The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

[Masuri]

how does that work? leaving the guy alive seems to have drastically upped the "tanks and stuff" in the near future for the T-888...

Or... Agent Ellison takes the blame for the massacre and our boy Cromartie gets off scott free.

"I didn't murder them, it was the cyborg!" Sure, Ellison, it was the cyborg. Right.

[mosc]

they're going to suspect a guy with a handgun and a vest of taking out a fully armed swat team?!?

[Neuman]

No no, it's going to be terrorists. Everybody is simply going to think Agent Ellison lost his mind.

[Yakk]

One person, no physical evidence, no recording devices == zip chance of exposure.

[Dobblesworth]

I apologise for the slight necromancy here, but having watched Termie Chronicles finale last night (having had it recorded on my digital TV hard drive for about a month), I feel like offering my thoughts.

Cameron + Jeep + Sarkosian
Consider how they wrecked previous terminators. You either need to:
a) Get the body/endoskeleton in to cinderblock furnace, add thermite and ignition (T:TSCC)
b) Descend it into a pit of molten steel (T2)
c) Crush it under a 5-tonne doorway while detonating their nuclear fusion core in its mouth (T3)
Summer/River/Cameron has only been hit by a close-range car/petrol-tank explosion. If we consider that her model is a bit more structurally resilient than the Arnie T-800, I think she has a fighting chance of survival.
Also, if her character was dead, why would Summer Glau order blog readers to check out the 2nd series?
As mentioned, she's too popular to kill off by just a malicious, possibly Slavic, businessman.

Grandfather Paradox, or what could have been one
The scene with Derek, Derek, Kyle and John in the park cracked me up. So elegantly surreal. Do you think Derek knew from his memory that on this date he would be out with his brother playing baseball, and planned the visit to that exact park. It's a very interesting coincidence for them to be sitting on a park bench directly facing his younger self/his father respectively. What would have made it a classic (alternate) ending, which I hope they do, would be...
John picks up the ball rolling towards him, looks down at who he will learn is his father
John smiles at Kyle and tosses the ball to Y. Derek
The ball is tossed too hard, whacks Y. Derek on the head, knocking him into concussion, or possibly a more hilarious calamity
As a result, Derek is left in a poorer state at the time of Judgement Day, and cannot protect his brother, resulting in their eventual collective demises at the hands of Skynet
This change in the timeline happens as an instantaneous blip, so O. Derek and John vanish out of existence

The Four Horsemen
I thought this section to be so surreal. You got 10+ armed SWAT members raiding Cromartie's pad, while a country 'n' western song about the Apocalypse is playing over the top. The camera shot from the pool looked very effective, though the flung SWAT team members landing in the water seemed more like co-ordinated synchronised swimmers than actual troopers being flung from a balcony by 2 tonnes of Titanium (or whatever they're made off) killing machine.
Cromartie's actions are indeed, questionable. This is someone who he's identified as a permanent threat to his work in 2007 Los Angeles, who's ordered an assault on his bastion, and he's going to casually walk away just because he's reloading and giving himself the last rites while staring down a 9mm? Intriguing. I'm almost going to suggest his infiltration-spec humanity is kicking in a little too hard, and he's letting him live out of kindness. Or it could be a show of strength:
"So Mr. FBI Agent. I just took out your entire army. You now know what I am, and I know you know you won't be able to stop me. You are not my mission objective. Let me past and let me finish off the Connors. Good day."

As side-notes related to the above, 2 things that have bugged me about the series are:
a) "Now as the episode draws to a close, the initial female protagonist will do a lamenting voiceover on topics such as family, humanity, mankind, the machines, philosophy and, wait for it, wait for it.... LORD OF THE FLIES" The final one made me want to stab her. This is not "weeping for the darkness of men's hearts", this is crying tears of anger and sadness that some unstoppable machine took out 10 of your best men (and woman), leaving them to redden up a suburban swimming pool
b) James "Ah, I see you're a man of faith" Ellison. I respect the view that in times of hardship, sorrow and anxiety, people turn to the divine for guidance, aid and assistance. I don't appreciate you making a deal over a paramedic having a Bible on his bookshelf. Yes machines are out to destroy your country, but no, you cannot use the Book of Revelations and quotes about the Horsemen as your weapon of divine judgement against the b******s.

But on the whole, taking into account a half-hashed finale as a result of Writers' Strike, Terminator Chronicles kicked ass, and I eagerly await Series 2.

tl;dr: That was one kick ass-episode.

[mosc]

is there really going to BE a season two? I agree the last episode was one of the best

[Dobblesworth]

I believe Fox have commissioned a second series, and the production team have commented that at least three would be on the cards for the total storyline^{[citation pending]}. Series 2 may even be in production already. It's proved popular with viewers and the networks, and the story was left unfinished due to the writer's strike, so I can't see why they would abandon it. However, there are parallels to be drawn with Firefly.
*touches wood*

[Ati]

I've been keeping up with this online, and I've been enjoying it tremendously (and not just because of Summer Glau). Yes, I was a little disappointed by the shaky characterization in a few of the episodes, and a few breaches of cannon, but overall it's quite good. I'm even willing to give it a pass on it's portrayal of time travel, since the only piece of film I've seen to portray time travel in any way plausibly was Primer, and that was a full-blown mindfuck, which I don't think a mainstream TV show could afford to do to it's audience every weeks.

As far as the long-term plot goes, I heard an interesting hypothesis about the Derek Reese / Cameron dynamic. The music Cameron is dancing too at the end of that one episode is the same music that was coming out of the torture room in the basement in Reese's flash-forwards. The hypothesis goes as follows: Cameron was built by Skynet to try to understand human emotions and art. She performed experiments on captured humans involving music to try to get a better grasp. At some point, she figured it out and defected to the human side, who erased her memories and re-programmed her. This explains Derek Reese's knowledge that she's a machine (he shouted 'metal' immediately upon seeing her), as well as his hatred for her. It also explains why she did ballet, and why she seems to be 'different' than all the other models. I really, really hope this hypothesis is accurate, because that'd be bloody awesome.

[btarlinian]

...I really, really hope this hypothesis is accurate, because that'd be bloody awesome.

There's tons of awesome stuff they could do with this show, specifically Cameron.
What were the supposed breaches of canon (discounting T3 though, which IMO is far worse than the TV show)?

As for time travel, that's never really been Terminators' strong suit, considering how paradoxical the first movie was all by itself.

[Princess Marzipan]

As for time travel, that's never really been Terminators' strong suit, considering how paradoxical the first movie was all by itself.

Every instance of time travel rewrites the future timeline. That's why Judgment Day is now in 2011 instead of 1999. Also, the current John Connor is likely not genetically the same individual who originally led the human resistance in the first "untainted" timeline.

[Neuman]

I envision the Terminator series as having a timeplane rather then a timeline. It makes significantly more sense.

[DragonHawk]

Every instance of time travel rewrites the future timeline. That's why Judgment Day is now in 2011 instead of 1999. Also, the current John Connor is likely not genetically the same individual who originally led the human resistance in the first "untainted" timeline.

Riiight.

"Just think to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'" -- MST3K

[Princess Marzipan]

"Just think to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'" -- MST3K

If you disagree, you disagree, but until it's specified one way or the other, that's how I wish the installments to intertwine. Every story has it blank spots that we have to fill in on our own.

I could just not give a shit one way or the other, but if I didn't, I wouldn't be watching the show since I wouldn't give a shit.

[Yakk]

Every instance of time travel rewrites the future timeline. That's why Judgment Day is now in 2011 instead of 1999. Also, the current John Connor is likely not genetically the same individual who originally led the human resistance in the first "untainted" timeline.

Riiight.

"Just think to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'" -- MST3K

The claim "the time travel doesn't make sense" can be refuted with any model of the time travel that makes sense.

The model of the time travel that makes sense doesn't even have to be the right one -- so long as such a "makes sense" model exists, the claim that the time travel model makes no sense is wrong.

The idea that each time travel event rewrites history (possibly the effect happens at a "specific velocity" -- ie, if you travel back 10 years, your reality is destroyed after 10 years/K time) is a reasonable model of time travel that makes things work. In a single-time-stream model, it does lead to the "any ability to time travel, that is not locked down, retroactively destroys the ability to time travel, or reality itself" from feedback loops.

Which leads me to believe that Skynet is on the side of the angels, and it attempting to destroy the possibility that human civilization will have control over time travel in order to prevent the retroactive destruction of reality and/or technological civilization via time-travel loops.

(Now, that was wild-ass guessing!)

[Princess Marzipan]

(Now, that was wild ass-guessing!)

fix'd

And yes. Yes it was. =P

[DragonHawk]

"Just think to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'" -- MST3K

If you disagree, you disagree, but until it's specified one way or the other...

It's not that I disagree. It's that, dollars to donuts, it won't ever be specified at all. We're talking about a TV show -- a work of fiction, a fantasy. Things don't have to have a reason or justification, and indeed, usually don't. It's highly unlikely the writers have put that level of thought into things. They're generally going to do things because (1) they advance the plot in some way and/or (2) they're cool. Anything reasoning/theory you apply to this kind of thing is based on fundamentally flawed premise. It's like trying to do math with an expression containing NaN, or compare a value for equality with SQL NULL. It's not right, wrong, true, false, up, down, zero, 1, 2, 13, 42, or anything else -- it's simply an invalid operation.

You want to engage in building your own fantasy, go right ahead. You've got every right to. Just as I have every right to point out that we're talking about a TV show.

[Princess Marzipan]

By that logic, discussing any piece of literature ever is also futile.

[Yakk]

One apt description of Speculative Fiction/Science Fiction/SciFi is "a kind of Fiction where the Fiction attempts to model a reality, and that model is center-stage rather than background".

Such a description grasps the alternative history, hard fantasy, dimension travel, space opera, near-future "recent Gibson" style SciFi, etc etc.

If that is a common characteristic of at least a sub-genre of SF, then determining if a given bit of SF contains that property does matter in how that material should be viewed. Note that the SF piece does not have to communicate the details of the model explicitly (this is a habit of some kinds of such SF, but it is often looked upon as crude), all that matters is that there is a model.

We even have HG2TG, which is (among other things) a parody of such an approach -- it tosses off such models all over the place. The "narrative voice" gives a neigh-omniscient explanation for the seemingly inexplicable events that happen to Arthur Dent and company -- but note that this model of the "reality" of the fiction is at the core of the fiction, even if in this case it is a form of parody.

There are kinds of SF-like media that contain much of the trappings, but skip the "model" having central stage.

For whatever reason, these models are reasonably popular in the consumers of SF.

So the question of "is there a consistent model" is not merely of academic interest -- it can also determine how much one enjoys a given bit of entertainment. Others who don't care about that model will instead see a disassociated bunch of button-pushing emotional events -- and that is perfectly fine.

[Princess Marzipan]

*bump* to remind that the season premiere is tonight at 8.

[mosc]

*bump* to remind that the season premiere is tonight at 8.

You fucking rock, I totally would have missed it.

[Neuman]

Finally. I've been looking forward to this for months.

[Ati]

Well that was an interesting episode.

Spoiler:

I'm wondering how the physical damage to Cameron's chip is going to factor into her character development. From the bit they showed afterwards, it looks like it makes her more emotional and/or unstable, which may make things interesting. Also, yay for the T-1000 goodness! Also, I'm glad John finally lost that stupid hair cut. Now maybe he can be a respectable badass. Maybe. In other news, did anyone else notice how fast the Terminators healed? I was wondering about that, but now it seems to be official cannon: Terminators regenerate tissue damage far faster than humans.

[Neuman]

Totally worth the wait. I liked the part where the thing happened.

[Yakk]

Totally worth the wait. I liked the part where the thing happened.

Naw, that part had issues. But the other part -- that was cool.

[btarlinian]

Totally worth the wait. I liked the part where the thing happened.

I'm not sure if you're trying to be clever, but having watched the episode I'm not sure what "thing" you're referring to. (A spoilered reference perhaps?)

[DarkKnightJared]

I liked the latest episode, especially the scene with

Spoiler:

John deciding whether to pull Cameron's chip out while she begs him not to.

Intense as HELL.

I found most of the stuff, with the exception of the main three characters to be confusing as hell, but I did fall off the wagon of watching the show after, like, the forth or fifth episode, so that's on me.

[Nath]

I liked it. Nice and tense, like the second movie.

Spoiler:

Loved the T-1000 scene; didn't see it coming. I mean, I knew that something was coming -- Hollywood never lets anyone pee -- but didn't expect it to be a T-1000.

My one complaint, though, is that the terminators seem too human. The Judgement Day T-1000 was scary because it didn't feel or want anything. It just intended to kill you, and that was that. This T-1000 wasn't like that, what with its mutual dislikes and everything.

[Princess Marzipan]

Can we stop spoilertagging stuff in specific TV show threads? I mean, we know the show is on Fox Mondays at 8pm Eastern / 7pm Central, and debuts at http://www.hulu.com the next night, brought you by Toyota, built like a Ford tough rock. I'm gonna start not spoilering stuff, especially since the thread title has warned of it almost since its inception.

Anyhoo, I'll spare anyone too curious in this post. =P

Spoiler:

John deciding whether to pull Cameron's chip out while she begs him not to.

That scene was seriously fantastic. My gripe is with how quickly that was resolved, though. I feel it would have been better had that plot line spanned a few more episodes or even seasons, although that's not a feasible way to keep Ms Glau involved. Still, resolving next episode would have been less compact, I think, and allowed for a better resolution that just "John really believes in her." Like, John actually tested the physical integrity of her chip or something, and could say with actual conviction that she was fixed.

[Neuman]

I then, shall not spoiler my discussion. Especially as the title warns of spoilers.

I felt that Cameron begging John not to pull her chip out was just the tad bit Narmy, but only a little. And that was the only part of the episode that I didn't like.

[Yakk]

Can we stop spoilertagging stuff in specific TV show threads? I mean, we know the show is on Fox Mondays at 8pm Eastern / 7pm Central, and debuts at http://www.hulu.com the next night, brought you by Toyota, built like a Ford tough rock. I'm gonna start not spoilering stuff, especially since the thread title has warned of it almost since its inception.

All of which doesn't work for non-Americans, unless they get Fox.

Spoiler:

John deciding whether to pull Cameron's chip out while she begs him not to.

That scene was seriously fantastic. My gripe is with how quickly that was resolved, though. I feel it would have been better had that plot line spanned a few more episodes or even seasons, although that's not a feasible way to keep Ms Glau involved. Still, resolving next episode would have been less compact, I think, and allowed for a better resolution that just "John really believes in her." Like, John actually tested the physical integrity of her chip or something, and could say with actual conviction that she was fixed.

Didn't he pocket a spare chip at one point?

[Neuman]

Cameron pocketed a chip she was supposed to destroy and hid it in her room, which was then found by Derek, forming the premise of another episode. Actually, I don't think anyone bothered to get it out before the house blew, so it might have been destroyed. Maybe.

[MotorToad]

I liked it. Nice and tense, like the second movie.

Spoiler:

Loved the T-1000 scene; didn't see it coming. I mean, I knew that something was coming -- Hollywood never lets anyone pee -- but didn't expect it to be a T-1000.

My one complaint, though, is that the terminators seem too human. The Judgement Day T-1000 was scary because it didn't feel or want anything. It just intended to kill you, and that was that. This T-1000 wasn't like that, what with its mutual dislikes and everything.

Spoiler:

The T-1000 kinda surprised me, too. It seems like they could have made a liquid-metal robot look a lot better than that.

Also, the showing emotion thing is bugging me. There's just too much of it.

[no-genius]

Could this hurry up and get over here sharp-ish? Virgin 1, what the fuck?

[Princess Marzipan]

Tonight's episode is fantastic.

Well, except for the damn side character Cameron's running around with. Bores me.

But the meat of this one is pretty good...

[Ati]

Hmmm, interesting. This episode really elaborates on how the Terminators infiltrated.


As I understand it, the timeline was as follows: Allison was captured in a raid, interrogated, and once a sufficient level of detail was known about her, a replica (Cameron) was built. The replica was programmed with all of the information from Alison's interrogations, and sent to infiltrate John Connor's hideout. Presumably, it was then captured and reprogrammed. Interesting.

[stolid]

Yeah this episode was spooky yet exciting.

[Neuman]

I wonder if what's happening to Cameron is normal, or a result of the chip damage. If this kind of thing is a normal aspect of AI in this universe, then that might explain why SkyNet hasn't won yet.

[Ati]

I wonder if what's happening to Cameron is normal, or a result of the chip damage. If this kind of thing is a normal aspect of AI in this universe, then that might explain why SkyNet hasn't won yet.

Presumably, her higher functions are damaged, making her unstable. When some particular event caused a system crash, she lost most of her memories, and she was left with only the 'memories' from the interrogation, which she began to extrapolate an identity around. As the episode wears on, you can see more of Cameron's identity coming back, as she progresses from scared teenager back to killing machine at the end. What really intrigues me is that she seemed to be showing emotion when she thought she was Allison, and since her memories were lost, she'd have no reason to fake it. Fascinating.

[Masuri]

Okay, I am loving this show this season. I think that's why it's destined to be cancelled due to low ratings. The instant I really enjoy a show, it gets the axe. Damnit.

Last season, I did not buy Thomas Dekker as John Connor even a little bit. I dunno if the kid got some acting classes or the writers figured out we don't need to see emo John anymore, but he really works for me. I believe it. I'm loving messed-up Cameron, too. Dysfunctional Terminator, oi. Allison of Palmdale has been my favorite episode so far.

[mosc]

Look, the episode that aired on the 6th was incredible. By far the best of the series. I can't say enough good stuff about it.

IT WAS FIREFLY AWESOME

Now, I wouldn't say anything like that for the previous episodes but this one was spectacular. Hell, they could have used the plotline of this one in place of that stupid terminator 3 movie and it would have been amazing.

"He died for you. We ALL die for you"
wow, just wow.

The forshadowing was so deep, it put most movie dramas to shame. The running, the wizard of oz parallels, the tragic hero, amazing.

The scene where Reese calls out the kid for wanting to kill people is so thought out. Reese fights robots bent on the extermination of the human race. Killing another human is essentially fighting on THEIR side to him. That clear distinction, that badass killer who doesn't kill played so friggin well.

Go watch this episode, it will blow your mind.