FWIW, the idea that I used for Becker's apparent lack of grief for the loss of his squaddies compared to losing civilians is that civilians don't go into those situations prepared to die in service. It's a tragedy when a cop, soldier, firefighter, etc. dies in the line of duty, but that's a risk they took on voluntarily. Much different when someone whom you're charged.with protecting dies. (Hence all the juicy Becker angst on this I've written.)
As for the rest ... I think the lack of proper squaddies is less a matter of narrative conceit re: main characters and more a matter of budget. Extras are expensive, and you could argue that maybe Philip kept a tight rein on those costs, too. By sending in an initial science-trained recon team to assess the situation, you're saving the costs of hourly pay for backup you may not need if you're just locking an anomaly, and not dealing with an incursion. And since the science team have the better knowledge of creature behavior and tracking than sme random uniform, it makes more sense to send them first, except in the case of very large anomalies through which large creatures might come (see 5x01.)
As for the sparse staff in 5x04, my headcanon explanation for that is a combo of cleanup from a previous call and the lockdown.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-07-20 06:04 pm (UTC)As for the rest ... I think the lack of proper squaddies is less a matter of narrative conceit re: main characters and more a matter of budget. Extras are expensive, and you could argue that maybe Philip kept a tight rein on those costs, too. By sending in an initial science-trained recon team to assess the situation, you're saving the costs of hourly pay for backup you may not need if you're just locking an anomaly, and not dealing with an incursion. And since the science team have the better knowledge of creature behavior and tracking than sme random uniform, it makes more sense to send them first, except in the case of very large anomalies through which large creatures might come (see 5x01.)
As for the sparse staff in 5x04, my headcanon explanation for that is a combo of cleanup from a previous call and the lockdown.