sydney threatened to leave, and even started packing up his belongings. He was stopped by Broots and Miss Parker who encouraged him to stay -- if only to find out who the "the man" was who had frightened Michelle into compliance.

Sydney seemed all right for a time, then went into emotional "overload" during the "Bloodlines" episode. While attempting to thwart The Centre's re-introduction of the PRODIGY project, he set off a bomb in Sub-Level 27. Unfortunately, Sydney, Jarod and other Centre operatives were in that sub-level when the bomb went off. Although everyone but the Cleaner, Gar, seemed to survive the explosion, Sydney was left blinded by the blast. Lucky for him, it was only a temporary condition.

For more information on Patrick Bauchau,
see The Unofficial Patrick Bauchau Site at Geocities.

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