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'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' goes back to the future
Tonight's episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles delved deeply into how Cameron became Cameron. It certainly opened up many more questions and avenues of exploration than whatever it may have answered. With the multiple flashbacks to the future (that's right, "flashbacks to the future"), it was also a little confusing at times. But, if Back to the Future taught me anything, it's that you roll with punches in these situations.
Before you read further, one bit of clarification - when I say "future" I'm only talking about time as you and I see it. Clearly what takes place in our future has taken place in Cameron's past, but that would get way too confusing to get into, so I've tried to stick to "future" as what we're shown in Cameron's flashbacks.
The evening started with an unknown woman trying to escape from an unknown trouble in a semi-known future. Her escape failed, she was captured and turned over to reveal herself to be someone who looked just like our Cameron. The show then cut to the present and John and Cameron going on some run of the mill errands. Cameron's food shopping ended abruptly however when she flashed to seeing the Cameron from the future and then, in the present, went catatonic.
Back in the future, the Cameron-looking girl, who identified herself Alison Young, was being held by Terminators. We then snapped back to present-day Cameron, who was in jail and seemed unable to remember her name. She identified herself, when asked, as – you guessed it – Alison.
The cops let her go soon enough, and she headed out with a girl, Jody, who was clearly a low-level criminal and something of a troubled youth. As Jody and Cameron were sitting down to eat a rather greasy-looking meal of burgers and fries, a large man accosted Jody, claiming she had stolen his laptop. We have no proof that she did it, but she looked awfully guilty to me. Her being guilty didn't mean that the guy should have punched her – that was unquestionably over the line – and I felt a little sad that Cameron couldn't remember who she was, because she handed over a wad of cash instead of breaking the guy's arm. The Cameron I know and love might just have terminated the guy (or, at the very least, hurt him).
From that exciting adventure, Cameron and Jody headed to a women's shelter so they could crash somewhere for a few days. Jody explained that Cameron would have to have an intake interview however, and during said interview she kept flipping between the present and the future. Her answers in both time periods echoed one-another, and she may have made a mistake by indicating in the present that she was slightly worried that humanity could be hunted to extinction. As I recall, that got Sarah in a ton of trouble sometime between Terminator and T2.
At some point during the interview, Cameron remembered a phone number for her "parents." The doctor dialed it up and Cameron tried to chat with her "mom." The lady on the other end, Claire Young, was awfully confused. She didn't have a daughter. Her belly indicated that she was due awfully soon however, and she did seem to like the name Alison. Hmmm…
Eventually, John caught up with Cameron at the shelter and might have blown her mind by telling her that she wasn't Alison from Palmdale, that she was a machine from the future. I'm pretty certain that if I were Cameron I wouldn't have handled that sort of information well. It actually caused Cameron's mind to leap into the future again, and to Cameron-Alison's next escape attempt from her holding facility, an aircraft carrier. It didn't go very well, and Cameron-Alison found herself being questioned by a Terminator once more… a Terminator that looked just like Cameron (obviously the show went to commercial after that reveal).
Cameron informed Cameron-Alison that the Terminators would kill all of humanity. She then also said that there was a band of Terminators who didn't want that to happen. Apparently, not only John Connor had chosen Alison to help him, these alleged rebel-Terminators had chosen her as well.
Flipping to the present, Cameron told her intake person that she was a machine from the future who was looking for John Connor (John had given an alias at the shelter). Once she found him, she explained, she was going to kill him and put his head "on a pike for all to see." Personally, I didn't think she was evil Cameron at that point, just hugely confused. The statement did lead her intake worker to call the cops, but by the time they arrived, Cameron and Jody were gone.
Where were they? Good question, glad you asked. They were breaking into a house, but once Jody's tales of her past came into question, Cameron became distinctly uncomfortable about robbing the place. She didn't like the idea that Jody was a thief and liar and flashed to the future once more.
Cameron was perturbed that Cameron-Alison had hidden the truth of where her bracelet had come from during their previous "talk." Cameron-Alison had told the Terminator about the location of John Connor's camp, but had failed to tell her that the bracelet was how they all identified themselves as humans. If Cameron had walked into the camp without a bracelet she would instantly have been killed. Of course, Cameron figured that out, killed Cameron-Alison, and took the bracelet for herself.
In the present, Jody swore that they were in fact in Jody's parents house and that they had to leave before the cops showed up due to the silent alarm they had tripped upon entering. Cameron was quick enough to figure out that Jody had been planning on having Cameron take the heat, and Cameron almost killed Jody with the exact same choke maneuver that Cameron had used in the future on Cameron-Alison. By then though, John was there and he and Cameron headed off into the night.
Sarah had only a mini-storyline this week. At the outset of the episode, Sarah took her pregnant landlady, Casey, to the hospital. As they waited for some test results, Sarah told Casey a semi-true version of the story about John's being born in Central America. Trevor, the baby's daddy showed up eventually, and while Sarah was ready to leave, Casey asked her to stick around. Fortuitously, Sarah hung out long enough for her to learn that Trevor was a cop and for Trevor to invite John to the gun range. Definitely sounds like something John is going to get into later this season.
Also going on tonight, Ellison was still contemplating Weaver's job offer. He chatted with her about it, and became distinctly uncomfortable when she suggested that sometimes (I believe she said "in extreme circumstances") machines could be more reliable than man. She came to this belief, she said, after her husband crashed their helicopter and passed away. Ellison had his ex- check into Weaver before heading to Weaver's posh pad and accepting the job. He also told her that he knew that the official report on her husband's crash stated it was mechanical failure.
The truth? Goodness knows, but if pressed I'd guess that the T-1001 caused the crash which led to both Mr. & Mrs. Weaver's death. Only after that did the T-1001 assume Weaver's form. Of course, that's just a guess.
Other thoughts and a question:
- Sarah called John on a cell without any sort of code prefix tonight. I guess they didn't come up with a new one yet. Kind of seems like an important thing to have to me.
- It was left a little up in the air at the end of the episode about whether or not Cameron is evil. What do you think? Is she good? Is she bad? I know she's not ugly.
The TV and Film Guy's Reviews - Where we live in the past, present, and the future.
i'm really curious to see what road the writers are going to take with cameron. they've really opened up new questions and new avenues for her character which is surprisingly complicated considering she's a robot programmed to protect john connor. unfortunately i do not think we will get a proper explanation as i do not see this show getting renewed. hopefully they are prepared and have a quick way to close the show if they are cancelled.
this episode was fairly slow and lite on action but for as long as the focus is on cameron, i'm totally fine with that.
joits | Sep 30, 2008 3:10:34 AM | #i'm really curious to see what road the writers are going to take with cameron. they've really opened up new questions and new avenues for her character which is surprisingly complicated considering she's a robot programmed to protect john connor. unfortunately i do not think we will get a proper explanation as i do not see this show getting renewed. hopefully they are prepared and have a quick way to close the show if they are cancelled.
this episode was fairly slow and lite on action but for as long as the focus is on cameron, i'm totally fine with that.
joits | Sep 30, 2008 3:15:51 AM | #Is it just me or do they need to fire the make up crew that does Weaver?? Her eyeliner is awful!!
I too am left wondering if Cameron has gone bad again when she lied to John about where the necklace came from. I really hope they don't cancel this show. I look forward to it each week and love he characters.
This episode was awesome. The girl can really act. The last two episodes have been better than the entire first season. I'm very happy with Season 2 of the show.
M.F. | Sep 30, 2008 6:18:39 AM | #Something funny about the guest star on tonight's episode. Richard Jones' (Ellison) old co-star from Judging Amy, Jillian Armenante (Donna); played the counsellor. Maybe he got her the job. :)
Reg | Sep 30, 2008 8:14:41 AM | #I was creeped out when the the T-1001 introduced her "daughter." Just imagine the little girl with a machine faking as her mother!
alia | Sep 30, 2008 8:28:34 AM | #Last night was the first time I've watched this show and I initially just clicked in to browse and the actress playing Cameron/Allison had me mesmerized. What a complex actress! I had to stay with the whole show then and now I read that it may not make it. What a loss. Too bad.
Terry | Sep 30, 2008 8:41:23 AM | #i always had the feeling that terminator cameron was based on and/or somehow interlinked with some real life person, maybe john's gf in the future. love this show and look forward to it every week!
why are they putting this show against gossip girl and DWTS? for god's sake please give this show a chance!!
How about the fact the the machine version of Cameron was acutally crying and showing a ton of emotions during the stay at the half way house...I didn't know that machines could do that.
kat | Sep 30, 2008 11:26:22 AM | #Since John is now apparently 16 years older than the real Alison I doubt she's his gf in the future. It occurred to me that maybe John sent her back so his future self would recognize the Cameron terminator when she infiltrated his camp pretending to be Alison. Maybe this 'camp' is even his trap for terminators to reprogram.
I remember Cameron saying last season that her memories were wiped when she was reprogrammed. Everyone knows that nothing is ever really deleted from a computer until it has been overwritten by new data, all you really delete is the file name and the pointer to the data's location. Now, it seems that she has partial access to some of her previous memory and sketchy access to her current memories. Her character is probably going to get more interesting if the show is allowed to continue. Frankly if it was canceled but continued to be made and released on DVD, I would buy it.
Yeah I've heard the rumours too that the show may not make it. The reason being is the ratings are dropping. Why, cause they put it up against Heroes and that definetley is not the show to go up against. Both are great shows and I understand the need for ratings but if fox was smart they would move it Weds or Thursday night when honestley I can't find anything good on.
dahrk | Sep 30, 2008 1:42:07 PM | #Yeah, I've been wondering why FOX scheduled the show on this day & time slot since the beginning of the fall season. There's is just too much competition, including football on ESPN, all vying for the same viewers.
That aside, I thought this was a very good character development episode. Others will say it was slow and missing action, but what it was lacking in action was made up with some great acting and very interesting revelations about Cameron and Ellison.
Summer Glau did a wonderful job with the script, starting out as a confused 17-year old human girl with complete memory failure, to partial memory recovery via flashbacks during questioning, to slowly evolving back into a terminator by the time she arrived at Jody’s parent’s house. Her body language similarly followed the evolution. She appeared physically timid, weak and vulnerable early on, and as things progressed she slowly began to stiffen up until, by the end of the episode as Jody was cleaning out the safe, Glau was back to more precise, machine-like physical movements.
I also enjoyed the Ellison scenes with his ex-wife. The observational comment she made about how he “carried himself differently” because he was no longer wearing his cross was a nice, small moment. However, it spoke volumes about how much Ellison has changed since the failed raid on Cromartie’s apartment and his full realization that, yup, there are machines from the future roaming about in the present and how his religious faith and belief in God is now being questioned. Prior to the raid, Ellison would probably have never considered leaving the FBI. Now he’s a different man and interested in learning more by joining up with Catherine Weaver’s Zeira Corp.
Even though there were only some filler moments with Sarah and absolutely no Derek Reese (or Charley follow-up), it was still a solid episode namely in large part to Glau and Richard T. Jones’ terrific acting.
I am really upset to hear the show is in danger. Stupid scheduling!!! I thought this was a good episode, but personally, this season hasn't quite lived up to S1 for me (apart from the first ep) The core group have been split too much for my liking. I have no interest in the pregnant neighbour, John's annoying new girlfriend or the stranger Cameron met this week. Derek had had virtually nothing to do. They built up a good core cast but haven't used them as well IMO.
OTOH, this was a brilliant episode for Summer Glau who did a great acting job.
Please don't axe it! At it's best, it is BSG-good.
The story lines are getting to complex, and they needed more action in this episode-- like when they were in jail
They could have been bullied and Cameron could reacted.
I imagine Fox will wait until the baseball playoffs and World Series is over and a few more episodes are aired before deciding TTSCC's fate. Although Fox treated New Amsterdam shabbily, I think the execs like this show and are willing to give it a chance, perhaps moving it to another night. Pairing with American Idol in the spring might help, too. Hopefully, Fox will remember that we viewers are pissed still because of the writers strike last season, and we're not likely to look kindly upon those who kill shows merely because they have it scheduled opposite juggernauts. That's my pie-in-the-sky opinion, anyway; my louder, more cynical side thinks TTSCC might be gone by Halloween. I'll try to smother that side, but no promises. :P
Revenant | Sep 30, 2008 7:30:13 PM | #I loved this episode. I thought Summer did a great job and I am enjoying this 2nd season a lot. Monday nights are just crazy - too many good shows competing against each other and the juggernaut that is DWTS.
kat | Sep 30, 2008 7:54:02 PM | #I was creeped out by the T-1001's daughter. Imagine if she's another terminator...
Hans | Sep 30, 2008 9:21:17 PM | #For the last few years, Monday night has basically been "action night" on Fox. Technically, it's the second show, Prison Break, that is on the same time as Heroes, but I will agree that Monday is way too busy of a TV night. I myself spend the week catching up on Monday night shows (and watch few shows on other days). I do think they would get better ratings if it was on Wednesday, for example.
Billiam | Sep 30, 2008 9:25:10 PM | #It sucks that the ratings have been bad because I loved last nights episode. I don't get reality shows and how they beat terminator every week. The perfect network would be the cw to pick the show up if it's canceled because if they had the same ratings on that channel or even couple of million less it still would be stay on the air. If a show has a very target fanbase then cw is perfect for it. If they had smallville, supernatural, and the terminator on the same night that would be freaking cool.
scott | Sep 30, 2008 10:14:41 PM | #With the amount of time they are spending on the neighbor's baby, he has to be someone important in the future. That's the only way I can justify it.
Bryan | Sep 30, 2008 11:16:15 PM | #Monday night has the largest viewership of the week, so maybe even a not-so-great rating is still good....until they move it to Fridays.
Going the way of Dark Angel, 2 and out.
But Summer is the new Alba.
Oh, yeah.
chris | Oct 1, 2008 5:02:31 AM | #I agree with many of the commenters above, that it'd be really unfair if they cancel this based on poor ratings, when it's Fox's fault for putting it on such a difficult night. The shows I "can't miss" are Terminator, Chuck, Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, Lost, & 24 (Prison Break used to be on that list till last season when I gave it up). Of those shows, ONLY Lost isn't a Monday nighter. How ridiculous is that? Not to mention I'm a huge football fan, so even with my DVR recording 2 shows at a time, I'm STILL missing shows/games I want to watch.
I've been happy with Terminator so far this season. Hopefully if it does get axed it could get picked up by Sci Fi or something, b/c I think it has a lot left to say about the franchise. Would also be interesting to see if it ties in any with the upcoming movie or if it's completely separate, like Smallville & Superman Returns.
Chris | Oct 1, 2008 4:23:22 PM | #Am I the only one who thought that Alison-Cameron was also a robot? The way she sank immediately after jumping from the prison-boat was just very suspicious. Maybe our Cameron knows her story because of some shared-consciousness like the Cylon models have. Maybe I am over-thinking it.
Blue Sean | Oct 2, 2008 7:53:28 AM | #if you need a hair cut, just see me craig aka JACK DUCKWORTH. and i will sort you out..
jack duckworth | Oct 5, 2008 8:23:07 AM | #
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