Derek saves lives on 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles'
At this point in time Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is juggling multiple storylines at once. We all have our favorites -- the things we really want to learn more about every week. My favorites didn't appear tonight. C'est la vie.
Tonight's episode began with Sarah, for some unknown reason, having sent Derek to some sort of garage/warehouse-y type place to care of a teen girl and her mom who was 34 weeks pregnant and had been hurt by a "cyborg" which had been tracking them.
A flashback informed us that the woman and her daughter were members of the Fields family -- the name appeared written in blood in the Connors' basement. Six months earlier, Sarah and Cameron had been searching for them, but didn't find the family fast enough. After meeting the Fields, on their escape from the Fields' cabin, a Terminator found them.
Okay, that first flashback didn't explain how the mom had gotten injured at all or how they ended up where they were. It was going to be one of "those" episodes. I don't so much have a problem with the time-shifting, the flash-forwards, -backwards, and -sideways episodes, but I think Sarah Connor has been overusing them as of late. And it didn't help that the show wasn't just doing flashbacks tonight, it was also flash-forwarding to Derek's future life.
Derek's flash-forward took us to Serrano Point 2027, where he was arguing with one of his bosses about some suicide mission he wanted to go on. His boss figured that they should send "metal," Derek and his death wish wanted to do the job himself.
Out of curiosity, how much "metal" do you think exists on the good guys' side in the future? It seems to me that the more we learn about the future the less we're getting the story of a small group of human resistance fighters battling machines and more a virtually even battle between two groups of humans and machines, one has the machines in charge, the other the humans. That's not a complaint, just an observation.
But back to our flashback, where the father, David Fields was proving to be a complete ass. Sarah asked him and his family the usual set of questions -- do you have anything to do with robots, the government, the military, technology, etc., and they all denied any involvement. The daughter apparently didn't like her dad so much though and told Sarah that he was absolutely involved in doing some banking (he was a banker) for some sort of robot-building company. David didn't divulge the information himself because what he was doing was illegal.
See, now that was just plain stupid. I understand not believing Sarah when she first mentioned the whole "Terminators will take over the world thing," but surely seeing a Terminator come after him should have convinced him to divulge his little illegal activity. After all, it could have helped Sarah save his life.
Don't worry, it only got more stupid as the mom, Anne, called the next door neighbor with whom she was having an affair and then destroyed Sarah's Terminator electrocution trap to allow the next door neighbor into Anne's not-so-happy home. Just as the fight among the humans inside really got going, the evil Terminator appeared. David, the martyr and fool, went out to fight the Terminator only to find out that he wasn't the person the Terminator wanted. The Terminator wanted Anne's unborn child, Sydney (who it seems was the neighbor's progeny, not the husband's).
Oh, and Derek's little future mission had him going to Eagle Rock, some bio-infected (via the machines) place where he found the lone survivor to be... that's right, Sydney, who also just happened to be immune to the disease that killed everyone else there. Learning that kind of took some of the emotional impact out of the question of whether or not Anne's baby would be born in the present. She wasn't.
I kid, I kid, obviously she was, it was Anne that didn't survive the birth, but as someone had to die that wasn't too surprising either.
Really the most surprising thing about tonight's episode was that John didn't make a single appearance, not one. They didn't even give him a scene or two with Riley where she tries to dig her claws a little deeper into the savior of humanity. I guess that's a good thing.
Other thoughts and maybe even a question:
- Next Monday we get the "fall finale" of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles which, from the clips, seems to feature Ellison teaching John Henry a little bit more about humanity, the world, and all those sorts of good things. I think that's one of the best storylines the show has going right now, and I can't wait to see where they take it.
- As for my question of the week, I am dying to know your view on how you see the post-Judgment Day battle shaping up. Is the resistance really and truly outmanned and outgunned or are things looking up every day for the remnants of humanity?
The TV and Film Guy's Reviews - neither outmanned, nor outgunned.
The scenes of the future are primarily of human hideouts. If one thinks about it, how else can you deliver dialog that the audience would be able to hear. A battle scene is too noisy and if you showed a terminator only encampment, I'd ***ume they communicate by other then aural means. (Anyone for reading sub-titles of their ongoing ESP like transmissions?). So even rough guessing at the man-machine ratio at any future date is pointless.
I thought "here we go again" with the reference to biological weapons. Can the Saddam terminator cyborgs be far behind?
Apparently, Thomas Dekker (John Connor) doesn't have Jerry Seinfeld's contract. Although Seinfeld was noted for giving others a chance to play center stage I don't believe he ever missed an episode. Don't look at me. I'm not writing/producing this.
If my calculations are correct there's only ten episodes to go. I thought they mentioned 22 would be green lighted and we've seen a dozen ( anyone know for sure?). So if it's canceled, the pace has to step up. A battle scene as Josh has speculated about would force the storyline thru the time period of the T3 movie. Whoops, Sarah was not around remember? Other difficulties arise with this not to mention elaborate production costs as well.
In previous posts I've already mentioned the other alternative. Stop Skyweb short of Judgment Day, Hopefully if they go this scenario something other the the standard "Independence Day" movie plot device of introducing a counter software agent (e.g. virus) can be devised.
I think that they have introduced the idea of alternate futures a couple of weeks ago to get around any conflicts in the timelines of the movies versus this tv series.
missed seeing John. especially after last week's cameron-centric eppy (but not complaining about more cameron time!). yeah this was not the most overly interesting storyline, but still enjoyed the show and seeing more of derek. still waiting to see how the whole jesse/riley/john thing pans out.
T:TSCC is the one show that i look most forward to seeing all week!
oh sorry forgot to sign the above post....
The time jumping in the scenes may have confused the reviewer. Seemed to me that Anne's baby WAS delivered in the present. The scene with the injured Anne on the table in the bus garage building took place in the present, which was some six months after the cabin-in-the-woods scenes. (Anne would have already been a couple months pregnant then.) This would give Sydney time to grow up to be who we saw in the post-J Day scenes. I didn't think it was stupid writing about David still holding back on his illegal activities. Writing a character who is stupid, vain, and used to covering something up is not the same thing as stupid writing. He was used to covering his own butt. He was not used to the reality of Skynet. The one seemingly stupid bit of writing to me was Cameron's dispatching of Roger as if she mistook him for a Terminator. Weak writing. Perhaps they didn't have time for a more plausible and interesting end for Roger. T:TSCC, though flawed, is still one of the best shows on network television. It's gotten better from the start by expanding the storylines well beyond the single chase scene. I hope they are given more seasons. If not, I hope that the storylines are resolved.
I liked this episode, I think it made sense. I'm used to the multiple-timeline storytelling. And there were really just three: 6 months ago, the present, and 2027. That was pretty easy to follow.
Derek is the man.
I'm glad the stupid mother died. She was an IDIOT.
Where the hell is Shirley Manson?!!!
It was a pretty good episode, again helping to fill in some of the backstory. Cameron actually makes a bona fide opp-sy! mistake for once. And we finally learn that Derek's Angelina Jolie-lookalike from the future is actually full-blown Australian. (Believe it or not I had no idea until I saw the episode. I knew the actress was from down under, but the way she played the role, there was no way to tell if she was British, East Indian or what.
Out of all the series airing on Monday, I look forward to this show the most.
It has an interesting premise, really makes you think and has very good performances by the cast. I still don't understand why it doesn't have a larger audience. I'm looking forward to January when the show moves out of the Monday 8pm gridlock and airs on Fridays.
Someone needs to give more props to Brian Austin Green. He is doing a great job on this show and nails every scene he's in.
I liked this one! I liked seeing the start of the connection between Derek and Jessie. Liked seeing Derek actually care about someone - the teenage daughter. It showed us that there are people other than Sarah & Co out there hiding/fighting in present day. Some of their work is paying off. I like that Sarah has some humor and comp***ion left. Wasn't upset at all to not see Riley!