Sarah Connor Chronicles - Week 8 of 152

First of all: WOOT! to 20 RSS subscribers. Welcome. If you let me know why you subscribed, I can do more of that in the future. Also, how many of you found me through Google? I get 300 hits a day from people searching “Smallville” and “Sarah Connor Chronicles,” and “Lost Jacob.” Sometimes I find blogs through the same method so I’m just curious, is all.

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Spoilers below for the entire Sarah Connor Chronicles first season.

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So! Who would have thought that the Sarah Connor Chronicles would be so good? I didn’t expect much, honestly. I hoped for a lot, but expected it to end up like Bionic Woman. And it kind of did, at first. It sagged in the middle, until the introduction of Derek Reese (Brian Austin Greene), whose character really got the show going. But it wasn’t just him — toward the end of this season, Sarah seemed more like Sarah Connor (the ass kicking waitress), Cameron had layers added to her robotic-ness, and you actually saw seeds of leadership in John Connor.

He’s obviously not ready to lead a worldwide human resistance, but you see that maybe one day, he could, and that’s what so brilliant. I’m not even sure how to describe it. Just the little things–like his hand shaking in that one episode, and his interaction with Derek. If a 30 year old guy time traveled back to when I was 16 and started telling me all these stories, I’d be very intimidated. But John just rolls with it, and stays true to himself. John, as portrayed in the first three movies, is a fairly stubborn, weak character who wants nothing to do with his destiny. This John, though, is actually growing up to be the man he’s destined to become. At the end of T3, in other words, I was not convinced anybody would listen to the whiny guy buried in Cheyenne Mountain, just because he mumbled “I’m in charge.” If this John ends up in Cheyenne Mountain, though, I’m falling in line behind him.

If you’ve read my Sarah Connor blogs up to this point, you know I want something sexual to happen between John and Cameron. And it looks like it might. That scene from the finale where they remove her chip is so… sensual(?). She’s laying on the bed as he moves over her, practically trembling and asking “is this okay?” Then, at the end of the ordeal when they reactivate her, he’s brushing the side of her face. I get that she’s a robot, but… if it acts human, smells human, and potentially understands being human (dancing?), whose to say she can’t love like a human? In fact, I think she already does love the John from the future, but because she’s a robot, she’s so good at hiding it.

For some reason, people around the blogosphere (first time I’ve used that word, BTW) get all creeped out at the idea of a relationship between Cameron and John. Those same people, however, have no problem with Balter and Six, Helo and Boomer, etc. They are robots, too. They just look and act more human, is all.

I do have a (very, very minor) gripe with that chip extraction scene, though. It’s a bit dorky, so bear with me. The chip that all Terminators have in their temple is the “Neural Net Processor,” correct? Essentially, it’s a computer processor. It processes the data flowing through the rest of the circuitry. Processors don’t store any information, so you couldn’t boot something from a processor any more than you can take my dual core processor out of my desktop PC and try to retrieve my personal files from it. It doesn’t have anything on it, it’s just a conduit.

So, booting up Cameron from her chip alone and letting her get into the traffic light program was a bit of a stretch.

I also couldn’t help but feel bad for her. She’s a robot, after all, built by Skynet (as far as we know), and here she was being forced to do something that delivers a crushing blow to the development of Skynet. It’s totally justified in terms of the story, but I kind of felt bad for her in a way.

It had a bit of an eerie pay off at the end, though, when John asked her, “how was it?” (while laying next to her on the bed, no less, after stroking her face). She said, “I saw everything.” I think she got a taste of what it’s like to be Skynet, and I’m thinking that the endgame of the series could be Cameron’s evolution into Skynet, but this time one at peace with humanity.

Bear McCreary really did it again with the music in this show, just as he does with Battlestar Galactica. On his blog he describes the theme each character has, and how much thought goes into each one. I tried imagining what the show would be like with no music, and I did the same for Battlestar, and it would definately not connect as much. I think his Irish influenced “bagpipe” sound (which is as best I can describe it, having no musical background) resonates with the human spirit more than anything else (or perhaps just differently, since it’s so unusual, which is good enough). He also finally gives a way to describe the menacing industrial pounds I’ve been trying to describe in the theme so far: the breath of a dying robot. That music that plays whenever a Terminator turns a corner in slo-mo with guns blazing? Booowoowwwwmmm….. bowwwm…….. bowwwwwwwmm………. the death tones? Dying robot breath makes good sense to me.

And speaking of dying robots… Cromartie just won’t die. Which is good. The situation we’re currently in reminds me of Star Trek (bear with me). In Star Trek: The Next Generation, we were introduced to the Borg, who quickly became Star Trek’s most feared and creepy villians. They were mysterious, and terrifying, and posed a REAL threat. A Borg sighting was nothing to take lightly. If you saw the Borg, there was a good chance that, unless you knew Captain Picard, you were going to die. Then along came Star Trek: Voyager, who featured the Borg every week. At first, they were just as scary and menacing, but after a while they lost their threat. Voyager would just find a way to destroy the Borg cube from week to week, until a Borg sighting was just no big deal.

I’m glad the Sarah Connor Chronicles didn’t turn a Terminator sighting into an everyday nuisance rather than the promise of death, like Voyager did with the Borg. In the words of Kyle Reese from T1: “It cannot be bargained with. It cannot be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop until you are dead.” I think that’s important to remember. A Terminator is not a robot dressed like a human for kicks. It is a machine whose sole purpose of existance is the termination of your life. That’s it’s programming: to kill you.

So when Agent Ellison’s FBI squad swarmed Cromartie’s hang out and tried to take him down, I am glad they all died. I was expecting them to be successful and kill him, but no, he killed each and every one of the FBI agents, because that’s what it does.

And I had no idea how much I actually liked Agent Ellison until he had that gun pointed at his chest. I have a wee lump in the back of my throat right now thinking about his reaction, after he realizes he’s the only one standing, and the Terminator is standing right in front of him. It goes all slow-mo, and the Terminator raises his gun, and Ellison doesn’t blink, he just looks at the gun, looks at the Terminator, and closes his eyes to accept his fate. I was surprised at how upset I got to see him killed… all this time I thought I didn’t really like him, but I realized all he wants to do is find the truth, and it would be a shame for him to get killed in the moment he finally found what he was looking for.

But, he wasn’t killed. The Terminator Cromartie lowered his weapon, and walked off.

There is lots of speculation about what that possibly means. Did Cromartie have a change of heart? Did he suddenly find Agent Ellison to no longer be a threat worth killing? My answer to both of those is NO. Because that’s it’s programming: to kill. It doesn’t matter if he’s a threat or not… it does not value human life. Killing a squad of FBI agents is nothing to blink at to the Terminator, and Ellison is one of them, so all it would have taken was one bullet to end a (in it’s eyes) inconsequential human life.

But he didn’t. Which means only one thing: as Cromartie looked at Ellison, the words “Do Not Terminate” flashed before him. Why’s this? Can only be one reason: Agent Ellison will be instrumental in the creation of Skynet.

We don’t know how, but he’s got a hand, just like Miles Dyson did in T2.

And RISKS! Remember my post about the show not taking RISKS? Consider that complaint gone. John Connor finally met his father. After all these years, he came face to face with little Kyle Reese of the present, the little boy who’d grow up and years later, after the machines took over, John would send back in time to protect his mother and become his own father.

TOUCHING SHIT. Derek Reese may be an ass, but damn if he’s not BADass. I love that guy.

And so we’re left to wait until Season Two (I really, really hope there is one) to find out the fate of Cameron. We all know she didn’t die in the car bomb, but it’ll be interesting to find out what she’ll look like. It will be creepy to go back and watch the car blow up due to a bomb meant for Sarah, only to see a glowing blue metallic skeleton climb out of the wreckage. My guess is she’ll end up looking like the TX model from T3. Who knows how she’ll get her skin back.

And is the silent Mexican girl another Infiltrator machine? What was up with that? Or does she just not speak so they don’t have to pay the actress as much money?

So, I thought the show would be canceled by this point, and it’s reassuring that Fox hasn’t announced anything yet. As far as I know, another four episodes were scheduled to be completed this season (bringing the total to 13), but due to the writer’s strike, Fox decided to make episode 9 the season ender. As far as I know, ratings have been strong despite the goofy title, and it’s definately developed enough of a back story to need more episodes to wrap it up. So I’m being optimistic and changing the title of these blog entires to prepare for a LOT more weeks of Sarah Connor Chronicles, hopefully under a new name. Something like Terminator: Fight the Future.

No fate!